It seems that of late a number of successful community web sites have been experiencing problems in scalability and performance. Today it’s Facebook.

Initially I got a “Problem loading page” browser message. No big deal, you get those. A few refreshes and I’m in. I was trying to send a message, I got the following popup error message.

No Network
Transport error (#1001) while retrieving data from endpoint `/inbox/ajax/ajax.php': A network error occurred. Check that you are connected to the internet.

Well yes, I’m connected to the Internet, every other site is fine. A more technical look gives the lovely connection aborted message.

lynx http://facebook.com

Looking up facebook.com
Making HTTP connection to facebook.com
Sending HTTP request.
HTTP request sent; waiting for response.
HTTP/1.1 302 Found
Data transfer complete
HTTP/1.1 302 Found
Using http://www.facebook.com/common/browser.php
Looking up www.facebook.com
Making HTTP connection to www.facebook.com
Sending HTTP request.
HTTP request sent; waiting for response.
Retrying as HTTP0 request.
Looking up www.facebook.com
Making HTTP connection to www.facebook.com
Sending HTTP request.
HTTP request sent; waiting for response.
Alert!: Unexpected network read error; connection aborted.
Can't Access `http://www.facebook.com/common/browser.php'
Alert!: Unable to access document.

lynx: Can't access startfile