The forum is acting up today

[JasonLion]

The forum software has been acting up today (and a little bit yesterday). I am aware of the problem and I am looking into it.

For the moment the slideshow on the home page is disabled. I hope to have it restored shortly.

Hopefully this whole issue will be straightened out soon.

 

[Patrick_B]

Noticed that this morning as well.

 

[JasonLion]

The slideshow is now back, and things are working for the moment. However, I don't think I have found the root cause just yet. So things may remain a little unstable for the moment.

 

[smforte]

Yesterday I got server is busy, try again later message - if that helps.

 

[JasonLion]

Yep, that is one of the symptoms. I am also seeing page loads which just timeout. Trying again right away often works when there is a problem.

 

[woodyp]

I just automatically assumed it was something Patrick did........................

 

[Patrick_B]

I just automatically assumed it was something Patrick did........................

:lol: :lol:

 

[Patrick_B]

So we are back up?

 

[JasonLion]

Well, yes and no. I have been adjusting some settings to try and stop the problems, and the current combination seems to be working, but I still haven't pinned down exactly what is causing the problems in the first place.

 

[Patrick_B]

Thanks for the work Jason.

 

[pooldv]

Good job fixing Patrick's mess, man!

 

[jblizzle]

I noticed my phone being REALLY slow this morning a few hours ago. But being that my phone is a POS and I was using Tapatalk and I would not put it past Verizon to throttle me, I thought one of those could be the culprit. Although then I went to another forum and things seemed to be working at normal speed.

I am sure Jason will figure it out eventually

 

[Patrick_B]

Right now, it's smoother and quicker for me on iPhone than its been in 4-5? Days.

 

[ComputerGuyInNOLA]

Have you checked your router logs to see if you are under a DOS or DDOS attack?

- - - Updated - - -

Did the software undergo an automatic update? If nothing has changed on the forum software it is unlikely to be the cause. If it is hosted on a Windows server check the application logs on the server.

 

[pooldv]

Hmmm, I thought we were under Patrick_B west texas pollen attack.

 

[JasonLion]

Part of what was happening was an HTML flood attack, but there was another component I am still not able to pin down.

 

[Smykowski]

Just got a "The Forum is Busy Right Now" error on Tapatalk.

 

[Patrick_B]

Not seen it yet thankfully, but that's how it started end of last week for me.

- - - Updated - - -

Part of what was happening was an HTML flood attack, but there was another component I am still not able to pin down.

Can you explain that in non IT Savvy terms?

 

[JasonLion]

People sometimes setup computers (robots) to attack web servers. There are many different ways to do this. The trouble this week was mostly caused by someone setting up a robot to access web pages on our site very quickly, loading down the server, causing slow response times and eventually triggering what is basically a "server overloaded" error message. Once I found that part of what was happening, it was easy to block them.

By the by, I am expecting normal traffic to saturate the server soon, and plan a hardware upgrade for early May. Depending on how rapidly traffic rises this spring, we may get overloaded at some times here and there before the hardware upgrade is in place.

 

[Patrick_B]

Robots...ok. Still a little bit like the Wild West on the Internet.

Thanks for the info, all good to know.