Missionary Online Recommendation System loading forever - unavailable?

Whenever I go to the Missionary Online Recommendation System, whether from the clerk computer, from either of my home computers, or from work, I just get a never ending loading page and nothing ever happens. It doesn't time out eventually, it just continually loads nothing forever.

I got an email today with the link as http://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/mss but that redirects to https://missionaryrecommendations.churc ... endations/ which has the problem.
Signing in first to the www.churchofjesuschrist.org website and then clicking Missionary Online Recommendation from applications also causes the same issue.

Hmm... I tried an incognito window and didn't have the problem. Somehow this must be caused by a cookie.

I started deleting cookies one by one and refreshing, and eventually it was a cookie called AMCV_something that caused the issue (not AMCVS_, but AMCV_).

Seems like a bug. A cookie shouldn't cause the site to not work.

Thanks for doing some research and troubleshooting. We commonly recommend what you did to others as a solution. And yes, cookies will cause a problem for websites - especially TLS (SSL) encrypted sites. For some reason the church websites are not replacing old cookies on some browsers after an update to the site/page.

Most people will not have the ability to know how to even clear cookies, much less troubleshoot the way I did. Please pass on that it was that particular cookie at fault. Also, the fact that it happened on four different systems of mine seems to indicate that it may have to do with the authentication process not working correctly in relation to that cookie. If I had more information that would help I'd send it along. When I get home I'll try deleting just that one cookie first and see if it solves it and report back.

danielgibby wrote:Most people will not have the ability to know how to even clear cookies, much less troubleshoot the way I did. Please pass on that it was that particular cookie at fault. Also, the fact that it happened on four different systems of mine seems to indicate that it may have to do with the authentication process not working correctly in relation to that cookie. If I had more information that would help I'd send it along. When I get home I'll try deleting just that one cookie first and see if it solves it and report back.

Pass on to whom? We are users, the same as you.

When jdlessley said:

We commonly recommend what you did to others as a solution.

I guessed that they were someone at the church who is monitoring these posts, and I replied to them.

If not, hopefully someone at the church will see these posts and understand they have a problem. There is no feedback link on that application. I suppose I can open a generic feedback ticket at the main church website or call tech support, but generally the people I've dealt with in both situations are volunteers who are not the developers and don't understand what I'm talking about. Sometimes they pass on the information and things get fixed.

The we I was speaking of are those of us who have been around for a while, have technology experience, and have followed the progress of technology in the church. Many of us are now moderators and admins on the Tech Forum. All of us are volunteers with the exception of a few. Some are identified with the church employee badge avatar. The few employees without the badge avatar prefer to remain anonymous.

danielgibby wrote:I suppose I can open a generic feedback ticket at the main church website

That's really the only reliable way to pass on information like this. Although there is a developer or two who occasionally visit the forums that's just at their own initiative and they may or may not see any given post and if they do they may or not have time to pass it to the responsible group. Feedback is routed (by volunteers) to the appropriate group and it will get there.

I submitted feedback through the main church website.

If some of you are church employees, please pass this information on. For the rest of you who aren't, you can better assume now that there are hopefully some who have the ability to pass it on and make this forum more helpful than just a place to talk about problems and figure out workarounds.


The main focus of this forum should be to point people to accurate help or information, so if it is just people talking about things and not doing things about problems than that isn't near as helpful as it could be.

Most people who are affected by church technology problems don't know about this forum, and they won't Google to find answers to their problems either. If they do, most Google results won't help them find an answer in this forum or elsewhere, so I'm hoping to make sure that someone somewhere will do something about this particular problem, and if they do Google this particular problem they'll see this post and clear their cookies.


I've used the forum in the past a few times when I was new at various callings or when I've ran into problems, and generally I find outdated information, a wide range of opinions that contradict each other, and a little help once you get through the weeds. I've also seen (again today) some people treat people who don't know about the forum with a little disrespect for some reason, whether intentionally or not.

Let me sum up, the more helpful you can be, the better.

We work with what we have. And in this case, you were given accurate information about where to report the problem.

I came here curious to see if others had reported the problem. Since I saw none, I reported it. I figured out how to fix the problem and also reported that. Someone also replied and said how to fix it.
But us figuring this out doesn't solve the problem for anyone else unless they happen to come here and know how to delete cookies.

We work with what we have.

It is good to ask things from others and to hope that they can help others. If what you are saying is that people should be expected to not improve, I disagree. I'm not offended or something, but I did expect better than I've seen of a couple of the people who responded so far. Two have been helpful and two sort of haven't. What is the point of responding if you aren't going to be helpful?

danielgibby wrote:What is the point of responding if you aren't going to be helpful?

There appears to be a misunderstanding as to the purpose and charter of the Tech Forum. The Forum is user-to-user help and support. There is no control about what can be posted other than what is covered in the Code of Conduct and the Terms of Use. All users are expected to read, understand, and abide by those. The links to those resources are found at the bottom of the forum pages. Outside that we all do our best to help, and as you have noted, discuss the issues. Essentially that means self help in collaborative and open environment. We support each other as best we can with what we have and what we know - For some that may be what they think they know. When users feel they are reporting an issue to an official trouble line we (moderators, admins, and experienced forum users) spend a lot of time directing them to their first line of support with their ward clerk and stake technology specialist (STS) as well as to the two church official support channels - the global service department (GSD) and the website feedback links. We also direct attention to documented help in the Help Center articles and other documented sources, if known. When we are fortunate we get input from church employees who are part of the ICS team responsible for the technology at issue.

There appears to be a misunderstanding as to the purpose and charter of the Tech Forum.

I understand well that this is mostly people trying to help each other. I've used the forum on and off for probably 9 years. I also was led to believe that there are people here from time to time who may be able to do more than that. That's all I was saying. If you aren't one of those people, then I'm not talking to you and you don't need to respond.

Before I said two people were helpful and two weren't. You were one of the helpful ones. But now that you're quoting the code of conduct, that isn't helpful, since you aren't addressing the points I made and making assumptions when you could have just left it alone. It feels like you guys all think its your duty to talk about what this forum is and isn't over and over instead.

Maybe maintainers of this forum should consider some changes so you guys don't have to feel that way and don't have to waste so much time explaining what the forum is for.
Otherwise, you'll keep having people like me want to get noticed by church employees because the feedback link generally isn't responsive by developers.

I'm just trying to help others who run into similar situations.