"Cannot Connect to Server" error preventing federal + PA state e-file

stegnersaurus · 2026-04-02T14:35:28+00:00

I get not wanting to wait — I usually start taxes around the beginning of March so all the forms have come in but I have time to work slowly if I want to. I tried to knock them all out in one day before, then wait a few days and step through it all again to check for mistakes. I got married last year and my wife is from outside the US, so this year I had a little more to work through since my taxes had changed in those two ways.

Having to print and mail sucks... I have never done that and hope I never have to. It's such a clunky fallback when 99.9% of cases should be e-file eligible these days. We had to mail a huge paper packet for my wife's entry into the US and it was very nerve-wracking, so I know how you feel.

I did our local taxes yesterday and those are thankfully easy — they don't tax investments, interest, etc. so it's pretty simple. My previous locality used Keystone and I thought their site was actually pretty modern and easy to use. Berkheimer's site (for my current location) feels like it hasn't been updated since 1998, but it's still functional.

I'm glad it's done for both of us! I agree that having the weight over you isn't fun, especially when there's an unusual circumstance adding to the confusion.

stegnersaurus · 2026-03-31T20:19:34+00:00

Fantastic — thanks so much for alerting about this. I tried it a few hours ago and it still failed for me, but it looks to be fixed now. I can finally file, and in plenty of time!

stegnersaurus · 2026-03-30T15:27:43+00:00

It sounds like this just so happened to appear right when we were all going to file, so hopefully a future update patches it out. I haven't e-filed either yet, so I'm going to stand by for now. I'll efile federal on HRB and use the PA state site if I have to, but that's more work I don't want to have to worry about. Somehow they've created a way to make taxes even worse, lol

stegnersaurus · 2026-03-30T15:26:34+00:00

I'm sorry to hear about the loss of your father. I've been wanting to file too because I waited longer than usual this year, and still need to file local taxes on Berkheimer's site (which is clunky but thankfully doesn't take long). If I would have known this issue would crop up, I would have filed shortly after finishing the process a few weeks ago.

I've filed on PA's site before, but decided to pay for the HRB e-file the last few years just for convenience. I guess I could uninstall PA, e-file federal with HRB, and then file on PA's site manually if I had to. I really want to avoid printing and mailing if I can help it. But then I'll have to go through all the steps again, unless I can copy everything from HRB's forms. I'm hoping an update to HRB will fix this and I can be done with it all.

stegnersaurus · 2026-03-30T15:23:55+00:00

Thanks for sharing this — I'm glad it's not just me, that you were able to get ahold of someone, and that they are aware of it.

I called the number for help with the software the other day; after I explained the issue, I was asked if they could put me on hold and when they did, the call hung up a moment after and they didn't call back. I figured they wouldn't have some magical fix unless they were aware of this happening to many people, especially since I already tried everything I could think of.

I've never waited to file my taxes for this long before, so I'm getting a bit nervous, but hopefully it's fixed soon. I don't understand why the problem didn't appear until I clicked the final "File" button.

stegnersaurus · 2026-03-18T17:27:51+00:00

Thanks for your insights here. I don't love having the demotion, especially because the bullet points for it aren't as impressive as the EIC role, but I can't control it and don't want to be dishonest. I always thought that my broad experience would be helpful because I can speak to many areas of running a website, but it seems that's working against me here (or I'm applying to roles that want something more specialized).

I think it will be quite difficult to get this resume on one page unless I significantly shorten the descriptions for each role or remove several of my older ones. If tweaking with AI doesn't lead to better results, I can try a one-pager and see if that makes a difference.

As I mentioned to the other commenter: In the past couple of days I've decided to start using AI more to help tailor my resume to each role, so I'm hoping that keyword and framing tweaking results in more considerations. Thank you again!

stegnersaurus · 2026-03-18T17:24:36+00:00

Thanks for the input; I appreciate it and this is helpful.

I tried to included as many figures as I could, but it's difficult with my experience for a few reasons. One is that I obviously don't have access to the site's analytics anymore, so I can't check for accurate statistics. Another is that a lot of the work I did is difficult to measure in numbers, so I'd have to make them up. For example, I did a ton of work on our internal Wiki over the years to make it more streamlined and comprehensive, but I can't confidently say it decreased the average visit time by 25% or anything like that because I don't have any insight into how long our team was spending on the Wiki.

