Slow Loading website

[Dazzle1]

For the last 3 days Superheroineforum has been loading very slow

anyone else having this problem?

[Visitor]

Same here, but it seems to be getting faster.

[yc-batgirl]

Yes the forum is very slow. I'm not able to see my pics in my thread.

So I did refresh the page 3 times, stop, reload, wait 10 seconds again, and I got this message:

Hope it can help the owner of the website. I did post an error message after Christmas because the forum became slower.
I wasn't able to upload a single picture.

See my post, technical support - Error - HTTP error

[shevek]

Yes, quite slow. A couple days ago I could barely upload an announcement. It's getting a little better but not much.

"Let it flow, let yourself go. Slow and low, that is the tempo". The Beastie Boys, before the Internet.

[Abductorenmadrid]

Yes access has been cripplingly slow recently here from Spain ... did wonder if there was a DDOS attack happening at one point - but basically content is slow to come through.

[DonShip]

It is taking over a minute to load anytime I click on anything. I am having Dial-up PTSD flashbacks. This has been a problem for the past week.

[Abductorenmadrid]

OK - So doing a "DELETE COOKIES" operation has helped a fair amount. The option is at the bottom of the forum page along with "Contact us" etc.

The site is still a little hesitant and sometimes it kicks me back to the front page of the site (the area before the forum) BUT at least I can now navigate the forum.

I hope this helps those who are struggling like I was.

AEM

[sensualbarbarian]

still super slow for me. I think the website needs an update, it is quite old. But I can imagine it would be alot of work

[five_red]

It seems like the site may be using CloudFlare(?)

https://community.cloudflare.com/t/webs ... ing/611726
* Purge the cache in your Cloudflare dashboard to see if that resolves the slow loading.
* Use Cloudflare’s Speed Test tool to identify any specific performance issues.

R5

[Maskripper]

Yeah, the website is basically off now. It takes over a minute for every single click.
That may have been acceptable in 1995... but now....
It's a shame that the number of visitors will be fewer and fewer every week....if it stays that way.

[Malice]

It's a shame that the number of visitors will be fewer and fewer every week....if it stays that way.

Never mind the actual members, most of "visitors" are bots anyway.

There’ll be fewer once this is said and done. But does it really matter?

It’s been like this for most of January, and despite promises, there are no signs that it will get any better anytime soon.

The only new members allowed to post are spambots dropping suspicious links on the main page. The rest are simply discarded.

It took me like 5 minutes to even quote your message. Anyhoo, I hope you guys enjoy what's ahead for this site, if anything...

[mikeecho]

well if it doesnt get better soon...Im gone

[DonShip]

Is anyone even working on this? it's gone on for quite a while now.

[robocop]

is there any work being done on this i cant post anything now its not working at all now

[bushwackerbob]

So sad. This website seems like it is dying a slow death due to neglect by its owner.

[Abductorenmadrid]

This is like my 6th attempt now just to say how impossible it is to work with this site ...

[Bladebur]

This is a sad state of things. I guess nowadays nobody uses forums anymore, but this kind of interaction is simply not available on social networks or sites like DeviantArt. Some years ago we had the forum in superheroinecentral by Mr X, but there is nothing to replace this one.

[five_red]

The main page typically shows around 16,000+ guest users online. It says this number is based on the last 30 minutes of activity. I've no idea how that is measured or how accurately it differentiates one 'guest' from another, but it seems like the site may be suffering a kind of Denial-of-Service (DoS) attack from thousands of bots constantly accessing the forum.

My understanding is that the site uses Cloudflare, which is supposed to be able to protect against non-human bots. But I don't know to what extent it is being used on this site or how it is configured.

R5

[Abductorenmadrid]

Hi Admin - thanks for doing whatever you did - thought the site was just going to die of clogged internet arteries or something! It's only fair we say thanks after all the nagging. Now this place is running butter-smooth once again!

[VegaTaxeca]

Yes, thank you! It is nice to see it back to working smoothly.

[xxxwarriorxxx]

First time being able to log in here in almost a month. Insane. I almost threw in the towel and went to the other forum. It’s been horrible ever since we transitioned to the new site layout.

[sugarcoater]

Same here. Good to have the site back up and running! Thanks to whomever made it work once again!

[MightyHypnotic]

We had to tweak some settings in CloudFlare (Yes, you were right, we are using it) But I am going to opt for a paid plan to get even more security.

Still rooting out some other issues but glad to be back!

[Maskripper]

Thanks for fixing it :-)

[Danorian]

Oh thank god you guys fixed it!

[Alice]

finally the forum site is running smoothly

[mikeecho]

glad to see its back

[VegaTaxeca]

It actually seems to be even faster now than before the problems started.

[VegaTaxeca]

Just wanted to add, that the now faster website really motivates me to go back to writing. I have just posted my second story since the restart.

[McGheeny]

Although the opening page and forums seem faster and actually load, I still can't get to my messages or notifications. The pages won't load. If finally errors out. Is this on the agenda? I hope so. Been trying to load new material for quite some time. Looking forward to being about to contribute in the future. Thanks!

