https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=27347

           Summary: Page formatting/CSS missing -  suspected GeoIP
                    correlation
           Product: Wikimedia
           Version: unspecified
          Platform: PC
        OS/Version: Windows XP
            Status: NEW
          Severity: normal
          Priority: Normal
         Component: General/Unknown
        AssignedTo: wikibugs-l@lists.wikimedia.org
        ReportedBy: me.mysel...@yahoo.com


Created attachment 8129
  --> https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/attachment.cgi?id=8129
screenshots in zip file

Recently (~ 2011.2.1), pages began being displayed without Wikipedia page
"template" formatting, normally delivered via CSS I suspect.

I found a high correlation between this symptom and blocking data transfer with
either of the GeoIP lookup servers by my firewall.  I.e., when I block
connections with the 2 following servers, this symptom appears.  When I suspend
the blocking, pages appear normally.

geoiplookup.wikipedia.org
geoiplookup.wikimedia.org

Screen shots of normal ("FormattingOK") and broken ("NoFormatting") page
renderings attached.

Both browser cache clearing, and server cache purging did not rectify the
problem.  This symptom may disappear during non-peak times (I haven't tested
for this), but is definitely happening now (afternoon, Pacific Time).

If this correlation indeed identifies the cause of the problem, it reveals a
bad website design, because blocking connections with non-content-oriented
servers, such as a GeoIP server, is and should be viewed as *entirely*
reasonable by a user (and sysadmins).  Such blocking should not break a
website.

BTW, this symptom appeared briefly about a couple of months ago (I think it
was), and then went away.  Was GeoIP being tested live then?

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