Large sections of lds.org inaccessible

[sebastian.buck]

Hi,

browsing the Ensign (or Liahona) section and selecting "other issues" will redirect to a website that only shows two Ensign issues, January and February 2017. There are no other issues available.
Additionally going directly to an Ensign issue using the appropriate URL (like https://www.lds.org/ensign/2017/08?lang=eng) will only bring up a blank website.
So basically Liahona and Ensign issues are not accessible.
The same problem happens when doing a search that brings up a result linking to an article in an Ensign or a Liahona issue. The search result will not be accessible.

I already noticed this problem about a week ago or so. Since then the problem seems to become more and more prevalent. I just used the feedback form to contact website adminsitrators. The app however works as intended.

[sebastian.buck]

It seems that this issue is dependent on where you connect from. I tested it using connections from Los Angeles, Miami, London, Luxembourg, Amsterdam in The Netherlands, Poland, Austria, Oslo in Norway, Germany, and Malmo and Stockholm in Sweden.
Only connections made from Los Angeles will show lds.org without errors (including above mentioned URL). Connections made from all other locations will result in many missing pages and errors.

[Mikerowaved]

Your best option is to go to https://lds.org, and at the very bottom, click on the Feedback link and enter what you've noted above. They look at every feedback and appreciate learning about parts of their website that's misbehaving.

[sebastian.buck]

I have already done this.

But I would appreciate if people reading this thread would go to https://www.lds.org/ensign/2018?lang=eng (as an example) and check whether they see any content. If so it would be nice to know from what region they are connecting to lds.org.

[rmrichesjr]

That is an interesting looking page. I think there is at least one bug visible. When I go there, I see January through April on one row (but February is a blank gray box), May by itself on the right-hand end of a second row, a different May through August on a third row (but June through August are blank gray boxes), and September on a fourth row. There is also a fifth row with October as a blank gray box and December 'Early access article'. I'm accessing it using Firefox 60.2.1esr on Slackware 14.2 Linux from Oregon, USA (but I don't know where my ISP connects with other backbone-type entities). I sent feedback to provide another witness that something odd is going on.

[russellhltn]

I see about 5 links with gray boxes instead of a picture of the cover. A number of months seem to be duplicated. Examining the links indicates they are different, with a "se" added to the URL (se = special edition?) The covers seem to be different as well. Connecting from within the US on Edge.

[lajackson]

The page is messed up and needs to be fixed. They have not correctly dealt with the special items this year:
-- In Memoriam: President Thomas S. Monson
-- President Russell M. Nelson: Guided, Prepared, Committed

The calls to content are not being answered properly.

And the page itself does not load properly. Sometimes the covers are gray and blank. Sometimes the page does not load any content at all.

The Other Issues link points variously but not reliably to either 2018 (which is broken) or 2017 (which seems to be okay). Should it not be going to a selector page listing a choice of years?

They have either botched the html for the page or the css is trying to do something fancy and muffed it. Or else the content folks have changed something again and not told the display folks.

I am coming from the good old US of A with Firefox on Windows 10, but I think the site is the problem, not the asking location.

[sebastian.buck]

Thanks @rmrichesjr. And thanks @russellhltn.

If I connect from Los Angeles I see pretty much what @rmrichesjr is seing. Connecting from the other locations I mentioned I see no covers at all. Additionally all search results or other links linking to an Ensign article will be redirected to an error page.

The church is using CDN (content delivery networks) to host their websites and all media on them. Depending on your location your browser get served by servers nearest to you. But of course the content on all servers needs to be synchronized. If anything goes wrong people from different locations will see different results. The same can happen when Google updates its algorithm which is not done simultaneously on all of their servers.

@lajackson: Thanks to you as well. Different locations get indeed served different content. But so far I have only found connections made from the Los Angeles area to be able to see all or at least most content correctly.