Tweet Unable to access site

Hi there,
I'm on at my computer at work and obviously, I have no problem loading the site and logging on successfully.
However, when I try to get onto Nitrateville on my laptop at home, the banner with Doug loads, but the rest of the page is just the background grey, with a message in the middle saying "you been banned". I can't even see the forums to click on. Can you tell me what's going on?

[Mike Gebert]

Someone may have banned your IP because a spammer uses it.

Go here:

http://www.whatip.com/

and PM me with the number it displays.

This is also happening to me on a regular basis. I will PM you with the IP number

[Christopher Jacobs]

I've notice that periodically, usually late at night (last night, for example), the entire NitrateVille site is not accessible, not due to any "banning" message but with some message that there is a fatal server error or the like. I don't know if it's something on the Nitrateville server, my browser, or the way my internet provider is accessing it or what. It's usually back a few hours later or at least the next day. Would that be due to server upgrades somewhere along the line?

--Christopher Jacobs
http://hpr1.com/film
http://www.und.edu/instruct/cjacobs

Apart from the regular "you been banned" messages, I also am getting "phpBB Critical Error - could not connect to database". At present Nitrateville for me is almost unusable

I'm now getting a third message:

"the server at nitrateville.com is taking too long to respond".

I can only access the site about one in 10 tries, if at all. It's like a lottery. I think I'll leave it a week before trying anymore.

I'm not having problems with any other site.

[silentfilm]

I got the "critical error" today also. But I tried about two minutes later and got through just fine. It is almost certainly a problem with the web server.

[Mike Gebert]

The critical error thing will almost always go away in a few minutes. It does seem to be happening a little more than it should, I'll bug them about that. Despite the ominous language, it's really just like a busy signal and goes away quickly, so letting a couple of minutes pass should do the trick.

Normally if you get the banned message it's because we've banned an IP due to a spammer using it. But Countryslicker, your problems seem uniquely erratic, so I'll be in touch with you to try to get some more clues about what's going on. If you were actually banned, you shouldn't be getting any of these other things, I would think.

Although I don't notice my being unable to access this site, there are times when it acts a little wonky. Instead of getting a green square at the left of threads, I get informed that there are new messages, and sometimes instead of the brown square I get "No new posts". As this tends to start happening on Friday evenings and persists through the end of the weekend, I believe it is an issue with the host, rather than my computer or provider.

Bob

Mike, I keep getting messages that people don't like one of my films. I'm guessing this must be a message error

Note for the serious: It's been a long week and I just want to have fun.