Site Problems

[Tracey]

Hi Sporran

I have looked on S/P and as you know you cant keep track of messages sent or recieved on it and unfortunaltely all my emails vanished the day AOL changed its look. I wish i could remember the names of the helpful and unhelpful and mail them to you off line but cant at the moment and this was roughly a year ago ? now . Just that one occasion a different person replied to me and normally i get the same woman who really does go out of her way to help - but the one that did reply must have been having a bad day. I know they must have to put up with a lot from people complaining but decided it was best all round to give up with the issue as i was begining to lose it back.

[Patsy]

[quote="DavidWW"]This from another thread here..........

QUOTE

Received this reply today from SP - very prompt, which did not however solve my problem but might be worth a try for those with similar symptoms:

"One of our team has been trying the following fix with some customers and so
far, it has worked in all cases.I have to point out that it is still a trial
at this stage - I have copied in the fix if you would like to try it.

David, thanks for the fix I'm going to try it out husband thinks it makes sense I still haven't heard from SP after I think 4 emails regarding this problem
but I got a reply finally after a week re the name of the institution for the 1891 census, I was told to go to Scotland GRO. I sent a message last night and this morning I had a reply with the name. Great service from GRO. According to SP we have always had to pay the extra credits and that if we need the the name of hospital etc we need to go to GRO. I don't think this is right but I'm so fed up dealing with SP that I'll take what I can get.
One of two problems solved

Patsy

[DavidWW]

According to SP we have always had to pay the extra credits and that if we need the the name of hospital etc we need to go to GRO. I don't think this is right but I'm so fed up dealing with SP that I'll take what I can get.
One of two problems solved

Patsy

Absolute, utter, complete and arrant nonsense I strongly suspect that there's a very high turnover of staff at SP, so that many of the current folk haven't the faintest idea about what has happened previously.

Following representations from many SP users and the Users Group this problem was highlighted many moons ago, and - when exactly I cannot recall, - a button introduced which, once a census page had been paid for, allowed a free look at the header pages of the enumeration book. When there was a major site upgrade at the end of May 2005, this facility, for reasons unknown, fell by the wayside.............

You might like to ask the person who told you this, why the facility has been restored on the test site for the next upgrade (except that's the wrong word for this facility ) to which User Group members have just been given access and asked to do testing........... and, no , I don't know what the planned upgrade date is .................

David

[IanS]

Hi all
I have noticed recently that some images which I'd paid for were just not available any more. I always use direct download, so in my case its nothing to do with any plug-ins. I contacted SP about this a while ago (15/8/2005)

Problem: SRI Birth 01/01/1885 31/12/1889 1 DICK, JESSIE M F MIDLOTHIAN 30/04/2005 22:01:11

On three occaisions recently I have tried to view the page containing the above record, and have been presented with a "Site Currently Unavailable" page, although the rest of the site seems to be working OK.

the reply I received the same day was:

Good morning,

There has been an issue which has affected only certain criteria / labels.
We are confident of rectifying this with the next fix which we will have in
place once the test site has been fully checked.

In the meantime, to apologies for any problems this may have caused you, 30
credits have been added to your account in order to assist you further with
your research

Regards

Alison

ScotlandsPeople

Not sure if this is the same problem you are having as these are images I have paid for previously but it kinda sounds like it might be a related problem - it would appear some images are just not available at the moment and I've certainly come across a few.

Best wishes
Lesley

This is exactly the same problem my wife and I had with census searches, and exactly the same reply!!!! It has not been 'fixed' and honestly we gave up. We didn't want another fix to obliterate something else. The free credits given went nowhere near the amount of credits originally used. Print off everything!! Search pages accessed, even wrong images accessed,(or cross them off on your printed page of results.) because sods law, you'll end up clicking on these again when starting from scratch.

[LesleyB]

Patsy wrote:

Basically I cannot get into the page to see if it's the correct ancester.

This is still the position with the Jessie Dick record I mentioned above. If I click on the link in my Previous Searches to see the page of results containing her record I'm still getting the "Site Currently Unavailble" page, yet the rest of the site is working fine (well with the exception of the few other records I have found that are behaving in this odd way as well).

