Important progress with RYL chat tech issues
 

Hi Everyone,

I'm starting a new thread as we've made some changes to the way chat runs on our server (more on that in a moment) and we're looking for more feedback from all of you.

The good news is, in a couple of our most difficult test cases, these changes at our end have got chat working for members who previously have never been able to access it. If you haven't been able to access RYL chat so far therefore, please read on!

First though, a little techy info on exactly what we've changed at our end...

We've moved the chat server so that it runs on a different 'port' number. Generally speaking, your web browser will try to connect to web sites and services on port 80, unless you specifically tell it otherwise. Port 80 normally carries only 'web' traffic and some internet providers take specialist measures to 'cache' or otherwise manipulate this traffic for their customers in an effort to improve security, speed up access to commonly visited web sites, or reduce their own bandwidth bills. After a huge amount of investigation on our part, as well as that of the developer of the chat software, it appears some of these measures taken by some ISPs cause problems and prevent members from connecting with our chat server.

There is an additional bug previously mentioned in my last thread concerning the Web Shield module in the Avast antivirus software product and the way it scans traffic which is not strictly conformant with HTTP protocols.

Whilst there is nothing theoretically incorrect about hosting any kind of internet service on any arbitrary port number (including 80), by moving our chat service to a different port, we hope to bypass some of the less 'compatible' traffic manipulations performed by some antivirus software and/or ISPs.

It should be noted however that the chat software company recommends port 80 as a usable port for their chat server software and this issue, while most frustrating, has only effected a very small percentage of members utilising very specific ISPs and/or antivirus software. Since we did not develop the software, I cannot speculate over whether the underlying problem lies with the chat server code or with the antivirus product(s) effected or even certain ISP(s) - there are simply too many variables.

So, long story short, there is now a VERY good chance that chat will work for you where it did not previously! If you use Avast antivirus software and you have previously (as per my last thread) disabled the Web Shield module in this product, please RE-ENABLE it for best security and let me know in *this* thread whether you are still able to access RYL chat. One of our successful test case fixes was a Mac user, so again, if you have a Mac and you have been unable to use chat, please try again and let me know how it goes!

Before I wrap up this (long!) post, I just want to say a huge personal thank you to Harley and also all the members who have so kindly and patiently been providing feedback on this issue over the past few weeks. Harley especially has had a pretty awful time of things - he tends to get the most flak from the community as a whole when stuff breaks around here and he's an absolute star for taking it all as well as does on top of everything he is constantly dealing with for RYL anyway.

Finally, please note that I am locking all previous chat threads relating to the above mentioned issues in order that we can gather ALL new chat feedback here, in this thread.

Thanks everyone, and fingers VERY hard crossed that you'll all be chatting happily soonest!!


James

Well never mind thanking me - I think I, the community and the few members who decided to speak out of their backsides owe you a huge thank you.

For someone who by day runs so many high powered server systems and businesses IT, to have someone of your calibre working on RYL is something that the community, nor me will ever be able to really put a value to.

I know how much you earn an hour, and I know how many dozens of hours you have given, without question to help all these members make a product you did not build work better... quite aside from the hundreds I have seen you do before now.

I know there have been many times in the last couple of weeks when we, and I have questioned if we were going mad - and certainly questioned whether we were right to continually defend our end as if nothing was wrong.

In the face of pretty much no information or assistance from the chat company, you have basically found and solved half a dozen major faults with their software, and other peoples - and that it was not your job or even your role on RYL to fix.

And to do that while some people tell you that they think they know better, and that you shouldnt call youself a sys admin? I know it hasn't been an easy week or so for you - but all I can say, however I might make it seem while we are stressed, is how grateful I am to have you, and so many wonderful people behind me.

Without them, my achievements if any at RYL would be nothing right now, and that counts for a lot


Course this is only if we have now finally found the solution! Early indicators look good, but we shall see, let us know!

Harley

YAY IT WORKS.
Part from. I need to change my name.
But hey, it works.
:D.

Thank you so much for all your time & effort on this.
=]

So glad it's working for you now! Just received your username change request and approved that for you, so now there's nothing between you and RYL chat! ;)

AHHHHH.
IT'S ALL SHINY AND NEW.
THANK YOU :D
Sorry for being a spazm.
BUTOMGZ.NEWCHAT =D
Thankk youu x infinity for making it work & spending all that time on it.

HUGE ROUND OF APPLAUSE for you James and Harley!! You both have gone above and beyond lately, I think, and everybody appreciates it!!

Harley I did not say that James should not call himself a systems administrator, what I said was if he calls himself a system administrator then he should know better than to give out some of the advice he was giving.

Also after reading James first post in this thread I feel totally vindicated in the comments I made.

And just for the record I am also a systems administrator for a rather large organisation, so no, I was not talking out of my backside as you so eloquently put it and I don't think I know better that anyone and I never said that I knew better than anyone, I was simply giving my opinion based on my experience gained from the work that I do.

