Is PlaymoDB down?

[GrahamB]

Nearly a week ago, I was using PlaymoDB, then I got a 'Forbidden' message and could get no further access, except to pages cached in my history. I tried for several days, could not connect. Then the day before yesterday, I was able to connect, visited a handful of pages, then got the Forbidden message again. No access since then.

Is it just me (some sort of firewall? I know Heather has had problems in the past with people hogging bandwidth, through linking to her site. Maybe I am triggering something by being a heavy user, though my visits are only intermittent)? Or is this a general problem?

[tahra]

The forbidden message usually happens to me when I am INVESTIGATING something - I am a very heavy middle-click user (you know, open in a new tab) - and after a couple I start getting those...  I believe it may be that there are too many requests in a short amount of time?

Though... playmoDB is not updated in a long time... maybe Heather should look into a way to let others update it somehow? or send her the data in a "importable" format...

[StJohn]

Happens to me also, intermittently. I suspect it gets triggered by my repeat visits to the same part, but cannot be sure. It always stops again, after some time. It hasn't occurred with me recently (= last couple of weeks).

Getting the DB back on track/updated/secured for the future would be awesome and of the utmost importance. Not sure how to approach this - I get the impression that Heather is very protective of her grandiose masterpiece.

[playmofire]

I've had lots of tabs open but never experienced this.

[GrahamB]

Thanks for the replies. Is anyone having difficulty accessing the site NOW?

[playmofire]

Just clicked on playmodb in bookmarks and all OK.  Searched on 3789 and came up OK, as did link to Playmobil site for plans.

[GrahamB]

Thanks Gordon. I think it is me, well my server address, which is maybe triggering some sort of protection. When I attempted access by phone, using the phone network rather than WiFi, I was able to open PlaymoDB pages without problem. Now I am using a proxy server and my tablet is linking fine. Frustrating, but probably a sign of the popularity of PlaymoDB if Heather has had to protect it in this way- legitimate users get caught up the same way as inconsiderate users.

And I am still getting the message '403 Forbidden Sorry, page forbidden OR timed out. If you can normally access this page, please try again later' even on the proxy server. For example, when I search for 'rotor' from the homepage, I get results, but if I search for 'tail rotor' I consistently get the 403 Forbidden message. But 'helicopter tail rotor' works fine, so it's nothing to do with the length of the search string! Something strange going on there!

So I think there are two problems, access to the website being blocked and the 403 error message thing.

[klickyklack]

I'm pretty sure I've had this happen to me in the past with PlaymoDB, but it was only for a short time & then everything was back to normal again (it's fine for me currently).  Probably a stupid question, but have you tried turning it off & on again? (rebooting your router & seeing if there's any change)

[GrahamB]

Not a silly question! But yes, thjat was the first thing I tried. Also cleared cache etc. The only thing which worked was using a different IP address, hence the proxy server worked (but only for a while) and now I'm using a VPN....

I still can't search for 'tail rotor' though.. 

[playmofire]

Not a silly question! But yes, thjat was the first thing I tried. Also cleared cache etc. The only thing which worked was using a different IP address, hence the proxy server worked (but only for a while) and now I'm using a VPN....

I still can't search for 'tail rotor' though.. 

What do you want to know about tail rotor, Graham, and I'll search for you.