Firefox forums unavailable for days (Firefox .9.1)

[yerubal]

I think it's important for folks switching to Firefox just now to know that the forums where one looks for help might not be available when they are needed. I'm sure this is temporary.
But, it's been happening for days now. I had some trouble (see below), and suddenly, a few minutes ago, I was able to see the forums, but when I tried to post they were gone again.
I noticed that the Firefox general forum had had only one posting in many days, and normally there are innumerable postings per day, so something is not functioning.
I'm posting this as a caution.
Incidentally, what I was going to post there is included here, FYI, and in case anyone has advice.
Thanks,
Gideon
-------- what I tried to post when those forums seemed to have reappeared: -----------
I've got Firefox .9.1, and Windows XPH. I uninstalled .8 before installing .9.1, but when asked whether to remove
remaining items after the uninstall (which I did from add/remove in control panel) I said to leave these.
Now I have a peculiar set of problems:
a) When I click on an internet shortcut, say, on the desktop, Firefox opens and goes there, but, in addition, I get an error panel,
titled http://whatever and underneath the text
Windows cannot find 'http://whatever Make sure you typed the name correctly (etc)
(I can click on OK to make the error panel go away, of course)
[img]/forums/images/smilies/cool.gif[/img] When I click on a link in my mail in Eudora, I also get a pretty similar error message, but this one has title bar
"Eudora Pro MAPI Installer" and message is Error: couldnot run program: http://whatever
and again this is an extra window that can be closed, as Firefox has gone to the URL
c) If I do Start/Run and enter the link http://whatever I get "windows cannot find 'http://whatever'

in the foregoing, 'whatever' is shorthand for any URL, such as forums.mozillazine.org

anyone else had this trouble? what is it, and what should be done about it?
thanks,
gidweisz

[KenK]

Hi Gideon

I've had no problems going to the FireFox General and FireFox Bugs forums.

Both have many posts over the last few days, 30 new threads in the General and 16 new threads in the Bugs forum yesterday alone.

PS: I tested the links in this message before "posting" and could not connect to the web page. I then tried to get to their forums from the FireFox Help page without success. I don't know what's going on. The link in this "PS" works OK.

Have a Great day!!!
Ken

[KenK]

I tried the links after the post above and they now work OK. I think the problem might be more traffic than their server can manage. If so, you have to keep on trying until you can sneak through.

Have a Great day!!!
Ken

[KenK]

Hi Gideon

....me again......gotta get my post count up...... <img src=/S/smile.gif border=0 alt=smile width=15 height=15>

Sometimes a timeout can occur if too much time is taken composing a post. If the post is more than a few lines, or if cutting and pasting from other web pages or files, I find it helps to pre-compose the post in a word processor, check the spelling and composition, and then open the post window and copy/paste the whole document.

Have a Great sday!!!
Ken

[yerubal]

Ken, hi --
Many thanks for both of your responses to my Lounge posting,
re the difficulty in getting to the Firefox forums. I don't know what happened
about my mistaken claim about no posts for days. I think it was an illusion
due to divided attention plus seeing a response or edited post with an earlier date
(the 25th) and making some assumption -- anyhow, a sleight of hand that I can't
reproduce to check on. I'm glad the forums are OK, though I did have very bad luck the last
couple of days reaching them. Thanks again for working on this and clarifying. Sorry about my error.
Thanks,
Gideon

[KenK]

No problem.......

There have been some very serious Internet Explorer exploits reported this past week and many security and other technical websites are suggesting people drop IE for Mozilla/Firefox or Opera until MS can properly fix IE. I imagine any websites specializing in either of these alternate browsers will be suffering from an unusually high hit rate. Your experience could simply be a case of accessing the forum at an extremely busy time.

Have a Great day!!!
Ken

[yerubal]

Brief footnote:
Just for the record,
I posted on the FF general forum, and got pretty immediate and completely effective help.
gw

[patgeorge]

I note on the Firefox forums general page a message in side box " The forums are in overload mode. Certain parts of the forums have been disabled. Have you donated lately?"

Pat <img src=/S/gramps.gif border=0 alt=gramps width=20 height=20>