When trying to get into Mod the Sims my usual way (db.modthesims.info) I got a message from Firefox that it couldn't connect me securely because the website certificate has expired. It says it expired at 08:39:54 (British Summer Time) this morning (1st September). I've now got in by following an older link (to www.modthesims.info). Both links are https.

I thought I'd better let you know.

The db server is for staff only, so you should be using https://www.modthesims.info/

Just to let you know, non-staff have been able to use db for some time. It used to give an error (staff only) but not for a long time!

It is indeed true that I disabled the staff only check on db.  Doesn't mean that it's usable for members though! . 

With regards to the cert, hopefully it'll be fixed today.  Edit: Fixed!

Until 2 or 3 months ago I was using a mixture of www.modthesims.info and modthesims.info (both then using the http protocol). It used to be annoying because if I was using modthesims.info, and clicked on a link to www.modthesims.info, it would ask me to consent to the use of cookies, and sometimes it was asking me to consent to cookies on every page I visited, which was very irritating! I tried to stick to one or the other, but sometimes clicking on a link, or using the Search facility, would switch me to the other one, and the messages about cookies would start to appear.

Then, around the time of the server upgrade, the protocol changed from http to https, and my connection to what had been modthesims.info somehow got switched to db.modthesims.info. At the same time, the site became much more reliable, and the irritating messages about cookies stopped, so I assumed that the switch to db was just part of the server upgrade. (I also switched from Internet Explorer to Firefox around the same time, which probably accounts for some of the improvement.) I certainly didn't consciously switch to using db and didn't know it was only meant for staff; I assumed it was just a new URL for the new server.

Anyway, I'll try to stick to www.modthesims.info in future. But I think there must be a few other ordinary members who have somehow got their connection switched to db. They probably don't even know -- I suspect most people don't look at the URLs, at least not until something goes wrong.

The "cookie consent on every page" was because of the Quantcast CMP that the ads provider (and later I) tried out.  I switched the CMP to cookiebot, and that problem went away. 

I actually don't really mind people using db, but it wont be as fast because: 1. it's not cached by Cloudflare, and 2.  it runs a lot of extra staff-only checks in the background.  

Ultimately, probably sometime next year when I rewrite the entire codebase, I'll get rid of db *and* the www subdomain and have everything standardised on one domain (excluding images and files etc)

Also good move on switch to Firefox...

I noticed that if a staff member inadvertently gives a db link, you can end up surfing MTS on db without realising. That's probably how you ended up there, AndrewGloria!