W3C Validator hosed? Anybody else getting banned from the Validator during normal use? I keep getting a “503 Service Temporarily Unavailable.” I visit the site, click “Validate by File Upload,” select a file, click “Check” and then I’m told to retry in 11, 18, 30, 43, etc, seconds. When I do get through all the images are 503ing as well.
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Wouldn’t you know it, as soon as I mention something…
Why would you post something like this to your blog, anyway? I’m sorry, but I’m kinda close to unsubscribing because of stuff like this. This seems more like a conversation you’d start with a colleague…
I’ve noticed that as well recently. It’s frustrating that such an important tool that so many rely on would crap out so often. It’s nice to know it’s not just happening to me.
Brent (and anyone else who feels similarly), please do unsubscribe. Nobody’s twisting your arm. I’m sorry my personal site isn’t churning out constant industry news, how to’s and freebies. I posted this because I thought I remembered seeing rumblings of similar problems elsewhere but couldn’t find them at the time of posting. Based on Meagan’s comment I’m not alone in experiencing this issue.
They’re probably just having too much resources being used because of the validation tools. I’m sure if you just don’t refresh as often as you normally would it would be okay (: Think before you F5!
Exact same thing happened to me the first time I tried it the other day. And it has happened everyday since without fail. I have not had it work even once since the “upgrade”.
How many years did it take to work the bugs of the orignal validator? Hopefully there are enough volunteers that know what they are doing to get things straightened out right quick.
W3C has not been in my best graces for at least 3-years, and I suspect there are several others who concur.
PS—Please keep serving up what ever you see fit Mr. Inman. Your site is your site.
Mackenzie, that’s obvious (good) advice but I wasn’t refreshing. This happened on my first attempt to upload a file.
I think their bandwidth limiter might still be optimized for the previous design which used fewer images (or it could just be misconfigured). The extra image requests probably aren’t being differentiated from actual page requests and after loading two pages within six seconds of each other (which is completely reasonable usage given validator workflow: 1. visit page to upload file or enter url, 2. submit to new page with validation results) you’re temporarily banned.