# Websites sometimes showing old versions



## KBates (Oct 31, 2014)

Here's a challenge: can anybody explain how the following can possibly be happening?

All freeserve.co.uk and fsnet.co.uk websites are randomly flip-flopping between their latest version and their March 2014 version. (Never a version between the two.)

This can best be seen on the following 4 examples as they all have a tell-tale date on them:

www.divdev.fsnet.co.uk/scicaf.htm- Old: March date. New: October date

www.stella-alpina.fsnet.co.uk - Old: last line has 2013 date. New: last line has 2014 date

www.empson1.freeserve.co.uk/pigsty/ - Old: Jan 2014 date. New: October date

www.current.fsnet.co.uk/ - Old: January 2010 date. New: October date

You'll probably see the latest version of some of them, the old version of others. Try again an hour or so later and you'll see new versions of some and old of others - but a different mix.

Even more curiously, you can sometimes get both old and new versions of these sites simultaneously. Access one of the above sites in one window, open another window and go to a proxy such as https://www.zend2.com and enter the site's URL in the Surf box. 

How can this possibly be happening!?


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## Triple6 (Dec 26, 2002)

So are these your sites and you need help with fixing it?


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## KBates (Oct 31, 2014)

No, these are not my sites, they just happen to be good examples of the problem because they show an update date on them.

Websites ending .freeserve.co.uk and .fsnet.co.uk are hosted by EE. All of these websites are flip-flopping between their latest and their March versions. Owners of these sites are beginning to cotton on that it's not a problem with their cache, FTP, computer or ISP - all the things you'd naturally first check out - and it's not only their site that's affected. It's taken weeks to pin down what actually is happening, and to realise that all freeserve and fsnet sites are affected.

I'm trying to assist the diagnostic process by seeing if some clever techie can tell me how such a thing could technically be happening. Best explanation I've seen so far is that these sites reside on a number of load-balanced servers and one or more of these servers has not received updates since around March - and if you happen to get connected to that server you see the March version of the site you're looking at. Is that possible...? Is there another possible explanation?

It seems that owners of these websites have contacted EE Support with vague 'there is a problem' emails - which have got them nowhere. Only now is it emerging from the mist what the problem is and that it's affecting all freeserve websites. So we're getting the problem crystalised and even possible causes identified to help EE home in on the problem and fix it. (EE's customer support is not the best.)


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## Triple6 (Dec 26, 2002)

I'll move you the Web Design & Development forum as that's the more correct section for this. 

If this an EE hosting problem then and they are unable to fix the issue then I would suggest moving to a better hosting service.

Also the first page seems to have some coding issues so maybe the web designer is at fault.


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## KBates (Oct 31, 2014)

Thanks for moving to this more appropriate forum.

Those 4 sites - and the many many others - all have different owners. Not quite sure what you're driving at about the 'coding error', but presumably you're not suggesting that a coding error on one of these sites could cause all of these sites to flip flop between their current and their March versions!?

When Freeserve started up many years ago, you could get an email address such as [email protected] and a corresponding website www.examplename.freeserve.co.uk. So technically I presume these websites are subdomains of freeserve.co.uk, but they all have separate owners. Ditto .fsnet.co.uk.

Anyway, the purpose of the original post is to see if a very clever techie might come along and be able to suggest a mechanism that could possibly explain how all .freeserve.co.uk and all .fsnet.co.uk websites are randomly flip-flopping between their current and their March incarnations.


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## JiminSA (Dec 15, 2011)

Hi there KBates and welcome to TSG
A possible reason would be that the free host service crashed or upgraded it's hardware (more likely) and "fell-back" to old site versions, then found a more recent back-up and used that. That scenario coupled with your astute possible explanation (below) might account for such occurrences ...


> Best explanation I've seen so far is that these sites reside on a number of load-balanced servers and one or more of these servers has not received updates since around March - and if you happen to get connected to that server you see the March version of the site you're looking at.


Can't immediately see another explanation


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## KBates (Oct 31, 2014)

"_A possible reason would be that the free host service crashed or upgraded it's hardware (more likely) and "fell-back" to old site versions, then found a more recent back-up and used that. That scenario coupled with your astute possible explanation (below) might account for such occurrences ..."_

Thank you for your reply. Yes, I can see how that could explain it if it happened just once? But these sites have been flip-flopping (several times a day) between their latest and their March versions for weeks. Even odder, they don't show as either all latest or all March - some show latest version, others March version. And each time you look it's a different combination of which sites show old and which sites show new.

It's so weird - the Sherlock Holmes in me just has to know how this is happening!


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## JiminSA (Dec 15, 2011)

Then I really think your original theory looks good - non-updated servers - which explains the daily flip, nicely.


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## JiminSA (Dec 15, 2011)

I have another possible theory :-
Assuming that at some point the DNS settings were changed by the free hosting people, then it is possible that the old cached version will be picked up on computers that had looked at those sites back in e.g. March.

One way to clear a computer's DNS cache is to:-

1. open the CMD window (click start & type cmd into search at bottom)
2. type "ipconfig /displaydns" (without quotes) to check out what is there.
3. type, "ipconfig /flushdns"
4. repeat 2. to see the results of the flush.

But in view of Rob's comment below, this scenario is doubtful.


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## Triple6 (Dec 26, 2002)

I think I've only seen the old versions of the sites each time I recheck this thread, are you still seeing the new ones occasionally?


