'Error 999' - Has it happened yo You? How do You proceed further?
Answering a question in Y!A, I tried to paste a link to my previous answer to a similar question, but it was not accepted and I got a 'Error 999' message. Neither of the reasons in the message is relevant to the problem (my system is virus clean and the situation with the provider is OK), nor contacting Yahoo! Customer Care helped, so I suspect an internal bug in Y!A. Moreover, about a year ago I had the same problem, trying to paste a link to a Wiki Article - then I was advised to change manually in the link 'wikipedia.com' to 'wikipedia.org' (or vice versa, I don't remember already) and it worked! But this time it is an internal link and I don't know what to do. Every reasonable advice is welcome, thanks in advance.
2009-01-08T04:07:24Z
I was just going to try some of the suggestions I received in the answers so far, starting with the simplest one - Madhukar Daftary's - to do exactly the same thing as 2 hours ago - pasting a link without editing it manually, and this time it worked!
What fun! Looks like a temporary problem indeed, but I suspect Madhukar's answer has cured Y!Answers!
2009-01-08T12:32:19Z
Again 'Error 999'! This time the suggestion to paste a link in already posted answer did the job! And sorry about the 'yo You' typo above - 't' and 'y' are adjacent keys!
2009-01-10T11:29:48Z
Very helpful answers so far! These days I had chances to try some of the tricks I learnt from them very successfully! The most annoying about '999' is its unpredictable behavior - obviously Yahoo! should make some improvements.
Vikram P2009-01-08T03:21:51Z
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I have this problem too, in fact it is even worse that I can not post any links even after using all the above mentioned workarounds. (Including that of putting only one space after h to "corrupt" the link)
Finally I used tiny url service to wrap my link, since using tiny url you can really reduce length of the link & thus you can easily post your link with one space between each character eg. The following link refers to a Yahoo question answered by me. h t t p : / / w w w . t i n y u r l . c o m / 1 k 1 k 1 k
Atleast in my case I found that this is ISP related problem, Since my ISP uses DHCP, Yahoo treats it as abnormal activity & blocks all links. I tried posting it from my office where I have different ISP & there I can post any links without any limitations.
So you may also check whether your ISP uses DHCP or not.
DHCP Means Dynamic Host Control Protocol, Yahoo automatically monitors network traffic from IP ranges & since ISP using DHCP allocates different IP ranges to same user based on availability, Yahoo thinks that such kind of activity is suspicious & thus blocks links coming from IP ranges of that ISP. As it may me a Virus or other Junk ( thats what they think)
This is done to block Ping of Death or DDoS Distributed Denial of Service) attack which Yahoo has encountered many times in past http://archives.cnn.com/2000/TECH/computing/02/08/yahoo.assault.idg/index.html ============ And during one of the last coffee breaks yahoo has upgraded its link monitoring system hence due to this "upgrade" this is happening more frequently now. ===== I am glad that your problem was temporary, I am still unable to post any link to other yahoo question in my postings.
I have had the exact same problem this morning,I clear my Browser history daily and do full start-up scans on my computer everyday too,so I know that it is NOT that. It is interesting that it is only happening when I try to paste a link into an answer,mine too was an internal Yahoo! link on how to delete an account. I got round the problem and was allowed to submit my answer when I deleted the link and edited my answer after submitting to then include the link. It is a pain having to do it that way,but the only way I have found to counteract the problem. I have put it down to yet another Y/A *glitch* =)
I got it tonight here on answers, the 999 message. I've never gotten that before. Right after though, I tried to go to a different page and got a message that Y!A was under some maintenance.
This has happened often recently. It is a glitch caused by trying to add a hyperlink to the answer, either in the answer body or in the source box. Using the back arrow and editing out the link allows the answer to be posted. Then, sometimes, you can edit the posted answer and re-insert the link. Another method is to corrupt the link by adding spaces http:/ to h ttp:/ and then editing once posted.
I received it someday. It's impossible to fix by myself. To report that problem, go to "Tell Us What You Think" in the bottom of the website page. Type the suggestion that you have the message 999 problem. It's not really your fault.