Is UKTS Down

Hi,
UKTS has been down all evening - AGAIN!!
It seems to happening once a month, but this time, the Open Rails site is still available - hope I haven't put the kybosh on to it!!

Cheers,
Ged

OOPS!! Spoke too soon! It's back at 22:10

Here we go again, from Norton's report:
Web sites prove their identity via certificates, which are valid for a set time period. The certificate for www.uktrainsim.com expired on 01/10/2022.

Error code: SEC_ERROR_EXPIRED_CERTIFICATE
Jonathan

Hi Jonathan
Although I get the 'unsafe' message, the site, downloads and Forum, can be accessed without further problem (10:50)

Cheers,
Ged

Yes, the only unusual thing is that my user name and password do not come up automatically. Probably courtesy of Norton.
Not a problem.
I assume that the certificate is only being renewed a month at a time.
Jonathan

Hi Jonathan,
No, the user name and password hasn't been coming up for a very long time, and, since I don't have it, it's nothing to do with Norton!!

Cheers,
Ged

I note that the "certificate" warning now comes up for both the main site and the forums!
How many more nails before the coffin is permanently closed!

Hi,
I now get the message "This site can't be reached" !!
It was OK earlier this afternoon, but I don't think I've seen this message before - it looks ominous

Cheers,
Ged

Oh dear! I too visited earlier today, and now get the same message! Is that Elgar's "Nimrod" I hear?

slipperman12 wrote:Hi,
I now get the message "This site can't be reached" !!
It was OK earlier this afternoon, but I don't think I've seen this message before - it looks ominous

Cheers,
Ged

I got the "this site refused to connect" message on Saturday afternoon, bit the site was back up again that night and all of Sunday. I'm now seeing it again, so it could just be a temporary issue that will come right again if we give it time.

Adrian.

Hi all.
Has there ever been anything official, saying UKTS will close? I mean there are a lot of files on the site as well of lots of information. Just seems all the UKTS members are being told hardly anything. Most sites give a date and time if closing, so maybe this could be a good thing. There is a lot of speculation about the future of UKTS. Really hope something changes with the owners of the site to continue for the foreseeable!

Thanks

I'm now getting "site refuses to connect", that's a new one on me.

Hi all

UKTS forum and home page back up for me 10.00pm 7 11 2022

TW

I'm getting a security warning message, but if I bypass that the site opens normally.

Markh5682 wrote:I'm getting a security warning message, but if I bypass that the site opens normally.

Same here

Hi All,
Yesterday, Peter Peddlesden posted a reply in the UKTS Site Admin Queries Forum of the site regarding its current state.

Cheers,
Ged

Hi All,
UKTS has gone down this evening showing the message "Too many connections".

Maybe everybody's downloading what they don't have!!

Cheers,
Ged

Hi
I can confirm seeing the same as Ged. Also it appears Elvastower website is down as well with "Internal Server Error".

Thanks

I am seeing the same on my end too.

Same for me. Which is frustrating as I was intending to do some downloading for backups after having just taken out a premium subscription for that purpose.
Oh well, I hope that it's back up soon...

Justin

From recent experience (up in fact to the time the site went down), there have mostly been only four or five non-premium people downloading at once, sioetimes up to ten with a queue of two but not often and not yesterday. So I suspect a server problem.
I was getting on nicely downloading and archiving files for future use.
Jonathan

It's back up now  ( 1612 GMT )

Good to see it is back up, now back to downloading the things i want, haha.

The site is down for me again, getting timed out errors. May be only on my end though considering i've had internet issues all day.

I am having the same issue.
I was in the middle of a massive download session when it just dropped out.
Hopefully it comes back soon, it has been out for just over an hour.

Justin

Looks like it is back up and running. 17:04JST

Forgot to add though that it is taking ages for anything to load, though that could also just be a me problem.