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## KBates (Oct 31, 2014)

JiminSA - would that mean you'd always see the same version on any given computer though? The symptoms are that you sometimes get old, sometimes new. At the mo, looking at those four sites, I'm seeing old, new, new, old. Yesterday when I looked it was new, old, new, new. And going via the proxy  https://www.zend2.com a different mix of old and new.

Triple - did you refresh the pages to ensure you weren't looking at what was in your cache? Though sometimes you do get all old or all new, but usually a mix. Truly random.

The problem happens whatever one's ISP, geographical location, device or internet access method.

There is a suggestion that EE may have moved its server arrangements (to Cable & Wireless?) in March. This site http://ns.whatmyip.co/browse/sites_history/1/host/webm1.svr.pol.co.uk/host_A/1 suggests _something_ changed in March. But I'm not enough of a techie to be able to follow this lead and do the detective work.


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## JiminSA (Dec 15, 2011)

> JiminSA - would that mean you'd always see the same version on any given computer though?


I am pretty sure that's the case - so I don't reckon that's the solution. Just presenting as many scenarios as I can think of.


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## JiminSA (Dec 15, 2011)

Well, I appear to have discovered the reason for the flip-flop: If you take out the www. prefix on your links, you get the "latest" version and if you leave in the www. prefix then you get an outdated version.

Can I ask if you could verify this "discovery", as you seem to "know" the sites.

So, it appears to me that the free hosting providers are not geared up either for re-directing (301) or to updating their www. sub-domains with the latest uploaded version and this is the most likely reason for the flip-flop.


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## KBates (Oct 31, 2014)

JiminSA - interesting, very interesting. Nice spot.

I've tried it on the four (and several other) sites. I do sometimes get different results when accessing with and without the www, but not always. And I don't always get the new version when accessing without the www. At the time of writing I am getting:

http://www.empson1.freeserve.co.uk/pigsty/ - old (Jan at bottom of page)
http://empson1.freeserve.co.uk/pigsty/ - new (Oct at bottom)

http://www.divdev.fsnet.co.uk/scicaf.htm - new (October half way down the page (old has March))
http://divdev.fsnet.co.uk/scicaf.htm - new

http://www.stella-alpina.fsnet.co.uk - new (last link on page has 2014 date (old has 2013))
http://stella-alpina.fsnet.co.uk - new

http://www.current.fsnet.co.uk/ - new (October date at very bottom of page)
http://current.fsnet.co.uk/ - old (Jan date at very bottom of page)

Your discovery provides new info which I hope nudges the diagnostic ball a step forward. Thank you.


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## JiminSA (Dec 15, 2011)

I must admit that it was a learning curve for me also - but quite interesting.


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## KBates (Oct 31, 2014)

OK, so the best hypothesis we have is that these freeserve websites reside on a number of load-balanced servers, and one or more of these servers contains old (March 2014) versions of the websites.

So here is the question: When you are viewing a website is it possible to find out precisely which server you are getting the data from?


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## JiminSA (Dec 15, 2011)

There are loads of sites out there who do ping backs; server checks; DNS searches etc., (just google "website name server lookup" - without the quotes) and try to find one that will give you pertinent information. 
All that these tools seem to require is the url of the site, which one can copy paste into their look-up box.


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## KBates (Oct 31, 2014)

JiminSA said:


> There are loads of sites out there who do ping backs; server checks; DNS searches etc., (just google "website name server lookup" - without the quotes) and try to find one that will give you pertinent information.


Thank you. I've tried several of those and they provide all sorts of info - trouble is I've no idea what it all means!

However, when looking up fsnet.co.uk I get what seems to be an error: "_*Oops! It seems your nameservers don't agree on the SOA serial number! This probably means that changes made on one nameserver weren't made on another. This could lead to intermittant connectivity issues and should be fixed ASAP*_."

That's on this page: http://www.viewdns.info/dnsreport/?domain=fsnet.co.uk

On the face of it "_changes made on one nameserver weren't made on another" _sounds exactly like the problem we have: updates to fsnet.co.uk websites not being propagated to all servers. Am I adding 2+2 and getting 100?


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## JiminSA (Dec 15, 2011)

> Am I adding 2+2 and getting 100?


Your detective work confirms the theory. It's time to show your findings to the free host people to see if they are prepared to do something about it ...


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## KBates (Oct 31, 2014)

This is our current best theory as to why freeserve.co.uk and fsnet.co.uk websites sometimes show their latest version and sometimes show their March 2014 version:

When website owners upload to their websites, the upload goes to IP 195.92.193.56. However, internet accesses to freeserve websites sometimes go to 195.92.193.56 *but sometimes go to 195.92.193.55, and 195.92.193.55 contains out-of-date March 2014 versions*.

So the problem is either a DNS routing issue, i.e. one of the ISP's DNSs is wrongly routing website visitors to 195.92.193.55, OR (if the websites are supposed to be duplicated at these 2 IP addresses) the problem is that updates to 195.92.193.56 are not being copied across to 195.92.193.55 - and have not been since March 2014.


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## KBates (Oct 31, 2014)

Just seen on another forum that the ISP have de-activated the two DNSs that were routing website visitors to the wrong IP address. This wrong IP address contained old versions of websites.

They've left online the two DNSs that resolve to 195.92.193.56, so visitors are now always routed to the latest versions.


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## JiminSA (Dec 15, 2011)

Just maybe, your thread also encouraged them to be pro-active - Good result, whatever ...


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