Post your tech glitches, errors, issues, etc. here.

I agree with most of the posts here. Design-wise, it is lovely. However, it is not very "user-friendly". Especially the consistent white background. It is hard to follow the conversations and see different topics. I just now noticed the small "NEW" text on the computer version. Very hard to read - needs a flag or something like before. I still have not found a way to log in as myself on the mobile version. You know what they way about opinions, right? It's like something else that everyone has.

But seriously, everyone's a critic, but the redesign is not easy to look at from our point of view.

Of course there are numerous issues. Remember when people tried to sign on to Obama Care or register for vaccinations or vote? Those are essential services and worthy of this level of frustration. BCO, as valuable as it is to some, is not a right. Not an essential service. I am confident it will all come together eventually. Take a break from these forums. If this creates so much frustration, perhaps these boards have become way too important. Just like the advise we offer others, do something else and distract yourself with fun activities. No one is more motivated than BCO to fix this. Recommendations are great. Then let them fix it.

With the load times being so slow, it gives a whole new meaning to aging in place.

Edited to add: just saw the Mods response. Sorry, this should not have been a soft launch. Experience from past changes should have taught BCO that.

tb90 - If you read carefully these posts have differences in the issues/glitches encountered. During a “soft launch" is when people need to report issues. Sure there will be overlap. Unfortunately these issues indicate they launched prematurely. Also there's a huge difference in complexity between a discussion forum and websites requiring PII. Don’t compare them.

Alice - My guess is the errors could be due to timeout errors. I often copy my post before submitting even before these latest changes.

Hey, I was able to change the size of the photo! This capability was lost long ago during a prior update. Glad to see it back. Please don’t lose it again. 👍

The site's speed brings me back memories of dial up internet time

While well intentioned, the new forum layout has some serious drawbacks. A white background does make it easier to read the text, but there is way too much white space partitioning the fields. It's as if it was designed for a large print format, but the designers forgot to increase the text size.

Above is a screen shot of the Active Topics page. The buffer column is enormous (see red notations). The most important field - the Topics list - is limited to about 2/3 of the screen. Ideally, the Topics field should be closer to 3/4 of the screen. The buffer column needs to be reduced to about a quarter of its current width. If the ad can be reduced in size to let the menu field be narrowed, even better. As you can see above (blue notations), the menu options barely use half the width of the menu field.

Here is a screen capture from one of the forums. The menu, buffer, and user columns take up so much space, the actual posts take up less than half the screen. Some posts even run off the edge of the screen. Again, please reduce the widths of the menu and buffer columns, so the most important elements on the screen take up the most space.

Also, I'm not sure why, with the sparse layout, but the pages are taking a really long time to load. I hope the glitches will be worked out easily. I know you put in a lot of effort to offer a new look. Thanks!

Note: These screen captures came from viewing on a laptop device.

WORKAROUND: Login

In the Active Topics page (I have it bookmarked), click on any username. That will open the login page.

Once credentials are validated, the Announcements page displays. You may peruse it or reopen bookmarked Active Topics page or in the upper right of your screen, click the menu icon. You should see links to all, active, and fave topics.

ETA - Argh, usernames don’t show on my phone in Active Topics page. Well, you get the workaround you pay for!

Current site is not letting me edit my current treatments or change settings for which treatments are public or private. It has also reset to some previous point in time & not showing changes I made in the past couple weeks

Also, it takes about a minute for my posts to submit when previously it took only a second, and a smaller issue...my username is now in lower case when it should be upper case.

I understand that this is a "soft" launch. But I am concerned for the individuals whom have never accessed BCO and need support as this roll out is exceedingly difficult to navigate. There should have been some level of user testing. It appears there was none at all. I am hoping the responsiveness increases within a day or two.

I’m using Safari on an iPad Air os 15.3.1

Visually it would help if the signatures on each post was slightlyindented and a different font than the post.

I've been a software developer and now architect for 26 years. A few thoughts:

1. This is not a soft launch, or beta test, as all users were directed to the new site and have no option to revert to the old format.
2. If at all possible (and it should be, as it is standard in the world of software these days), revert to the old site. This launch was clearly premature. I realize the work was most likely performed by a consultancy that was cheap and had a deadline to meet and that's why the site looks and functions the way it does, but this needs to be dealt with immediately. A very important part of a software redesign or replacement is thorough user testing before launch.
3. Work on the issues listed in this thread in priority order (by most often noted). Once these are corrected do a true soft launch for a volunteer group of users and get feedback before attempting a full site launch again.

I second everything Beesie said above. I'm no computer person and had never heard of a "soft launch" so I looked it up yesterday when that comment by the moderators showed up. This does not fit any definition that I read. This is just a mess. Also that "hope you're enjoying the new look and feel ..." comment is not anything that should show up here.

Summerangel's comments are very helpful too. Again, I know nothing about computers, but everything in her post sounds sensible to me. Please switch back to the old system and get a new company to design this if you think you really have to redesign it.

Like Miriandra, I too have been looking at this on a laptop and it is all skewed to the right on my screen. Huge empty white area off to the left. The background and type are awful. I'm already dealing with extremely dry, itchy, and bad eyes thanks to Letrozole. This does not make my eye problems any easier. I said something before about the "designers" of this mess not seeming to realize just who the target audience is here and some of the limitations that some of us have. I'm sorry to be so negative and "not nice" here, but this is just an abomination.

If you must redesign the site, although the old one seemed just fine to me, please put more thought, time, money, and testing into the project. If I had just been diagnosed and just come across this site, I would totally disregard it and look elsewhere for support.

Well, I got several "access denied" again before I could even get to this point where I could comment and I'm going to copy my post because I'm sure the submission will take a lot of time and I'll think it's going to be lost.