Forum loading issues?

[Ashley Hill]

Has anyone else had problems loading the forum this week?
A couple of times I’ve tried viewing the forum, either logged in or out and have had “Oops we ran into some problems displayed”.

 

[pokemonsuper9]

Yes I saw it about Lunchtime yesterday and earlier this morning (~07:30)

 

[Gloster]

Yes, around 20.00 yesterday.

 

[Ashley Hill]

Yes I saw it about Lunchtime yesterday and earlier this morning (~07:30)

That’s a relief, it’s not just me then.

 

[ainsworth74]

Our intrepid admins are currently wrestling the Forum into submission apologies for any disruption to your service. The National Forum Conditions of Usage layout your compensation entitlements.

 

[Mike395]

Apologies! This should now be fixed - an increase in baseline (legitimate, we'd already blocked a lot of the AI junk bots) bot traffic has caused intermittent issues with the maximum number of sessions our forum software can support being reached! I have now prodded the database in such a way we can accommodate them alongside the humans

 

[Peter Mugridge]

This wasn't another DDOS attack like a couple of weeks ago, then?

 

[Mike395]

This wasn't another DDOS attack like a couple of weeks ago, then?

Doesn't look like it, just a higher baseline level of bots causing problems.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

I too came across this on Friday but it soon disappeared, and all was well thereafter.

 

[Peter Mugridge]

I've had this happen several times in the past few days.

Screenshot below of Cloudfare SSL Handshake Failed error message with code number 525.

 

[800Travel]

I've had this happen several times in the past few days.

Screenshot below of Cloudfare SSL Handshake Failed error message with code number 525.

View attachment 205735

I got this earlier this evening - I did not think much of it at the time as all was fine when I reloaded the site.

 

[Peter Mugridge]

I got this earlier this evening - I did not think much of it at the time as all was fine when I reloaded the site.

Yes, it does usually seem to clear quickly - sometimes simply pressing the refresh button ( F5 ) is enough to clear it - other times it seems to take around 5 minutes to clear.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Up to yesterday, I had no trouble with logging on to any of my "favourites", but this morning, whilst other websites were immediately accessible, RailUK forums took quite some time to access. Is there any website updating taking place on this website which is the cause of this?

 

[Morayshire]

It is slow to load. But there were 152 members and 10,000 odd "guests" looking at the forums just now (0635) apparently.

 

[davews]

During my five minutes of browsing the number of guests increased from 7,000 to over 9,000...

 

[Ken X]

I assume, from these figures, the forum is undergoing a DDOS attack. Just had a "checking you are human" screen. Many thanks to those having to sort the problem .

 

[DelW]

Slow for me, and a Cloudflare screen came up for a while - I assume a bot attack in progress and being resisted.

 

[Harvester]

Hopelessly slow. The number of guests shown (9000 plus) cannot be correct!

 

[Cambrian359]

Up to yesterday, I had no trouble with logging on to any of my "favourites", but this morning, whilst other websites were immediately accessible, RailUK forums took quite some time to access. Is there any website updating taking place on this website which is the cause of this?

Ive been having problems since about 8pm last night with the site. Tried all the usual fixes (clear browser, restart etc) and now im logged out on one device and can’t get back in as it’s not sending me the email confirmation code.

 

[eastwestdivide]

Similar slow loading here, maybe 15 secs or more for a page to load, and it's normally pretty much instantaneous. Yesterday had some much longer load times. Other sites are fine. railforums.co.uk cache/cookies cleared, no difference. ios/Safari on two different devices, same slowness.

 

[Mike395]

Apologies, we are indeed intermittently being the subject of a DDoS attack at present. We're working on it!

Hopefully should be much faster in the last 5 min or so

 

[eastwestdivide]

But it's intermittent. My reply above went instantly.
Edit: crossed with previous post! Thanks for keeping on top of it

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

I don't know if it is the website or the weather, but all was well earlier today, but now the website is very slow.

 

[Peter Mugridge]

I don't know if it is the website or the weather, but all was well earlier today, but now the website is very slow.

Probably another DDoS attack; it can be very random when this happens.

 

[najaB]

Probably another DDoS attack; it can be very random when this happens.

Mandatory nerd comment: not all spikes in connections are necessarily a DDoS attack. It might not distributed, and it might not be a denial of service attack, it could easily be someone/something trying to crawl the site with the individual connections not being tied to a single agent and showing up as separate 'guests'.

 

[pokemonsuper9]

It's being quite slow again for me this morning.

4,800 guests compared to 181 members, I know the ratio is usually quite far off but 26.5 to 1 feels like a bit higher than usual.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Everying was fine on this website when I logged on after watching the Argentina v Switzerland match on TV, but I nodded off and awoke at 0800 this morning and accessing threads has been very long-winded indeed.

 

[AlterEgo]

It's been slow again this morning. 3600 "guests" crawling the forums...

 

[AndrewE]

slow for me too, 268 members and 2600 "guests!"

 

[D365]

Hopelessly slow. The number of guests shown (9000 plus) cannot be correct!

If this is a reference to a certain internet meme, my hat off to you, very well played!

(Link above is to the original ”It’s Over 9000!” video clip)