"The site took too long to respond" at 08.45 GMT.
I was downloading happily last evening and only about four or five others downloading at the time.
Jonathan
Back up 5 minutes later

Hi All,
UKTS seems to have been down all day - hope they haven't jumped the gun - I've paid until May!!

Ged

Hi Ged.

Both the main site and the forums give me "This site can’t be reached".

Regards,

Bob.

Also, I've found that when UKTS goes down it takes the main Open Rails site with it, as I believe the main OR site is 'piggy-backed' off UKTS. I hope the OR team can get a new site up and running before UKTS closes.

Still "can't be reached" at 10:15 am!

I'm getting     An error has occurred.....Error 1040- Too many connections, and I dont even know what it means?

Hi All,
10:26 - UKTS is alive again!! (But for how long?)
Open Rails also.

Ged

Oh dear!!
Went down again yesterday and still down today at 11:15!! ("Too many connections" - maybe one is too many!!)

Ged

. . . and still not available!

This is bad timing - Just bought the Thames-Mersey route and I wanted to check if there were any updates and bugfixes available. Also wanted to use my one month's free membership to download a few things!  

Hi Nick,
You've probably already found out, but UKTS is alive again!

As far as I know, there have not been any patches or bug fixes for the CD v4.3 of Thames - Mersey.
However, I do have a distant memory of a problem at one of the stations. Unfortunately, I didn't make a note of it and forget the details. I've had a look on the Forum, but can't find it.

Cheers,
Ged

Many thanks Ged. you're quite right in that there aren't any patches etc needed for version. 4.3. Btw I had the same "invalid path" message for act 10 that I had previously on the LSE route and we'd discussed. Turned out to be the loco headboard that my OR didn't like.

Hi,
Just to tidy this up ( a bit) and offer my apologies to the creator of the Thames - Mersey route!

I believe the problem I referred to was with the North West England route, but I still can't recall the details.

Cheers,
Ged

Hi All,

If anyone is curious, I have managed to make a downloaded backup of UKTS in its current state (as of 03/06/2023).
The backup is 5.72Gb in size and is about 90% functional. The site search does not work, nor does changing the site between simulators.

I have also created from the downloadable complete file listing file a searchable database so that I can find files from authors for uploading if they so choose after UKTS closes.

The website backup took about 20 attempts to get to work fully, which then to about 5 days to download and about 10 hours for the program that I used to make the site nearly fully functional.
Obviously ceratin things glitch out because of it not being a live website, but for the most part, it is operational.

Regards,
Justin

Blimey Justin you have been busy, where have you put that massive 5gb

Hi Craig,

At the moment it is sitting on my 2Tb SSD main computer hard drive.
I will eventually look at getting it into my personal 2Tb Dropbox account.

The program and computer were running for almost 6 days straight to get it downloaded whilst I was at work.


We have a long weekend coming up soon, so I will probably use that time to double check all the UKTS files that I have for any missing downloads.
Justin

Wow thats a long time to get everything, good job broadband is almost un restricted now a days, no matter what I have downloaded no doubt I would have missed something.

Cheers Craig

Hi Justin,
It's great that you've been able to achieve that, but 5.72GB seems a bit low, unless the site is super-compacted, or I've missed something!

I base this comment on a folder I have which contains all the stock (no routes, scenery or activities) I've downloaded from UKTS. They are in their original state (ie not unpacked) - 5313 files taking up 31.3GB.

Cheers,
Ged

Hi Ged,

That figure is for the web pages and images only, not including the actual file library.
Basically it's what the main shell of the site is, all the pages (HTML files), all the graphics (jpg, png, etc), all the coding (css) to get the pages to display.
All the actual files that we use (zip, exe, rar, etc) are not included in that total.

All up I would guess (I don't have an accurate figure as I haven't downloaded every single file) the full site size would be closer to 50-60Gb.

Justin

Thanks, mate. I understand now, but how will it benefit the Community if the file library is not included?

