I am back at last!

[Robin4]

I have had this really strange issue, and I think a few others here have had it too!

For the past 11 days I have not been able to log onto the community centre.

I was kept up to date.....each morning I was able to see all the latest posts but.....I could not respond! Each time I tried to 'sign in'  I would be directed to a general search page!.....Boy I have to tell you I have been invited to search listings in just about every  corner of the earth!

I noticed in one post that I was not the only one this was happening to, but everyone else seemed to have their log-on issue rectified fairly quickly.....but each time I have tried to log-in over that past 11 days, I have been re-directed to a search page

It seemed to stem from yet another useless system upgrade!

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I have to say this platform is simply outrageous for un-required upgrades. The best way I can describe it is ......You have a favourite restaurant, the food is great, you get looked after well, but every time you go there, the toilets have been moved to another location with no indication of where that location might be!!!!!

I haven't wet my pants yet, but the frustration I have had over the past 11 days has been palpable.....just the fact that I could not answer anything!

I firstly asked a couple of CC regulars who I have personal emails with to get onto @Lizzie , @Quincy , or @Stephanie to see if they could fix my issue but that met with failure, so I got onto CX and asked if they could resolve this issue.

Look, to put it in perspective, it's not life threatening, I have a few sites that I contribute too, and it was not going to be the end of the world as I know it if CC access was cut off.....but I wanted to know why!

Jona from CX said she would take care of it, and then promptly sent me a message saying that she was going to have a few days off.....great!

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Tonight I hope I have bypassed this last system upgrade and managed to get myself back on the Community Centre again. Why should I have to do this, I haven't done anything wrong!

Seriously, life was not meant to be this difficult, why do our Tech development team go out of their way to make our lives this difficult? 

Cheers..........Rob

[Robin4]

@Helen350 

Helen, I cheated....I Googled 'Airbnb error codes, images'  and those images came up for me and I was able to save each image to a file folder on my computer.

But Helen, the important thing is, I learned something, I learned that the information I was giving was indeed not correct........ you were.....thank you for that. Without your comment, I would not have investigated it further!

Now Helen, many times we see something on our screen that we think.....'wow I would like a personal copy of that'! 

What you do Helen is, 

1/......Press simultaneously the CTRL key on the bottom left of your keyboard with the PRTSC key on the top line of keys at the right hand end!

2/......Once you have done that open a new page on your desktop and click 'Word' and a new blank word document will open. 

3/......Right click your mouse and from the options box click 'Save as picture' and you will then be able to select your 'My pictures'  folder and then click 'save'......and  this picture of the screen you were looking at will then be saved for you to access at any time through your 'pictures' folder! Yours internet screen become a picture......ok!

If you want to get really tricky you can access that picture from your Pictures folder but, right click it and open in 'Paint'.....and from there you can crop the image down to a certain area or you can reduce the file size .....you can alter that initial picture to suit your purpose and then click 'Save' and your altered image will be saved!

If you then want to include that image in your text here on the CC just click the camera icon in the text box you are replying to and you will be asked where to find the image you wish to include. Go to the folder where you know the image is, click on the image and Helen, it will download into your text and be visible for the community to see. 

Believe me, the first time you do it, you will feel like a queen....and from that point it will become very ho-hum! 

Cheers.......Rob

[Sarah977]

@Robin4  Like @Helen350 I am also unclear on how to take a screen shot- i can do it in Firefox by going to my Firefox settings, but don't know how to do it in Chrome. You lost me at your step #2 above. Can you please explain what you mean by open a new page on your desktop? You mean a new tab? And where would one see "Word" to click on? 

You have to assume that we are total techno-dummies when explaining.

[Robin4]

@Sarah977  @Helen350 

Back again Wednesday morning 9.00 am and already the temp is in the 30's, good day to stay indoors today!

Yeah, instructions always seem to assume there will be a bit of local knowledge involved.

I will back track a bit and firstly say, I use PC, not Apple, and I am still using Windows 7. I am resisting the push to get me into something more recent. Having used Windows 10 at Meals On Wheels, I found it to be a 'dog' of an operating system, so I am sticking with the more user friendly Windows 7 as long as I possibly can. So let me try and be a bit more detailed.

I will include a couple screenshots  and some highlights (which we can go into later) as I go!

You want to take a picture of what you are seeing on your screen!

