RationalWiki talk:Technical support

Hiding the user creation log
Is it possible to do this. Kinda sick of seeing like 8474838295 different troll sockpuppets clogging up my RCs even when they’ve all been banned/renamed. 07:20, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

I am not a Seo Spammer
I tried to add a new page about a podcast format containign regular anti-vaxxer propaganda and got flagged as 'Seo Spam'. Can you please move the page to my personal draft space (i did not know this existed) so i can get it a bit more flesh. --Sebs (talk) 23:32, 7 February 2021 (UTC)


 * Done. See Draft:No Agenda. —cosmikdebris talk stalk 23:43, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

Unable to view any pages that transclude Sirius’ signature (including tech support itself, hence this being posted on the talkpage)
Found I couldn’t load tech support, went on page information, clicked on the transclude templates in turn and found I couldn’t view ’ sig. Went on special:whatlinkshere/User:Sirius/sig, clicked some links, none worked. If a page contains the sig, it consistently refuses to load, producing a 503 error if I wait long enough. I’ve copied the source code below (I can view source, but can’t edit, I tried to edit tech support). nowiki’d for obvious reasons.

Techpriest (I am Alpharius! / Pencil.png / Tux_icon.png / Shield.png)

Sirius hasn’t edited her sig recently (history also works fine, last edit was on 17th February), and this is a new problem. Perhaps a problem with the images? They all take a while to load, longer than they should, with Pencil.png being the worst, loading all three at once could be too much. They’re all from wikimedia commons.

Error 503 Backend fetch failed

Backend fetch failed

Guru Meditation:

XID: 182790704

Varnish cache server

Christopher (talk) 15:40, 13 May 2021 (UTC)
 * That's weird, I'm not seeing it on my end. For reference, I'm using Firefox on a windows 10 computer. 15:50, 13 May 2021 (UTC)
 * [EC]Submitting that edit also gave me a 503 error (as did submitting this one the first time, which didn’t work), even if it worked in the end. The original problem has completely gone away, I can now view Sirius’ sig and transcluding pages fine. Other wikimedia common images were taking a bit too long to load, I didn’t properly test file types other than png. Should’ve mentioned this before, but I’m currently using safari on an iphone. Christopher (talk) 15:53, 13 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Has been up to anything lately re: the server upgrade? Files not uploading (see tech support and the saloon bar), whatever this is, and other people are reporting general slowness. The test server is also very slow for me. Christopher (talk) 16:06, 13 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Checking now, I got the same error viewing some pages on and off. I also had a short-lived problem viewing one page after editing it earlier today. But it changes while writing and old examples now work other than the main technical support page. Most of the 50 first pages on the list with Sirius' sig work, not all. --ApooftGnegiol (talk) 16:30, 13 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Also, we do have a vague threat from Raven today here, where he claims, "Also, deleting this page and banning me will do nothing. I told you. I've hacked the website. Sweet sweet, revenge." In an earlier revision, he claims to have had help to do so, but nothing more about what he's supposedly done. --ApooftGnegiol (talk) 16:38, 13 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Don't think he'll actually do much. I can only imagine script kiddie shenanigans at worst for something so petty like that. 21:14, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

Some super-long pages are taking aaaaages to render, until the Varnish gives up (as it's supposed to). Some fancy sigs are taking ages - Fuzzy's for example, even though #choose shouldn't be expensive. Running "top" on the Apache server shows lots of memory free, but lots of CPU in wait state - i.e. it's like the disk is slow. All of this is frankly bizarre. Normal pages and editing work, but super-long pages with a ton of fancy template tricks seem to be giving the problems right now. (I tried simplifying Fuzzy's sig as a test, but it didn't help, so I self-reverted.)

I have no frickin idea what's up with this thing. But I'll be keeping a vague eye on it. As I sit here getting over my second Covid shot - David Gerard (talk) 21:11, 13 May 2021 (UTC)
 * I still have no idea what was wrong, but it's come good now - David Gerard (talk) 09:27, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

Link trolling
Sick of the alexa crap. Created new filter that prevents new people from adding "alexa.com" to anything. Let me know if you guys have any issues as a result of this. 21:56, 26 October 2021 (UTC)

"Up vote bomb" on WIGOCP
Pretty much every entry on the WIGOCP got 50 up votes out of the blue within a couple of hours. Not a big deal - very few people care about it nowadays anyway, and I'm not sure if techs can do anything about it, but I still felt like reporting it here since it could be either a bug or some sort of weird raid attempt that could happen again on the other WIGO pages. GeeJayK (talk) 04:45, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

Sidebar icons
For some reason I'm not seeing sidebar icons anymore. I just see a hyperlink saying "Icon war2.svg". 18:44, 15 May 2022 (UTC)
 * It seems to be an issue affecting File:Icon war2.svg specifically (and maybe other files). The image doesn't display on the file page itself, although it does still exist. I tried to upload a new version but it seems that issue hasn't been resolved yet. Christopher (talk) 19:08, 15 May 2022 (UTC)
 * The image disk is full so the software can't create thumbnails - David Gerard (talk) 18:35, 17 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Can you run deleteArchivedFiles.php and cleanupUploadStash.php. You can also run findOrphanedFiles.php to see what files go unused. Note that the latter script may not neccessarily exist on our current install (upgrades!). deleteArchivedFiles.php removes any images we've since removed from the site and cleanUploadStash gets rid of any failed temporary uploads. -- Techpriest (talk) 19:31, 17 May 2022 (UTC)
 * I was cleaning up some of the oldest unused files on the wiki, and noticed that an old bot named Capturebot uploaded thousands and thousands of CP screen shots from 2007 to May 2009. Most (all?) of these files are unused and seem to rather useless to keep. The bot's uploads can be seen by doing a search for "wigo*.png". While we're in cleanup/maintenance mode, a good argument could be made for bot-removing all this cruft. —cosmikdebris talk stalk 19:47, 17 May 2022 (UTC)
 * I can fire the  generator with User:Inferno Bot but this would remove every file listed on Special:UnusedFiles; this is at the time of writing 19958 files. This will include personal images of editors that currently go unused. -- Techpriest (talk) 19:58, 17 May 2022 (UTC)
 * But if the image is on said editor's home page, it won't be removed, right? Bongolian (talk) 20:01, 17 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Correct; if the image is used on someone's personal page, it would be kept. However, images like File:Chef Moosolini.jpg would be removed. -- Techpriest (talk) 20:03, 17 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Personally, I think it would be a minor loss. Bongolian (talk) 20:13, 17 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Related statistics;  produces 3445 pages, while   (antoher frequent uploader bot of unused files) produces 14800 files. I think combining these two would be a better use of my time. -- Techpriest (talk) 20:39, 17 May 2022 (UTC)