For the past 2 or 3 weeks, the MER servers seem to have been particularly temperamental. Roughly half the time I try to access the site, it hangs up and eventually my browser displays a "server not available" notice.

Thoughts?

I've noticed the same thing. But I can get in OK using Firefox instead of the Mac Safari browser. Recently cleared the Safari cache, and the problem hasn't shown up since.

Safari also used to give me trouble on the Flirt4Free website, while Firefox worked fine. In fact, once I punched through to the site with Firefox, Safari would connect immediately and work fine, as if a drain had been unclogged.

You might see what happens with another browser, and try clearing your cache.

I'm hoping the problem with MER will disappear with the new software upgrade, as it did with Flirt4Free.

Thank you!

OK, Safari cache cleared. And if trouble persists, very helpful to know that FireFox can be used as Liquid-Plumr.

Or as "Ram-Out," a provocatively named drain opener based on, no kidding, sulfuric acid! An old apartment superintendent recommended it to me, then passed away, then I got in loads of trouble for eating holes in the drains.

Of course in latter days I learned to pay if I wanted to eat a hole.

Little Sally took a drink

But she shall drink no more,

For what she thought was H₂O

Was H₂SO₄!

I met him on a website

After I had cleared my cache.

He's only got an hour tonight,

So I shall have to dash!

He cleared your cash?

Happens to me all the time!

P.S. Firefox is the answer to all troubles. Thank you too much!

Eureka!

In another thread on login problems, TampaYankee suggested the user try clearing his cookies , and I wondered if that might also be a solution for the Safari-freeze problem. I use Safari with tabbed windows for about fifteen websites I visit regularly, and it's a bother to fire up Firefox for just the MER site. So the cookie trick seemed worth a try. Since I'm loathe to clear all my cookies, I tried offing the MER cookies one at a time. And the second one I tried did the trick: PHPSESSID.

Before I deleted it, there was either a freeze or a long delay getting back from a post or from one forum to another. After I deleted it, I breezed from one post and one forum to another. For a while, anyway. Then I got another freeze. PHPSESSID was back in my cookie file again. When I deleted it again, no more freeze. For a while, anyway. I've repeated this procedure several times over the last couple of days, always with the same results: deleting the PHPSESSID cookie takes me from a freeze to a breeze. It's the electronic "Ram-Out" of which AdamSmith speaks so highly.

So it looks like there's a specific cookie (PHPSESSID) on the MER site that Safari for Mac does not get along with over time. And Firefox doesn't seem to have a problem with it.

Next I checked my Safari cookie file to see if the PHPSESSID was used on any other websites I frequent, and found there are seventeen others besides MER. But MER seems to be the only one that freezes.

Still curious, I Googled PHPSESSID and found out that it's a session ID cookie that's used to track a visitor's movements on a website. One developers' website had this to say:

Starting a Session

When you start a session . . . , the following happens:

• PHP checks whether a valid session ID exists.

• If there is no session ID, PHP creates a new ID.

• If a valid ID exists, the frozen variables of that session are reactivated and introduced back to the global namespace.

(http://devzone.zend.com/node/view/id/1312)

Not being very techie, that was just about enough for me for one day. Except I did another Google search and found that different browsers handle the PHPSESSID cookie in different ways. So it seems plausible to me that the way the MER site programmers are using the cookie, and the way Safari handles it, are out of synch. As I mentioned earlier in the thread, I used to have the freeze-up problem on Flirt4Free and, when they re-did their site, the problem went away. I'm hoping that, when the MER site is re-programmed, the problem will go away here too.

It would be interesting to see if anyone else using Mac Safari gets the same results from deleting the PHPSESSID cookie. If so, it may provide a lead for the programmers to figure out what's going on, and prevent it in the new software.

In the meantime, I'm going to keep using Safari, and Ram Out the errant PHPSESSID cookie at least twice a day to keep my drains flowing freely. Little Sally will have to fend for herself.

In the meantime, I'm going to keep using Safari, and Ram Out the errant PHPSESSID cookie at least twice a day to keep my drains flowing freely. Little Sally will have to fend for herself.

Eureka likewise! It works.

Banish any image of Archimedes lowering himself into an acid bath.