1/.....Simultaneously press the CTRL and the PRTSC keys. What this does, it copies what is on your screen! Here is the screen I am making a picture file from.

2/.....From the toolbar top right corner minimise that current screen you have just copied....don't close the screen, just minimise it, because if something doesn't work you may wish to come back to it and copy it again!

3/......Open a new Word screen (a new Word document), as though you are going to start a text letter. Instead of typing anything right click and from the options box hit ....'Paste' and your screen that you copied will now be on the Word document.

4/......Right click the image you have just pasted, and from the options box click 'Save as Picture' and in the save box at the bottom of the image, give the image a name that you wish to call it by and select where you want that image to be saved....My Pictures.....Sarahs Airbnb...Helens CC, and click save.

You have now saved that screen you copied as a PNG file, a portable networks graphic file!

You can now go back to that word document that you created in step 3 and you can discard it, you don't need it any longer so when you close that screen just click 'Don't Save' 

and your done. You now have your screenshot saved.

If you are interested in editing those screens the way I have here let me know and I will follow up with that!

Cheers........Rob 

[Helen350]

@Robin4 I'm having a panic attack! - You're still on Windows 7?! - I'm still on Windows Vista! No Chrome updates for years but still muddling along! 🙂

[Robin4]

@Helen350 

Oh my, I did use Vista, but wow, that was a long while ago! From memory I think Vista was released early in 2007 as the eagerly awaited replacement for Windows XP.

As I remember, it was a bit like the Airbnb site, it was prone to crashes and each week users were offered masses of 'patches'.....upgrades to get around bits of the operating system that didn't work. Gee this is sounding horribly familiar.

Vista went the way of Millennium (ME) and was quickly replaced in 2009 by Windows 7 which proved to be a much more stable operating system.

I keep on getting messages on my screen that Windows 7 is now a decade old and support for it is going to be withdrawn in January 2020.

Helen you have given me the most wonderful hope.....I might be able to get another decade out of '7' before it becomes totally unusable. 

Good on you, I love people who wrestle with Dinosaurs!!  ;-))  

And while I have your attention @Helen350  @Sarah977  @Stephanie  @Robin129  @Giuliana142 

Today is a stinker!!! by 11.00 am the temperature passed 42c . 

I had just taken Ade to the neighbouring town of Stirling for another of her bi-weekly girls lunches, and coming out of the car park I unfortunately did not have my dashcam turned on as I actually saw this happen...... so I had to content myself with a still of it!

This is the extent some people will go to, to collar a bit of shade on a hot day!

She didn't actually crash into it, as she came to it she just gave the post a nudge...and a not so gentle nudge because, the strain of the car against the sign was enough to spin her wheels!

Cheers.......Rob

[Sarah977]

@Robin4 Thanks for the screen shot explanation. I just bookmarked it so it'll be there when I need it.

I got a new laptop a few years ago, and my old one had Windows 7, which I was used to, and the new one had Windows 10. But my go-to computer guy gave me a crash course in how it differed, and I have to say, I found it pretty easy, though there are a few things that were easier to access in Windows 7. 

So today, as if I needed anymore site crashing, I got an "Aw, Snap" when  went to open Chrome. Took hours of time to Google what might be the problem and to find a fix- apparently Chrome "upgraded" recently and it causes compatibility issues- lots of similar reports online. So I guess the techies create problems with all their fiddling on other sites besides Airbnb 😞

[Robin4]

@Sarah977 

Same experience for me Sarah, Chrome would not load for a few hours! Seems ok today though!

Although I am using an older operating system, my hardware is really up to date. My current computer is a 26in 'all in one' Hewlett Packard complete with a 2 Terabyte Samsung solid state hard drive and high speed video card.

It's lightning fast..........as long as there is something out there to access!!!

This computer came with Windows 10 loaded on it and all this did was create problems for me. It was of course a 'touch screen',  which in itself, didn't particularly worry me, but I dumped that really quickly because I would be typing away on some lengthy epistle and the smallest little insect would come and settle on the screen and the work I was involved with would suddenly disappear! Murphy's Law says if an insect can settle on a sensitive part of the screen, it will, and it did.

As I was going through the process of having the touch screen disabled, I thought I might as well go back to the familiar territory of my Windows 7.....and that is where I remain today!!

