Bugs and Suggestions for Metabunk.org

Suddenly the problem came back this is the 3rd day I haven't been able to get in using Chrome. Had to get in using IE and couldn't remember my password to get in here OR the one for the email account I used here. It was really a scramble to get the passwords changed, but now I'm in. So, what has happened with the Chrome browser no longer working?
 
it has occasionally not worked for me with Chrome but to be honest, I haven't tried another browser.
It has usually been only for a few minutes or so. Been fine for at least a week though.
 
Suddenly the problem came back this is the 3rd day I haven't been able to get in using Chrome. Had to get in using IE and couldn't remember my password to get in here OR the one for the email account I used here. It was really a scramble to get the passwords changed, but now I'm in. So, what has happened with the Chrome browser no longer working?
Are there any other sites you've had similar problems with?
 
I've had problems with several sites today -- namely Metabunk and TechDirt -- seemingly tied to Cloudflare's use of Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC)-based certificates... and my continued use of XP. IE and Chrome use OS security settings, and XP does not and will not support ECC. Fortunately, Firefox currently ignores OS settings and allows ECC on older machines.
 
I've had problems with several sites today -- namely Metabunk and TechDirt -- seemingly tied to Cloudflare's use of Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC)-based certificates... and my continued use of XP. IE and Chrome use OS security settings, and XP does not and will not support ECC. Fortunately, Firefox currently ignores OS settings and allows ECC on older machines.

Ahh... maybe that's the problem. This is an older machine running XP. On the other hand, why would IE still work on the same machine?
 
I've had problems with several sites today -- namely Metabunk and TechDirt -- seemingly tied to Cloudflare's use of Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC)-based certificates... and my continued use of XP. IE and Chrome use OS security settings, and XP does not and will not support ECC. Fortunately, Firefox currently ignores OS settings and allows ECC on older machines.

How did those problems manifest themselves? Was it just partially loading? Did you get a security error? Can you take a screenshot or show the error message? It seems rather odd that it would be intermittent - seems like it would simply not work at all.
 
How did those problems manifest themselves? Was it just partially loading? Did you get a security error?

I get the typical Chrome SSL error page: "This webpage is not available / ERR_SSL_VERSION_OR_CIPHER_MISMATCH." It's a consistent error. I also discovered Chrome was displaying Genius.com pages without formatting, while Firefox worked correctly; Chrome's developer console showed the included stylesheets were being blocked for SSL errors.

It appears Cloudflare has recently updated its certificates on some sites to use Comodo ECDSA certificates, which XP doesn't support. The certificate for Metabunk is dated 9 October 2015, with the one for TechDirt two days later. Firefox shows my connection to Metabunk as using the TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256 cipher suite; presumably, the previous certificate was for an ECDHE_RSA suite, which XP does support.
 
I have been having intermittant problems with parts of Metabunk pages not loading completely, like buttons, etc, for a while. Usually if I closed that browser tab and reopened it, it would work again, but not always. I'm also getting the "This webpage is not available ERR_SSL_VERSION_OR_CIPHER_MISMATCH" error message all the time now, starting about 4 days ago or so.
 
It looks like Cloudflare has started browser-sniffing: With Chrome, I get a certificate that uses ECDHE_RSA for key exchange, while Firefox still shows ECDHE_ECDSA. TechDirt and Genius are both working again, as well.
 
I've had to switch to Firefox from Chrome because I've been unable to log in to various sites (on XP and Vista - don't laugh)
 
I've had to switch to Firefox from Chrome because I've been unable to log in to various sites (on XP and Vista - don't laugh)

From what I've read, ECDHE_ECDSA should have worked with Chrome on Vista -- and everything should be working now with Chrome on XP. Mick's suggestion to clear your cache is a good one; I tried last night to see if some of the missing component problems could be traced to possibly earlier certificate upgrades, but couldn't easily figure out how to tell which certificates were being used for individual CSS or Javascript includes under Firefox, and wasn't interested enough to do it with difficulty.

Hopefully it was just an issue with Cloudflare, and is now fixed.

Well, it's definitely yet another in a series of death knells for XP. I'd expected to be off it by now, but that was before the FBI walked off with my main PC,* sending me back to an older machine. For a while I had been able to brute-force my way past such certificate errors by enabling SSLv3 in Chrome, but after Chrome v40 that flag has been de-activated. I'm pleased Cloudflare [seemingly] went the browser-sniffing route, but certainly not every host moving to an admittedly superior ECDSA-signed suite will be as accommodating.
__________
* Allegedly, a housemate had been dating a pedophile who -- allegedly -- had discussed and shared photos of his crimes with her. As she's been held since mid-April, I've not had a chance to talk with her unmonitored, so I don't know how much of this is for real and how much is role-play gone terribly wrong. (Chat transcripts read the same, either way...) Even though we had separate domains within the home and never entered the other's space unaccompanied, California law views it all as one, big, legally searchable space -- meaning that when they kicked in our front door, held me at gunpoint in my own bedroom, and dragged me outside in cuffs, they could search and seize any of my property. Which they did...
 
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hi

I just got this - all I did was a refresh and the page loaded fine

running Windoze 8.1

I.E 11.0.9600.18053
update version 11.0.24 (KB3093983)
 

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hi

I just got this - all I did was a refresh and the page loaded fine

running Windoze 8.1

I.E 11.0.9600.18053
update version 11.0.24 (KB3093983)

Probably Cloudflare updating certificates, or a temporary route change. They are doing some maintenance. There have been no outages on my end.
 
Just had a momentary error whee I couldn't access the site for a few minutes on Chrome.
Sorry, I did copy the error message but then got distracted and copied something else to my clipboard.

It said ERR_something_PROTOCOL_ERROR.
sorry I can't be more help.
I will try harder next time.
 
Probably Cloudflare updating certificates, or a temporary route change. They are doing some maintenance. There have been no outages on my end.

it was more of an FYI Mick. I don't doubt you have a handle on it :)

and keep up the great work
 
I'm still having times when I can't access the site. Just happened, but it came back soon.
yeah that's the only problems I have. I usually just have Metabunk up on a page and sometimes I can't access it for a few minutes but not very often
 
Sorry about the intermittent access problems. Unfortunately I don't get them myself, so it's hard to track down.
 
I just had a brief period of non access too. The something in my previous post was SPDF
so ERR_SPDF_PROTOCOL _ERROR
 
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