Poddies in China - connection problems?

I've asked the tech team to look further into it, but I'm not sure when we'll hear back since we're still playing catch-up from the holiday weekend.

and FWIW, IE 8 renders the "team" icon for Chinesepod team members on the side of their avatars when team members make a new comment. But IE 8 doesn't put team member names on the side when team members add to an existing comment. It's not a real big problem, but I thought I would mention it if it helps in troubleshooting.

Still doesn't work in IE 8.

How about "Start with no add-ons"?

Unfortunately, there isn't a "Run IE in safe mode" option when I right click on the IE desktop icon.

I was starting to confuse myself for a bit, but I have 2 machines side by side. One runs Windows 7, the other Windows XP. The 7 machine runs the new post script just fine in IE 9, but the XP machine doesn't do anything with the script in IE 8. So this is still a problem.

Have you tried using IE8 in "safe mode"? If you right click on your IE desktop icon, there should be a "Run IE in Safe Mode" option. It's possible that an add-on is interfering with the scripts.

I will add it to the bug list.

Thank you for letting us know!

actually, I should refer to it as an inability to post, not an inability to log in. I've tried a number of groups, and it appears I can only post in this General Discussion group when i'm using IE 8.

Hi JC,

Actually, I noticed this inability to log in about 2 months ago, but I thought it was due to me not subscribing at the time to cpod. But now that i'm a subscriber, it's still not working.

Hi Jenny, Yes, that post published when I was using Chrome 16. I checked again, and from IE 8.0, nothing still gets published.

Hi,

When did this issue start for you? I'm working on upgrading to IE8 now so as to test, but things worked fine in one of my own groups when I tested. Are you having trouble posting anywhere else?

JC

It seems like the post did get published. Is this the one you made?

http://chinesepod.com/community/conversations/post/12488

Yes, it's a tricky system. What's more unnerving is they won't notify you as to why they've put some filters on. We're left to our own devices to figure out 1) if we really have been filtered 2) why, and 3) what we can do. Frustrating.

Glad to hear everything's working!

hi bodawei,

I won't share the info openly, as that tends to draw the focus of the blue meanies, however, if you send me a PM I'll fill you in.

Cheers

Hi dahouxiaohou

Are you able to share which VPN you got and how much it is per month?

just to add, got a VPN and now it is all working very well. including other sites that were difficult to access without being fully blocked.

sorry if I opened a can of worms with this topic!

Thanks very much Jenny, that's a very interesting response. I think that I am right in saying that is the first time anyone has explained it to me that way. I appreciate the problem while having no real idea of the mechanics. You seem to be saying that streaming from foreign sites is slowed down at Chinese portals.

I certainly don't understand how a VPN necessarily overcomes that strategy - I would have thought that in any case that it would be hit or miss whether your particular VPN solves the problem. Then it might one day solve the problem and the next day not?

It is often not well understood what controls are imposed in supposedly 'free' societies like Australia. Your comment: 'e.g. censoring, slowing down actions or totally blocking sites,' reminds me that at my current employer in Australia, the network administrator totally blocks some sites. A common site blocked by big employers in Australia is Facebook. (Twitter maybe too, I have less information about that.) Some large K-12 education networks in Australia also block a lot of sites. You could describe all of this as 'group censorship', and the reasons vary.

A lot of Australian material is blocked for people overseas for commercial reasons. That bugs me because I pay my Australian tax but can't get access to material available to resident Australians.

Also, and this is even more interesting, some sites like Gmail or other webmail, while not blocked, are made to work so slowly where I work that it discourages their use. Normal browsing is lightning fast where I work but if I switch to my Gmail it is excruciatingly slow.

Of course with smart phones that is now getting less of a problem for people - we can use our own resources to outwit the employer.

"Apparently my comment yesterday didn't go through"

...actually it did, I was there, and then like magic, it vanished into thin air. I actually wondered at the time whether Jenny had accidentally commented while logged in to your account [and then corrected it by doing it via her account ] because very shortly after yours vanished an almost identical post appeared under her name. She's onto you mate. Oh, the intrigue !

Bodawei,

We are not blocked. The reasons are complex. 1) China takes systematic action to control the web, e.g. censoring, slowing down actions or totally blocking sites, especially those hosted overseas. It's not just targeting certain sites, These actions might affect say sites hosted in the West Cost of US. 2) Sometimes, it's not for political reasons, but some internet service providers don't have the infrastructure to support so much internet usage. So in order to maintain reasonable speed, they might slow down connection to foreign sites.

JC

I'll admit upfront that VPN talk is like red rag to a bull for me. I don't want to get a VPN, not one that I have to pay for anyway. They are very poor value for money. Extremely expensive compared to the cost of Internet services without, and giving me what? Access to Twitter and Facebook? They are way oversold in China.

I can understand some of my students getting VPNs - genuine curiosity about sites outside China unavailable to them. Ways to explore information not otherwise available.