Cheers......Rob

PS: @Sarah977 I had a free night tonight, nobody in the cottage. I was in the process of this post when this came through. Talk about an Instant Booking.........

At 5.10 pm I acknowledged their 5.04 pm reservation and at 5.21 pm precisely they knocked on the door. This would have to be the quickest advance notice in the history of Airbnb reservations, surely!

Cheers, again........Rob

[Giuliana142]

@Robin4 @Sarah977 @Helen350 @Stephanie @Robin129  Scorching temps at your end of the globe are probably the reason why we don’t have much snow in Toronto, Canada yet. The season seems to be a little warmer than usual this year. It could be a green Christmas here.

The word “Vista” sounded familiar. Then I remember it was my first PC way way back in the day  :). I remember I was very excited about it.  

[Robin129]

I am confused as I thought I responded but don't see it here. 

Anyway, @Robin4 that is some seriously hot weather. I'll comment again later. Hop all is well with you and your's. 🙂 

[Robin129]

A little late to the conversation. I was having log-in issues as well. I was thrown back to the home page for CC every time I tried to log-in. I used Chrome and Firefox, cleared cashe and history, all that stuff and still the log-in did not work. I could read posts and with a search found this thread and realized it wasn't just me. 

I don't know if it affected my listing account as I've had several days blocked for work/holiday things. But, no @Robin4 it isn't just you. 

Merry Christmas! 

[Robin4]

It's possibly safe to say by now that the Tech team have got on top of our CC Sign-in issues....

You know........ the ones they created but had no knowledge of! The ones they felt were not worth keeping CX up to date with, the ones they blamed on our computers and phone apps!

I feel so sorry for @Stephanie  @Quincy @Lizzie @Anna and the other moderators who had to clutch some sort of soothing answers out of the air because once again, the Tech team were  operating in their own little bubble where nothing else mattered except their design brief! 

Will we get an apology from them for their inept scripting.......no!

Will those users who have had their accounts compromised get any compensation or help.....no!

Will there be any strident attempts to make sure there is not a repeat of this.....no!

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Like all other Australian hosts, I had to go through that one month period last year between October 17th and November the 15th were none of us who used a bank account payout method got paid......32,000 unprocessed transactions!

Did we get an explanation.....no!

Did we get an apology.....no! 

Just business as usual once the payouts started coming thru again!

I wish there was a better option to Airbnb, I would use it in a heartbeat. As it is I have split my hosting business between Airbnb and Stayz! I didn't want to do that, it's a pain in the butt coordinating booking calendars between the two platforms, but,  Stayz have taken 42 nights out of my Airbnb booking calendar over the past year.

If the Tech team had just considered us dumb schmuck hosts in October last year I would never have launched myself onto another platform! I am not the looser, my nights are still booked......Airbnb are the losers, and they keep on sending me these inane emails telling me to open up nights that are blocked by confirmed bookings on another platform so that Airbnb can get a booking for those nights.......really!

Airbnb, if you had looked after me and kept me in the loop instead of treating me like a bloody mushroom......you would have had those nights, it's your fault they are blocked, not mine!

It really is time to reign in these R & D departments and start protecting the assets Airbnb have. I have lost count of the number of wonderful hosts since 2015 who have chucked in the Airbnb towel, they have had enough. 

I am here for the present, but, seriously, I am not going to take much more of this Sh*t!

Cheers......Rob

[Stephanie]

Hiya @Robin4 @Sarah977 et al,

Thanks for the reporting the issue. I have been advised that if this should occur again in the future, you should contact the CS team at your earliest convenience. 

Thanks

[Robin4]

@Stephanie 

Steph, thanks for your efforts, I truly know how much effort you guys put into making things run smoothly here, and it must have been like a 'mortal' blow to you when things like this showed up. 

Anyway, it's gone away, I think most of us have come through unscathed !

But please Steph, understand we feel no animosity towards you or any of the other moderators, we are annoyed that these little trials and tribulations are forced on us every now and then, but we thank you for your efforts in trying to get on top of them, and at least give us something to hang our hat on! 

Cheers.......Rob 

[Sarah977]

@Stephanie  Thanks so much for pinging these issues we raise over to those who have the power to work on them. I really appreciate you, Lizzie and Quincy. I just wish all the CS staff was as caring as you guys are 🙂

[Helen427]

Thanks @Stephanie  and team for all your behind the scenes efforts to keep us happy and connected