Based on the library list I downloaded last month, there appear to be just above 14,500 MSTS/ORTS files in the library of which I currently have a total of about 7,500.

Cheers,
Ged

Hi Ged,

It is a bit difficult for me to express in words (mental issues on my end, I don’t really talk much with anybody on a day-to-day basis and this has left me with quite a stunted communication ability. I can do my work in a customer facing capacity perfectly fine, but on a personal level, or anything “off script” I just clam up and walk away) how this will benefit the community without it being actually available for release or use as I don’t have permission to release the files.

For starters, it will enable an upgrade to the TSSH file hosting site as all the info for the file pages are present. So, for example, in the future, if the website were to be upgrade to individual pages for each file (how UKTS is set up) all the information is there enabling the site to be rebuilt quicker. The descriptions and any linked files are listed and easily referenced so that the site rebuild could be done quicker.

Another example would be if an author gets in contact after UKTS closes. With the site backed up it will be easy to located the authors files and get them uploaded to TSSHFH, rather than relying on the author to provide all their files. I have almost all of the MSTS and OR files from UKTS as I have found out that possibly more than 500 are missing due to the way that UKTS has certain files hidden as their information was not filled in correctly or UKTS has deleted their category for whatever reason. I intend to get those downloaded over the coming June long weekend if I can.

According to the file list from UKTS there is approximately 1382 files that do not have a “class” entered in their details which prevents the files from showing up in any category on the site. There will be a chunk of these that are MSTS related. Once the missing files have been downloaded, any author can come forward at any point and get their file put up on TSSHFH even if they are missing their files themselves.

Stepping further into the future, if there is someone (or a group) who is more capable and competent at web hosting and wants to help out running the forum or site, having UKTS backed up and the file library available means that things can keep going beyond what I can achieve. Throughout all of my life I have been seen/used as a stop gap measure until someone/something better comes along and does what I can, but better. I full accept this and know that one day I will be replaced by someone who is better and more capable of running and hosting the forum and file hosting site. All I can hope is to set up a solid ground work and have enough resources at hand so that whatever the create can go on to be better than what I do.

I should say that I am not giving up on what I have created, or what plans I have going forward. I will put all of my support into TSSH and keeping the legacy that I have started going. But if someone creates something better and people choose to switch to that, then I won’t stand in anybody’s way. Also, if some wants to step in and take over the TSSH operations and there is a majority of people wanting the takeover, again I won’t stop it (not that this is happening at all, I am just saying a big IF for the future, as there is no way of knowing what may happen). I will be there to support whatever the future may hold for TSSH, be it with me at the helm or someone else.

I hope that this ramble sort of makes sense…

Regards,
Justin

Hi Justin,
Many thanks for taking the time to post the full explanation - it certainly makes sense

I downloaded the UKTS file list in February and, because I'm not interested in the other sims, I extracted the lines relevant to MSTS, Open Rails, Not Specific Sim and any which didn't specify.
Of those, 296 have a blank Class field and a further 73 where I don't think the entry is very helpful! Also, there are 150 where the File Type is not entered BUT these also have a blank Class field and are included in the 296.

If I can be of any help, please let me know.

Cheers,
Ged

Hi All,
When it was announced that UKTS was to close it’s website I decided to download the entire library, stock, routes , activities and all other sundry files, for both MSTS and OR and these files are now on my computers.

For information the size of the combined files are as follows:-

MSTS
Size 79.9 GB
Folders 1,795
Files 17,582

Open Rails
Size 9.49 GB
Folders 118
Files 257

At the time that I made my decision to download it was unclear whether any of the UKTS library would still be available in the future. It is good to see that so many contributors have rallied round and are supporting Justin’s endeavours to keep a download platform and forum still available. Well done and thank you Justin, contributors and all others who are supporting TSSH.
All the best for now
Terry W.

Hi All,
UKTS and the Open Rails site have gone down this evening!

Maybe the heat has got to them!!

Cheers,
Ged