But I do have a couple of questions/commens:

If what you are saying is true, then ChinesePod is blocked in China, or systematically being harassed which amounts to the same thing. Do you agree that ChinesePod is blocked in China?

This sounds a little like a cop-out to devoted customers (like me). Surely there could be a range of possible explanations for the problem - have they all been explored? It seems much easier to say 'oh we are being harassed and so would you mind all getting a VPN'

Can I think of another site remotely similar to ChinesePod that gets 'harassed' in this way? Nope. All the sites that I experience being blocked 'deserve' in some sense to being blocked because of the material carried on the site.

That was a rhetorical question I guess, specially as I answered it myself.

Why would ChinesePod be blocked/harassed? That is a real question. What possible reason would there be to block ChinesePod? (I have no trouble working out why the other blocked sites are blocked.) And I don't believe that sites are blocked without reason - everything has a reason.

Can you name any other sites that are being treated in a similar fashion - say educational sites offering a similar service to ChinesePod? I'd like to go and check them out (I don't need a VPN to do that at the moment.)

Please don't say Google btw - that is a furphy.

You're 'quite sure it is a GFW problem' just did not ring true to me - I don't think that your supporting reasons constitute proof.

Apparently my comment yesterday didn't go through. I'm glad Jenny got there in the meantime, but I wanted to chime in:

There are a few reasons we're quite sure it's a local telecom (ie GFW) issue:

1. We've received no recent reports from outside China about connection problems.

2. Across multiple devices and platforms (iTouch, Android, Windows XP, OSX) I've never had a connection issue when using my VPN. That's also across multiple connections- the office, my apartment, and several cafes.

ok， VPN it is then!

thanks for looking into it for me...

This seems to be an issue with local telecom reliability, which unfortunately is not uncommon for sites hosted outside China. I sometimes have problem using Skype during different times of the day. After evaluation, moving to Amazon cloud was the best solution for this problem. But local internet connectivity still plays a dominant role. I am not sure what other options we have. My sincere apologies!

I also think using an VPN would help you access sites hosted outside of China faster and more smoothly.

again - fine this morning, unable to dowload last night.

Hi Jenny,

thanks for the reply. I really don't understand much from the other replys.

The problem has been occuring for me for a few months now (prob since Oct holiday)

at the moment, it seems to work ok on weekday mornings, is more problematic on weekday evenings, and doesn't work at all on the weekends.

I realise this is probably due to my own internet connection being poor, and busy over the weekends, but it's still good enough for me to use every other website I need, and to download much larger files than the lesson audio files.

your IT people told me they are working on a solution, and recommended I get a VPN, but I'm not sure if that would make it any faster.

Thanks in advance.

Oh, I understand now. I will let John B (our Product Manager know),

Jenny

What I said was that I had three different avatars, all mine but uploaded at different periods of time in the past couple of years, appearing simultaneously in different parts of the ChinesePod site. It was a most unusual phenomenon.

Unusual because I hitherto understood that once you uploaded a new avatar the old one disappeared.

I did say 'it is not a problem for me' (although it may have been confusing for others who recognise me first by my avatar.) I was just commenting on something that I had never seen before. 'Strange sightings of another dimension' ... that kind of thing.

Sorry, I don't quite understand the problem. I thought you changed avatars. Are you saying that you didn't upload these?

And now it seems all is well, I can only see 柏子.

Hi Jenny

Last time I looked I had three different avatars on the site at the same time - the shady footpath scene, the 洋芋饼, and my latest, the funny little fellow we are calling 柏子. The only one I didn't see was my oldest avatar 黑猫警长 ..

It is no problem for me ... I just raise it because it seems something is wrong which might lead to more serious problems.

I am very sorry about that! Can you let me know if these 3 avatars are all yours, having been used at different stages during your subscription or are they not yours at all?

“de-faced. I think in my honour”

哈哈，就是智慧的柏子，久仰久仰

lol

No worries Jenny. I was just curious as no-one had commented, and I actually wondered whether there had been an announcement on the last BST that they were taking a break for Chrissy. It's all good in the hood. :)

It wasn't published due to a technical error, which was fixed earlier in the day. Our sincere apologies.

http://chinesepod.com/lessons/traditional-food-during-the-spring-festival

Yes, it is all a bit strange. I did not appear for me either. When I read your post I checked my Dashboard and ... it was not there. I then looked in the Library and it was second on the list. I opened it and listened, and when I went back it was then on the Dashboard. They are toying with our minds!

thanks for letting us know it's there now Zhen. It wasn't there as of a few hours ago. I checked the library also and it wasn't there.

I wonder if CPod are aware of this, an apparent problem with the site. The Dec 18 BST I see appears on the Community Conversations page now, but I know it didn't yesterday at the time it should have, as you noted.

And it also appears on my dashboard now. But when I click on the dashboard "Lesson" button it takes me to the page, then I'm apparently not logged in. I couldn't have gotten to my dashboard without logging in, so there's something wrong. Was anyone else able to listen to this lesson?