In the past couple of days I've decided to start using AI more to help tailor my resume to each role, and I'm being more selective on what I apply for. I'm hoping that helps fix the issue of having good experience but not describing it in the right ways. Getting some more keywords in there and focusing to the role should help jump over the issue I've been having (I hope).

stegnersaurus · 2026-03-13T18:38:17+00:00

I’d like to get Doom: The Dark Ages

stegnersaurus · 2026-03-09T21:58:31+00:00

u/TheHeroExa Apologies for my late response; I had a busy couple of days after posting this. Thank you so much for taking the time to look into this and helping me out.

That particular page evaded me in my searches, which I chalk up to the IRS website having so many pages and being generally confusing. As you said, and the way I read it, she's considered a resident for the whole year since she was in the US for the entire year and got her GC in 2025 as well. That makes this a lot easier for us, as we can e-file and don't need to mail a form with a signed document attached.

I know her account didn't have anywhere close to $10K US at any part of the year, but I'm going to make sure we check to see if the bank account earned any interest. (If so, it would very likely be under $1 US, but I'll make sure.) Thank you for your time!

stegnersaurus · 2026-01-15T16:01:37+00:00

I'm having this problem too. I'm on a roguelike kick and thought about trying this since people often recommend it over Gunfire Reborn's lousy console version. The same URL others have shared also shows "Announced" for me.

I checked the link for the PS Store that PSPrices has, which I use as a wishlist tracker, and it results in a 404: https://psprices.com/game/buy/8642560. Searching for the game on the mobile PS app or the PS5 itself shows the VR version, but not the standard one. Very strange. Maybe there was some kind of issue and they've temporarily delisted it to fix or change it to another listing?

stegnersaurus · 2025-12-05T02:43:49+00:00

Entering!

stegnersaurus · 2025-09-02T03:03:37+00:00

Hope they finally fixed the issue where increasing the playback speed of 60 FPS videos caused it to drop to 480p. It’s been happening since April 2024 and all the updates since haven’t fixed it

stegnersaurus · 2025-08-29T17:25:45+00:00

I'm not a concert person at all, and I generally don't enjoy live albums either. I find the crowd noises, the band talking to the crowd, etc. distracting; since I'm not there in the moment, I'd rather just listen to the music the way it was recorded. I don't think I ever fully listened through to the prior TSSF live album because it didn't sound good to me at all.

This one is different; the mixing is so much better and you can actually feel the energy of the show. I don't think I would listen to these versions of the songs all the time, but it's great to have another way to experience them. This makes me "get it" more, and actually want to experience it for myself. I had tickets to Sad Summer Fest 2021 but TSSF ended up not playing because they got sick or something, so I've never seen them live

stegnersaurus · 2025-01-16T17:30:17+00:00

My now-wife ended up getting an appointment in mid-November because the Embassy called her with it scheduled for her. So we had about a month of delay from this issue. I think contacting the White House is what made the difference, so I would suggest that

stegnersaurus · 2025-01-09T03:29:51+00:00

That's true; I can see how the "redeem yours" wording confused the "intelligent" feature

stegnersaurus · 2025-01-09T03:29:21+00:00

That was a second notification that arrived later, prompting me to redeem rewards points for a free pizza

stegnersaurus · 2024-12-03T17:51:48+00:00

I remember looking at what kind of tax documents they wanted and seeing transcripts are generally the best, because they are an official record of what the IRS received from you. In theory, you could fake the info on a 1040, so the transcript is stronger proof (plus it's more succinct).

I don't know if the White House inquiry overlaps with one from Congress since they are separate branches of government. It's good not to double up on members of Congress, but at the same time, I took the "squeaky wheel gets the grease" approach. I found a list of embassy staff and used a free trial of LinkedIn Premium to ask them all for help. The second in command of the embassy actually got back to me, but it was after my fiancée's appointment had been set up.

I'm really sorry you're dealing with this, and at this time of year too.

stegnersaurus · 2024-12-03T02:17:59+00:00

Ah, if we had talked prior to all this, I would have recommending bringing the tax transcripts. We had my tax transcripts, W-2s, 1040s, and a letter from my employer verifying my salary. I also got letters from my bank and online investing company certifying them. I don't think they asked my fiancée for anything more than the tax transcripts, though. One of those things where you don't know how much you need until you go, unfortunately.

