Hi,
Since Thursday, or at least that's when I first noticed, my website has been loading really slowly, and sometimes not at all. Initially I thought it was the issue with the UNSO but that appears to be back up and running normally now but there's no change to my website
www.westerhopeweather.co.uk.
I'm running Ken's Saratoga Template which has been fine since installing it back in March. The website is hosted by GoDadday on a linux shared server.
When the website eventually loads there's a message on the Ajax dashboard that displays where the METAR current conditions should be that states:
unable to load EGNT data RC=
This morning I've managed to undertake some basic troubleshooting which I think has narrowed it down to the tgftp.nws.noaa.gov website where the METAR data is downloaded from.
I've deleted the cached METAR data and its not recreating the cache files. I've manually created a cached file with data from tgftp.nws.noaa.gov and that allowed the website to load a bit quicker but it was still slow compared to normal.
I've checked the version of get-meter-conditions-inc.php and it's the latest Version 1.4.
I know I've made quite a few customisations to the templates so I've also backed up and wiped the website and loaded a complete fresh Saratoga Template and that also had the same issue so I've reloaded the original website back on.
I've accessed the web server via SHH and tried pinging tgftp.nws.noaa.gov but that just returned
ping: unknown host tgftp.nws.noaa.gov
I've also tried changing the host in the get-meter-conditions-inc.php from tgftp.nws.noaa.gov to the IP address 140.172.138.79 but that also failed to work and using the IP address in the browser gives an Internal Server Error.
I've also tried a DNS Lookup through cpanel but that also fails with the following error data:
<<>> DiG 9.8.2rc1-RedHat-9.8.2-0.62.rc1.el6_9.2 <<>> tgftp.nws.noaa.gov
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: SERVFAIL, id: 32252
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 0, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0
;; QUESTION SECTION:
;tgftp.nws.noaa.gov. IN A
;; Query time: 5879 msec
;; SERVER: 188.121.43.232#53(188.121.43.232)
;; WHEN: Sat Aug 5 11:15:06 2017
;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 36
Which to me looks like there's a DNS issue on the GoDaddy side of things as I can access the tgftp.nws.noaa.gov site from my computer at home fine and also download the METAR text files.
I've contacted GoDaddy support by phone but they weren't that helpful saying there's nothing they can do with a DNS issue as it's outside their server and they suggested I check the code thoroughly on the website to make sure it's correct. He did confirm however that he was having intermittent access issues to the tgftp.nws.noaa.gov site.
Looking around the various sites using the Saratoga Template it looks like it's a isolated occurrence with my site but I'm now at a loss of what I can do next to resolve it.
My only thought if there's another site that also has the METAR in text files that can be downloaded via http, but my searches so far have been fruitless.
Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
Apologies for the long post but thought it worth going over everything I've done to date to try and resolve it and thanks for getting this far if you're still reading.
Thanks
Simon