I have not pinged what it is and this is the only site that does it and the browsers, seem not implicated. As both Firefox, Edge do it and so did its earlier versions.

In replying today as soon as I logged in it froze and that's common. On some occasions it won't even load. The only way to get it to perhaps load, if it want's to, is to run disk clean-up & CCleaner in the hope it will load on reboot.

Any ideas on cause?

I remain logged in. The site freezes for me quite often lately when I click on a new post, then I usually get the 500 error, but not always -- sometimes it eventually shows the new post.

After that the site is responsive ... until next time.

Yeh! I was suspecting a cache issue and that quite often fixes it and as you indicate, until it happens again. This freezing (which is not winter affected) is why I ask. If that is happening to others, it really is a software bug somewhere.

it really is a software bug somewhere

It's been my suspicion that resource contention and associated timeout is at the root of this problem. If so, then whether that is due to a hosting server setting or a database design/configuration flaw, or possibly both, is the question.

There is also this business of lots of cookies being created. Brad expects only one. There may be a hint there.

As this tends to mostly, but not exclusively, happen when either of my two is running one win11 the other still win 8. That is why I was suspecting cache.

It is incredible how much unwanted junk & cookies as opposed to the out of control adds that accumulate in just one session. It has gotten to the point where I ended up getting a copy of Ccleaner to rid the thing of the build up. Facebook likes adding some sort of ID thing and Ccleaner likes removing it.

Sometimes this site takes quite a few seconds to think about loading, so there may be a clue there? The American forum is fairly nappy & problems with it are rare & confined to debugging a major site upgrade, or change of ISP.

Lots of error 500's with the site today.

I've already explained the cookie situation, though with some looking today, I have found only three on my computer. One is the cookie sent by the site and the other two are session cookies, which should expire by themselves when leaving the site.

From this point, I will edit or delete any comment which contain references to the 500 HTTP errors that get slotted into posts around the site. As I have said in the past, I cannot trace what is causing it and I don't have time to attempt fixes on a blind faith basis. I realise it can be frustrating (I cop the same thing) but the continued references to it do not contribute to the purpose the site otherwise provides.

I am not totally convinced its cache, or cookies. I have Ccleaner and between it and Disk-cleanup I can still get issues, only from this site, after wiping out every bit of junk, & sending what is only needed for reference, to one of the Mobile HDD's, to keep a maximum space available to the computer.

Perhaps a separate category just for the hiccups, to refer to the ISP.

I currently have 129 cookies for this site.

Now I deleted them, and now there's 3.

The main problem is, because Windows logging isn't picking it up, it stops diagnosis.

After I went back to self-hosting (after two disastrous years hosting on Crazy Domains) I found that a server migration carried out by them almost destroyed the database. I did manage to fix that but unless I recode every single page on this site from scratch, the rest of the job won't be done.

Given the number of lines of code, it's not something I can commit to at the moment.

I will edit or delete any comment which contain references to the 500 HTTP errors

Given that there's no plans for forum development, wouldn't it be best to simply block all future complaints of this nature?

The advice in case of problems is pretty simple:

- For lots of cookies, just delete them and log in again.

- The For Sale subforum isn't coming back; use the General subforum instead.

- For anything else, have a break and come back later.

Don't entirely agree with the above. If there are issues, they should be noted and if they're in a separate box, they don't get tangled up in everything else.

I wouldn'tgo as far ot say there are no plans. What I lack is time. Ten years ago my career changed and I am in a job that wears me out far more easily than previous roles. Some of that also involved messing about with computers. It should be understood that the last thing I'd be interested in at the end of a workday is getting on another computer.

At times, since then, I have done one or two bug fixes, but this is when they are easy to detect. This one unfortunately isn't or it definitely would have been sorted well before now.

The other thing is that due to the lack of working on websites over the last ten years, I've forgotten a lot of it, and the web scene has changed a lot since this site opened. It's more complex and there are new technologies that I've touched on but have not become that familiar with.

Wanted and For Sale will be back. I am not sure when but it will. I have received a couple of e-mails suggesting that this section come back but only for private sales - no commercial sales or commercial quantities of anything would be permitted. I think this is a fair way to manage it. Put simply, if you have a radio or two to shift to new owners, or you'd like a radio, open a thread in Wanted and For Sale (when it's reopened). But for those wanting to sell components, parts and large quantities of other matter on commercial terms, this would no longer be permitted.

Each forum is hard-coded into the site - which was a mistake - but that was early in the peace before I knew whether or not this venture would be a success and this is what will make reinstating that forum a job and a half.