Telstra (?) Technical Problems Part IV

[aggienaut]

Presumably the above is an image of a broken bridge. I don't know, I can't see it. I had to go into the source coding of the flickr page it should have appeared on to get the URL.

Five days ago I went to load up a page of flickr full of little thumbnails and after a few loaded the rest borked out and Telstra informed me that I was out of data. Hijinks ensued because, though the main Telstra pages still load even when you're out of data, the RECHARGE page wouldn't load, which I found extremely inconvenient. But their live chat function did so first I talked to a thoroughly unhelpful little gremlin named Mario, but then got transferred to a spectacularly helpful person named Scarlette who was a pleasure to talk to and very willing to think outside the box to come up with solutions to my problems -- the recharge page not loading turned out to be the least of them -- apparently Telstra has flagged BOTH my US and Australian credit cards as involved in fraudulent activity and even if I get the banks to confirm nothing fishy is afoot it would still take Telstra a month to unflag them! But Scarlette magicked me enough random bonus credit to get to my bank's website from where I could purchase a telstra recharge voucher from my bank and thus Telstra could go on avoiding looking my cards in the eye. d:

And so I was back in business. ...except for one thing. That flickr page never DID load. And ever since then, about 80% of all recent images from flickr have not been loading. At first I thought it was a problem that would sort itself out either between Telstra realizing that I have data now or maybe flickr was having a problem. But now it's five days later, I'd like to be able to use flickr but it's next to impossible when it won't show me most things I upload there. I doubt it's on flickr's end of things, but we can check that real easily: can you see this image??

My hypothesis, given that it's basically just not delivering to me data from the same origin (specifically, several of the subdirectories of farm9.staticflickr.com) as the data it refused to send me when my account ran out of data credit, is that there's some stop order in the telstra system which never got cleared. That hypothesis seems a bit out there to me but its all I can think of given that it doesn't seem like a problem on flickr's end.

I just dealt with another of the thoroughly unhelpful variety of people from Telstra live help chat. He first suggested I unplug the broadband device, but changed his mind when I reminded him that that would, obviously, end our chat. The conversation also included such gems as:
Jayzel: The Flickr website is not from Telstra.
Kris: yes
Kris: but basically Telstra's delivery of data from flickr continues to seem to be frozen in the condition it was when I was out of data
Jayzel: The internet connection would be supplied by Telstra.
Kris: yes
   Thank you captain obvious. Clearly from my mention of "Telstra's delivery of data" I was thinking it all came courtesy of Keloggs. He also helpfully noted that I am currently not out of data.

   Anyway, I am not really a terribly great necromancer of the dark magicks of internet voodoo and computer sorcery, but I know some of you are, so any suggestions????

Comments

[sdaisyk.livejournal.com]

I see both pictures.

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Yeah I'm pretty sure it's not on flickr's end. They're pretty good about putting up an explanation if anything is down for more than a minute, much less five days.

The guy I was chatting with I'm pretty sure didn't know anything about anything. I'm not nowhere near being a computer whiz but it seems to me that if the problem isn't at the source, and information from the source is getting to other people fine, the problem must be with the pipeline it's coming to me on.,

[sdaisyk.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately I'm clueless about all that, but I have a feeling you are right. It's just a matter of finding the one person at the company who understands what you are trying to tell them.

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

He did suggest I call technical support and say the word "fault," which apparently is the magic word to conjure them up? But I guess he's just a chat-monkey and the guys with ponytails who actually know how to plug things in can be thus conjured. I'll try them tomorrow.

So far though every other person Iv'e talked to at Telstra has been really helpful ... and the other every other one has been useless.

[sdaisyk.livejournal.com]

It's like that where I work (cashier's office at a community college with multiple campuses). We often get people who received incorrect information or have managed to find the incompetent ones for over a month. I sometimes worry when I hear my coworkers talking to students but have to refrain from butting in if it isn't major (I get evil looks when I do that). Problem is, no matter what else I'm doing, as the one person who Knows Stuff, I too often get pulled into issues.

Hopefully the magic word helps you get this figured out.

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Yeah that always sucks, when you know the answer to something but don't want to step on the toes of the person being asked d:

[millysdaughter.livejournal.com]

I have to "click" to see the second picture, but both come in for me. So the problem is not LJ, either.

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

You mean click the link? Yeah that's how it should be. Yeah I didn't think it was on the flickr/lj end. I have incomprehensible problems with Telstra once a week it seems!

Seems to be fixed now though

[nightspore.livejournal.com]

Yes, I can see it on flickr.

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Yeah I didn't think it was on the flickr/lj end. I have incomprehensible problems with Telstra once a week it seems!

Seems to be fixed now though

[beki.livejournal.com]

I see the pictures just fine on my phone. Sounds like they need to kick you on up to tier 2 or 3. Sounds like tier one reads from a script and does not deviate from it.

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Possibly. I'm trying to remember if the first extremely helpful person I dealt with was someone I'd gotten kicked up to. Scarlette had been. I just need to come up with the most effective way to quickly and efficiently befuddle the tier 1 person I get next time!

[beeker121.livejournal.com]

Yes I can see both pictures, and also, they're nifty. Sadly I don't have any cool advice for making things work, it seems to me you've got the right idea of the problem, now you just need to talk to a tech support person who actually knows what they're doing.

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

randomly sorted itself out. Random!

[halfmoon-mollie.livejournal.com]

I see both pictures, as well. And for my computer problems, I ask my brother.

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Yeah my brother has pretty strong computer voodoo skills too.