When Chat or GeoCities Seems to Vanish

"Normal" technical problems include:

• Chat room sends you a strange error message, or suddenly gets v-e-r-y slow to post.
• Your page vanishes when you try to edit it.
• Files that you upload have 0 content when you check your list of files.
• None of your page changes show up, even after you empty your cache.
• Email stops working....it seems to disappear!
• When you visit your site, it's just a list of files. Or nothing appears to be there.
• When you try to edit or upload, GeoCities tells you that you're using the wrong password.
• Part (or all) of GeoCities seems to vanish, and you get a "file not found" or "404" error message.

Sometimes GeoCities is off-line. Their server crashes, or they have another hardware or software problem. It happens, when you're one of the fastest-growing online services. GeoCities currently has over 26 million hits per day, and has over 500,000 homesteaders, adding 5,000 new homesteaders, daily.

Sometimes, GeoCities predicts a problem when they're doing some upgrading. They'll post this warning on the Announcements page, which you should check first when you experience a problem. It's a good idea to check the Announcements page daily, anyway.

However, it's more likely that the problem took them by surprise, and they're working on it. That's why we tell you that you should just wait a little while (a few minutes, then a few hours, then wait until the next business day, after 9 a.m. PST) and try again, regardless of the error message that you received.

If GeoCities is totally off-line... well, you wouldn't be here, reading this, would you? *grin* However, even when that happens, they're usually back online within 24 hours.

Sometimes when part of the system crashes, they just put a band aid on it while they figure out the real cause of the problem. For that reason, if -- for example -- the chat room is off-line for a few hours, it may be off-line again now & then for a few days, until the whole problem is sorted out and repaired.

GeoCities occasionally has to go to the people who wrote their software, to patch a security leak or weakness. We've seen this with the recent FTP problems, and now with chat room security. When this is the case, there may be signs of a problem for weeks. Try to work around it, and accept our apologies (on behalf of GeoCities) for the inconvenience.

However, if you think that no one else knows about a particular, odd little problem, be certain to contact your Community Leader, or submit a form at the Online Help Center, or at least post a notice in the Help Forum so that others are aware of the problem. You might even find out more about it, if you drop in for a few minutes at the Help Chat.

But please understand that if you send a note to a Leader saying, "Chat is full and I can't get in," or "The EZ Upload utility isn't working," there isn't anything that we can do about it. We're just homesteaders like you. We have no extra powers, and cannot clear a space for you in chat, or make the utilities work any better. We surely do wish that we could! *grin*

GeoCities is growing quickly, and it will probably experience "growing pains" from time to time. We all get frustrated when that happens. However, GeoCities is supported by advertisers, and the advertisers don't pay GeoCities unless their ads get hits. Therefore, please rest assured that GeoCities is very, very interested in keeping homesteaders and visitors happy. (They're nice people, too.... don't think that this is entirely a profit-driven enterprise!) The staff and volunteers are all working together, to fix problems just as fast as they can.

Your patience is appreciated, when things aren't working right at GeoCities.

Thanks! *smile*

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