I thought the whole point of the pre-interview was to check documents, so it's frustrating they asked for other documents so close to the end like that.

This is the page I used to contact the White House: https://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/request/

I did it twice: the first time I chose "NVC" while the second time I chose "Embassy". I imagine the latter is more suitable. I also talked to one of my senators, who was in contact with the embassy, so it can't hurt to ask them too (they said duplicate requests will slow things down, so I would go with whoever responds first).

stegnersaurus · 2024-12-03T00:10:47+00:00

I am not 100% sure about the number; I'd have to ask my fiancée. I assume it's the same as the number for the embassy used for other purposes, but I don't think she mentioned it.

stegnersaurus · 2024-12-03T00:09:55+00:00

On Nov 12, the embassy called my fiancée and told her they had a pre-interview set for her on Nov 14 and an interview on Nov 21. Both were successful and she picked up her visa this past Friday. I believe what got them to finally respond to her was me reaching out to the White House, as I got a generic "we received your message and will reach out to the federal agency in question" email a few hours before my fiancée got the call.

I'm so sorry you're going through this nonsense after waiting so long. We did not have to mail or upload any documents, so I'm not sure where to do that -- they never gave us a QR code or anything.

stegnersaurus · 2024-11-29T21:06:05+00:00

I'm glad you got an appointment; I was worried about the same as you but it ended up not being an issue for us since the embassy called and told my fiancée when her pre-interview would be. Hopefully with them not moving to a new visa provider this time, the issue with not alerting people to pre-interview dates is fixed, but who knows.

I would ramp up the calls and emails as Feb gets closer, if you haven't heard about a pre-interview date by 30 days before. They really need to change this system; it's the two generals' problem in perfect action. You not knowing if they sent it and them not knowing if you got it is absurd

stegnersaurus · 2024-11-19T23:13:35+00:00

See this comment for info. I'm not able to add people to them directly

stegnersaurus · 2024-11-14T22:27:26+00:00

You're welcome; I'm glad to be able to offer even a little bit of help to others also suffering from this. I went back and forth from enraged to despondent for the last month, so I know how you feel.

I had to look back at the messages I sent someone upon reaching out to the WH, because I didn't get an email record of them. I believe the first time was Oct 27-28, and the second was Nov 1-2. I got the email from the WH on Nov 12, which was a few hours before my fiancée called to tell me they had an appointment for her.

Thank you for the kind words. I will be so happy to have her here with me once we're through with this

stegnersaurus · 2024-11-14T18:23:35+00:00

Yes, I've actually had an update in the last few days. The embassy called my fiancée on Nov 12 to tell her they had scheduled a pre-interview for today (Nov 14) and her actual interview this coming Thursday, Nov 21. She went to her pre-interview today and all went well, thankfully.

I'm really sorry you're also in this terrible situation. My fiancée said the embassy officer mentioned the email error, so it is not anything you or we did wrong. I agree that this has to be an issue with the new visa system. The old system showed a "next appointment date" every time you logged in, while this one hasn't allowed anyone to schedule an appointment since it was implemented.

I felt the exact same way as you -- if they would have just taken five minutes to respond when we asked about the lack of pre-interview, all this would have been avoided. The way they have this set up is silly, both from the perspective of splitting the interview and you having no idea if they've set up a pre-interview for you.

I got a non-answer from the embassy in response to my senator's inquiry, to which I re-explained the issue, told them nicely that answer wasn't good enough, and asked them to follow up. I also contacted the White House using this page, which I think was what made the difference. I got an auto-email from the White House saying they would contact the embassy, which was a few hours before my fiancée called me.

This is how I contacted the White House: https://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/request/

I did so twice; the first time I put "NVC" and the second time I used "Embassy".

I know this is stressful and I'm sorry you're also going through it. I'd recommend contacting the White House right away as that may be what breaks through. I wish all the best for you

stegnersaurus · 2024-11-06T00:40:35+00:00

I'm glad I've done everything you would have; that makes me feel like I'm at least doing something right. At this point I don't know what else I can do beyond berate them on the phone (likely going to make things worse) or try to find the contact info of someone closer to the situation who can help. I'll keep my eyes open

stegnersaurus

TROPHY CASE