I received the reply shown above from SP on 15/08/2005, so this is very much an ongoing problem which does not seem to have been addressed.
The post-it on the monitor to "collect" Jessie's birth is now losing its stickiness!

Luckily it doesn't seem to be affecting many of my records - it must be VERY frustrating if several of your key search result pages are just not available.

Best wishes
Lesley

[Patsy]

This is still the position with the Jessie Dick record I mentioned above. If I click on the link in my Previous Searches to see the page of results containing her record I'm still getting the "Site Currently Unavailble" page, yet the rest of the site is working fine (well with the exception of the few other records I have found that are behaving in this odd way as well).
Best wishes

Lesley

Hi Lesley

That's exactly the problem, I was beginning to feel that I was at fault but you describe the same problems as I'm having. I cannot access 11 records and in my last email to SP I asked for a credit but I'm still waiting, it's been over a week and four emails and still no response.
I really feel that the service is so poor and although I'd like to buy some credits I'm digging my heels in for the moment. Eventually I'll have to buy them but I'm holding out for as long as possible not that they will notice or care but according to my logic I'm making a stand

Patsy

[cpa]

Hi folks

There is a very simple solution to this situation in terms of the credits spent by you all, and now not leading to the promised service in terms of the ability to view paid for images.......

In the UK, as I understand it, there is a raft of consumer protection legislation that would apply in this situation.

As I understand it, anyone who registers with SP, pays for credits, and then views images enters into an implied contract with ScotlandonLine/ScotlandsPeople which, inter alia, includes the promise that any images paid for and viewed will always be there for the registered member to see at any time they choose to do so.

If this facility is not available, or withdrawn, for whatever reason, then, given that ScotlandonLine/ScotlandsPeople/GROS are made aware of this situation, and given a reasonable period of time for ScotlandonLine/ScotlandsPeople/GROS to correct the situation, then, given that the problem continues and is not corrected, then ScotlandonLine/ScotlandsPeople/GROS are in clear breach of contract under the UK Consumer Protection Act and associated legislation.

In such a situation it is clearly open to any member who has experienced such problems to demand and require a full refund of the monies paid for the contracted service which has not been provided.

In no way, in such a situation, is it a sufficient legal remedy in accordance with the relevant consumer protection legislation for ScotlandonLine/ScotlandsPeople/GROS to allow a member a few free credits, - instead ScotlandonLine/ScotlandsPeople/GROS are quite clearly, according to the legislation, absolutely required to refund the monies paid for a service that has demonstrably not been provided (including any associated costs such as charges levied by overseas credit card companies in relation to currency conversion charges!!).

Over to you folks! Are you going to let ScotlandonLine/ScotlandsPeople/GROS get away with this blatant breach of UK consumer protection legislation ?

[sheilajim]

Hi Everyone,

I have been reading this thread with interest.

While I, (as least so far) have not had any problems viewing or printing images on my printer from SP, I cannot download them on to my computer. I would like to download some of them to my Jasc Paint Shop Program to improve the image, etc. I am unable to do this. I have no problem downloading images, etc from any other site.

It may be my fault. Does anyone else have this problem Am I doing something wrong.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

Sheila

[DavidWW]

Sheila

There should be no problem in downloading, i.e. saving the images to your computer, as highly recommended in other threads, as, perish the thought that the ScotlandsPeople servers at the technology park in Dundee were wiped out for whatever reasons, and it nearly happened 18 months ago when there was a major power failure situation where the backup system didn't cut in as it was supposed to as, unknown to everyone, they were already running on the backup, and the batteries ran out. (OK, maybe the backup system should have been cut-in generator based, but if the fuel tank isn't full, what help is such a standby generator )

Have a look at your personal profile and see what image viewer is currently set up, - it will be either ActiveX Control, Java Applet, or Direct Download.

Whichever it is, change to one of the two alternates and try that, failing which try the remaining alternate; failing which ask for more assistance here

David

PS What's your computer setup?, - PC or Mac
dww

[sheilajim]

Hi David

I changed from Active XP and it worked. Thank you very, very much.

My computer is less than a year old. It is a PC, Dell Dimension 4600. I have Microsoft XP -Home Edition.

Thanks Again

Sheila