Also if you had bothered to ask me then I would have been more than willing to talk with James and offer any help or assistance I could, instead you chose to try an belittle me with your replies to the posts I did make.

Anyway I am glad you seem to have reached a resolution for the chat issue.

Regards,

DF

:( I still can't get in. When I click on the "Enter Chat" I get a blue window, with the words "Authentication Failed" in it.

I'm not on a Mac, nor do I have Avast, just FYI.

Oh, and I can get into chat under a different name with no ~s in it, on the same computer.

Verizon here used to block port 80 and then they stopped. Wish I understood it all better. A few weeks ago almost every forum I went to was choppy and broken. I was reading about large scale hacks and cracks going on around the web (and social sites especially). I knew something was going on but couldn't get the whole story. The same week as those things the cables were also getting broken and cut around the globe (the FALCON network ). I should have had a different major lol. Thanks for all (I still link your compression software in forums)

aidey it is to do with the ~ in your name which has been mentioned in the ast to you :). special characters like ~ dont work in chat

Thank you James, you are lke Neo..... you get into the computer, ruffle around, get a bit dirty but always deliver and save the day!!!

What would RYL do without you watching our technical arses!

Thank you,
Chloe x

Still don't work for me.
Ah well.
Nevermind

still not working for me too :/
i still get he blue box and when i close the blue box it still closes all my internet windows down.
used to work back when you click chat and chat was in the same window instead of clicking enter chat and a new window appears. but i doubt thats the problem : /

Platinum and Flip, please can you try navigating to the following link:

http://chat.recoveryourlife.com:443/

And then enter any random username at all. You should see a message which reads "Connecting..." followed by a further message "Authentication failed.". Alternatively, you may see the message "Connect failed."

Could you both post back here and let me know which one of those you receive?

Thanks so much :)

EDIT: Platinum, what's your system spec? (version of Windows, antivirus software etc.)

i saw the message ' connect failed ' and also when i close the window from that link it closes my internet pages down.

Hi Phil,

Thanks for letting me know. Sadly this means that the change is not a complete fix for everyone (not that I expected it would be). We'll pass this information back to the chat software company and see if we can come up with any more ideas.

There are many possibilities here - really anything that may otherwise effect your connection from you to us.

I'm on a MAC OS X Leopard I think?

&& I got authentication whatsit when i clicked the link

IT WORKS.

I KNEW COMING BACK FROM WORK AT 5 AFTER AFEW PINTS.

Talent I say.

I just opened my ports to the specific ports it was assigned to, so It's all good by me.

I figured it was still the ~'s Jane, but I wasn't sure if that was something that had been fixed in all the work they had done recently. Aparently not :(

Aidey, sadly the bug with 'special' characters in usernames still exists - we are trying to persuade the developer of the chat software to fix this though. (why the hell they can't test properly for these kinds of rudimentary issues, I don't know!)

Platinum, great news that you're now able to access chat! Other than the five pints (!), what else if anything did you do differently?

Dan, did you find that you *needed* to open up that port on your (firewall? router?) before you were able to access chat, or was it something you just did as a precautionary measure?

Phil, I think you might need to look at a re-install of OS X on your Mac. I know that's a complete mission but when I did that remote desktop session with you, Flash was very unstable then. Bearing in mind the number of Mac users who are able to access chat successfully, I suspect that your Flash crashes and your inability to access chat are very likely related. I did try a complete Flash reinstall for you, but that didn't fix it.

Thanks everyone - at least if looks as *most* of you are now in fact able to get in to chat! :)

it will be to do with the special characters in your name

**** knows.
The only thing I've done in recent days is update my flip4mac.

That's great, I'm so glad, thanks for letting us know :)

Okay, I click on the chat link on the top of the RYL page and I still get the plain blue box.

Then I clicked the link, put in a username, and got the Authentication Failed notice.

Its not a HUGE deal for me. I dont use chat that much but sometimes it is ood to have.


Thanks to everyone working on this problem!!

Hi Kate,

Thanks for the feedback and sorry to hear that you're still having difficulties with chat. It's a strange one as normally the Auth Failed error is caused by special characters in someone's username, which you don't have.

Perhaps try clearing all your temporary internet files and see if that helps? If not, feel free to PM me, and I could arrange a remote desktop session at a time convenient to you to see if I can sort it for you :)

I'm still out of the chat loop =( I have a Mac OSX 10.5.2 if that helps, and I get the "authentication failed" error.
like Kate, I rarely use chat, but it's nice to have when I need it...I'm not to desperate to have it working again just let me know if I can do anything at all to help determine the problem
Thanks for all your hard work anyways!

um..i don't often use chat but i just tried to open it and i just got a big pale blue box....no messages just a box that didn't do anything, even after 5 minutes......sorry james, any suggestions?

