Why don't my "subscribed thread" e-mail links work?
 

I've been having troubles for many months with clicking on links that are e-mailed to me by the site-bot alerting to new posts on a thread to which I've posted. When clicked upon, the links show as unreachable with a "Page cannot be found" message as an http 404 error.

Here's an example of one such link I received: http://216.7.163.99/~speedon/forums/...4&goto=newpost

If I take the suggestion of the error-report browser page and click on the auto-suggested link reading http://216.7.163.99 , I reach a "cpanel" page that says there is no web site at that address. I assume that's done on purpose to discourage apprentice-level hackers.

My incoming e-mail is handled by my company's Exchange server (Exchange 2000, IIRC).

I have more than one computer that I can use (several WinXP and one WinME), all using Outlook 2000, which all behave the same way regarding these e-mailed links. So, I don't think it is related to a specific computer configuration or OS corruption. However, they all use the same corporate router and ISP for internet access. DNS trouble somewhere?

Here's a WHOIS lookup for the IP address that the link provides:
216.7.163.99
Record Type: IP Address

VONOC VONOC-05 (NET-216-7-160-0-1)
216.7.160.0 - 216.7.191.255
VONOC Services VONOC-216-7-160-0-22 (NET-216-7-160-0-2)
216.7.160.0 - 216.7.163.255



It's seems similar to, but not the same as, the one for 6speedonline:
216.7.173.212
Record Type: IP Address

VONOC VONOC-05 (NET-216-7-160-0-1)
216.7.160.0 - 216.7.191.255
Narayan Shankar, 6speedonline VONOC-216-7-173-208-28 (NET-216-7-173-208-1)
216.7.173.208 - 216.7.173.223


Anybody else have this trouble and know how to FIX IT?

I'm having a related problem. I no longer receive email alerts when I have a PM. Anybody else experiencing this? Any fix?

They said its been turned off, because many emails were bounced back from people having dead accounts, its to bad I think that brought extra traffic to the board.

The e-mailed links don't work for me at all.

Thanks for the research.

I was playing around earlier clicking on some hot links on this site and found a number of them that have the same prefix (http://216.7.163.99) as the failed e-mailed links. A number of them failed to produce results in the same way as the e-mail links, but ... some of them produced the desired result.

If I edit my browser address window to substitute "www.6speedonline.com" for "216.7.163.99" in the link address string, it fails in the same way. So, I can't say what is going on, but since some links configured with the 216.7.163.99 IP address work OK, it must have something to do with how vbulletin is issuing and responding to these internally generated links.

Or something .......:confused:

Maybe it depends on cookie configuration?

It is a pain as if you are involved in many threads you are not sure what is active. And you don't know about PM's.

Ryan can you answer this for Mike ? I have no clue ?

Ryan PMed me a while ago and is aware of the problem.

Thanks, Ryan.

The PM email alert should also be fixed...and while you're at it, the forum clock is off by half a day!!!