[DonShip]

I haven't visited in a while do to to the slow loading, but came back to day for a pleasant surprise.

YEAH!

Well done, addmin.

[mikeecho]

just the forum so far but its a start

[Danorian]

We're going slow again!

[tmon]

:( :(

[VegaTaxeca]

Not only is the site very slow again. I am constantly getting thrown out of my login after just two or three clicks.
Currently, it is impossible for me to use the site.

[Malice]

Not only is the site very slow again. I am constantly getting thrown out of my login after just two or three clicks.
Currently, it is impossible for me to use the site.

Apart from the groups/messages being inaccessible and the WordPress issue I reported in an other post, everything seems to be back to normal.

[five_red]

Not only is the site very slow again. I am constantly getting thrown out of my login after just two or three clicks.
Currently, it is impossible for me to use the site.

Apart from the groups/messages being inaccessible and the WordPress issue I reported in an other post, everything seems to be back to normal.

The number of guest visitors, according to the footer stats, was like 30x what it perhaps should have been.

There was some commentary on phpBB moderator forums last year (that is, forums where the users are mods who run other phpBB forums) that AI bots were aggressively scrapping forums for training data, with mods complaining that their forums had been brought to a standstill. I'm assuming these are people running their own AI on their own hardware looking to train them, rather than the big cloud-based AI systems (who have presumably already hoovered up all forum data long long ago!) The bad news was that apparently every time they were successfully blocked, the bots reappeared a short time later with fresh IP addresses. Some mods had claimed that the traffic was coming heavily from a couple of countries, and they'd found success by just blocking the entire IP range for that country.

No idea if that was the cause of this forum's problems, of course, but it is interesting.

R5

[Malice]

It seems I jinxed it!

Back to slow loading again...

[DonShip]

So we're back to this again? Why does it take so long to fix this issue, and why does it keep returning?

Today, it is taking on average 1 and a half minutes to click through. I spent the last thirty minutes trying to post some, but it timed out every time, with a 524 error.

If them comment goes thru, it will be the only one today that does. Please fix the problem. It is ruining the enjoyment of this site. In fact, very few posts are going thru. And I cannot look at any of them because pictures are not loading.

[five_red]

So we're back to this again? Why does it take so long to fix this issue, and why does it keep returning?

Today, it is taking on average 1 and a half minutes to click through. I spent the last thirty minutes trying to post some, but it timed out every time, with a 524 error.

If them comment goes thru, it will be the only one today that does. Please fix the problem. It is ruining the enjoyment of this site. In fact, very few posts are going thru. And I cannot look at any of them because pictures are not loading.

It looks like the forum is being attacked by bots. If you check out the visitor stats at the foot of the main page, every time the number of recent guest visitors climbs, the site becomes unusable. Under normal conditions there might be a few hundred recent guest visits, but the site is now getting close to 15,000 pretty much 24 hours a day. A few days ago it dropped to around 3,000 and the site became more responsive again (sluggish, but workable), but then it shot straight back up again and the long wait times returned.

I looked at some discussion by mods on other phpBB forums, and there's claims that AI bots are training themselves on forums, causing huge amounts of unending traffic. No idea if this is the case here, but seems the plausible cause.

https://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtopic.php?t=2669179
https://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtopic.php?t=2662102
https://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtopic.php?t=2660728
https://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtopic.php?t=2662066

R5

[Malice]

Seems we're back... For now...

The last five minutes have been awesome!

[Malice]

Seems we're back to slow loading... For now...

It was good while it lasted!

[sensualbarbarian]

This has gone on long enough, I am seriously looking at alternatives. I think its just an unwillingness to really update this website which is ancient. lol.

[sensualbarbarian]

I think someone should create a discord or another relevant social media alternative, time to move to web 2 like the rest of the world lol. You cant even contact admin here off the website and no response to the iriG.

[VegaTaxeca]

Currently it is quite fast again.

[Abductorenmadrid]

OK - so - it went slow then was fixed and now, getting in is like winning the lottery. I've not been able to get here for a day or two! Cloudflare is the only thing I've been seeing. Please, fix, or check, or update! The discord users have been saying the same thing, so I know it's not just me.

[VegaTaxeca]

Today it seems better. I got in, though a bit slow. Whereas the last few days I always just got timeouts.

[Abductorenmadrid]

Vega, I am glad you can get in but, this is running like ass for me. I have 1gb fibre internet, it isnt my end, this is the only place I go where this is an issue. I can manage to get this point of posting maybe once, possibly twice in one day. Tops. Effectively this is now a dead site for me. I'll be at discord but I've had more fun at a dentist than trying to get into here.

[VegaTaxeca]

I understand your point and of course it is far from ideal.
But I usually try to see the positive side of things. And actually getting into the site and even being able to write a post was a clear improvement ove rthe days before, where I all I got was a time-out message.

[tmon]

Site is back up to speed!