Thanks for the info both of you - hopefully I can get it working for you each of you :)

Monica, do you get the authentication failed when you click the RYL Enter Chat link, or when you click the link I mentioned previously in this thread: http://chat.recoveryourlife.com:443 ? We've got another member with a Mac who is also having difficulties and he receives "Connection Failed" when he clicks the link I have just given in the previous sentence. Also, can you make sure that you have Flash installed from this link: http://www.adobe.com/shockwave/downl...ShockwaveFlash - you need the right version for your Mac (Intel or PowerPC), instructions for determining which one you need are on that page.

Ruth, have you checked the information I posted at the beginning of this thread about antivirus software. What security software do you run on your PC, and what version of Windows? (Vista or XP)

The new chat is weird and scary - how would you solve that one James? :P

Hey ya Jelly :) That one I can't solve I regret to say - maybe you can persuade a fellow friendly RYLer to come keep you company in there? hehe

Thanks so much for your message on my Facebook wall btw, and so sorry I haven't had a chance to reply yet!

Take care and speak soon I'm sure :)

windows XP-it's a college computer so i don't know about antivirus

Hey James. I was constantly getting disconnected, and had troubles connecting, so I opened them as a precaution. And touch wood, it hasn't disconnected me yet. So, god knows if it's made any difference at all, but, it wasn't exactly a hardship, took a minute or two. :-)

Thanks Dan, really glad it's working for you :) In case it helps and depending on your firewall, you can maintain best security by only allowing traffic in on port 443 if it originates from 83.223.115.12 (the IP of our chat server). You may have done that already though, in which case please ignore!

Ruth I'm afraid there isn't anything I can do help if it's a college machine and you have no control over it. Without being able to identify exactly what security software the machine is running we cannot make any headway I'm afraid.

Yea, I did it already. :-) Thanks.

yes I get "authentication failed" at that link.
& I just installed Adobe Flash Player; same results.

And still just a blue screen when you log into chat via the normal Enter Chat link on RYL?

That's certainly a strange one! If you'd like me to arrange a remote desktop session to try to troubleshoot the problem for you, do feel free to drop me a PM and we'll work out the details :)

Okay, thanks anyway James. I think it's great all you are doing and the amount of time and effort you are putting into getting chat working for people.
*applauds and hands a bunch of flowers*

hi again~i tried to get into chat again~and it let me today. Stupid college computers.....

Thankyou :]
No problems.
Just thanx for all the work you've done/put into it x

James, After your fix, chat stopped working for me. I'm on Windows XP Pro and my anti-virus is Norton. We also have a firewall at our wireless network.

I understand the whole port thingy, just not sure where to look so when my son gets home from tech today (he's study to be a sys admin and game programmer) I'll have him take a look. I'll let you know what we come up with.

James,

Jonathan is home and he can't find anything on our part. I'll check my temp internet files and see what's up there.

Follow up and then I'll quit the spamming, I promise. I changed my browser from IE to Firefox and now I CAN get into chat. Does that help?

Thanks James!

Kath--

:-D yay!

Hi Kath,

Thanks very much for all of your feedback and sorry it's taken me a little while to post back here.

Very glad to hear that you have now got things working with Firefox. The fact that you have rules out any fundamental issue with your broadband and probably also your antivirus software. This leaves the following options, specific to IE:

- Browser helper object / COM add-on / toolbar
- IE specific proxy settings or similar
- Flash configuration within IE

Jonathan may also be prepared to use the 'Reset' command under the Advanced tab in the internet control panel to restore IE to 'factory settings' - this might help, but bear in mind you will lose *all* customisations, 3rd party toolbars, cookies and other internet files.

He may also be able to adjust your firewall to allow traffic to and from 83.223.115.12 on port 443 (UDP/TCP) in both directions to your computer (on your private LAN address). This might improve things though, as I say, I don't expect the firewall to be your issue.

Sorry you're still having difficulties. There are sadly just so many possible system configurations out there we cannot possibly provide specific support steps for all of them!

chat doesn't work for me.. i need itbad.

just a blue screen with white box at bottom...

Sarah, I'm afraid I'm going to need more information from you than that if I am able to help you. Please read through this thread and let me know whether you have tried the special chat link posted and also verified your Adobe Flash installation. Also, I'll need to know the following:

- Version of Windows you run
- Your antivirus/security software
- Which web browser you are using (and any others you have tested with chat)

Many thanks :)

James, the fact I need to use chat in a different browser doesn't bother me. It is strange that it worked immediately after the fix and stopped working a few days later.

I'm up and running and that is what is important.

Thanks again for your time,

Kath--

i have tried the special link for chat and i got the failure.
windows xp is what i run on
spysweeper, and norton
and i use internet explorer

hope that helps?


thank you.