Why are the WBF servers so slow? PLEASE READ FOR FINAL UPDATED ANNOUNCEMENT

[Steve Williams]

Same here. I wish we had an answer. So far this morning everything is loading fast and no issues. Im going to have Julian restart the server

 

[dminches]

Things are very slow this morning.

 

[Kingsrule]

Yes very slow now

 

[treitz3]

For me too. It just started for me about an hour or two ago. Last time I checked, there were about 75 members and 2K guests, so nothing out of the ordinary.

Tom

 

[MarkusBarkus]

...I'm not logging slow WBF info, but anecdotally, perhaps this is a Sunday thing more often than not (for me)? Any patterns that map to running processes, etc.? Worth a look (though I imagine this idea has surfaced before). Good Luck.

 

[Steve Williams]

things are normal speed at my end and our numbers on the site now is typical.

Ive asked our web host to restart the server which should happen shortly

 

[Steve Williams]

Well server was restarted but here is the answer from our web host

“Hello,

On checking, I found huge traffic to website from different bots and which might be causing the issue. You can check this from your cPanel > > Awstats.

If you confirm, I can try to block the unwanted bots to see if it helps to resolve the issue.”

Bots have been blocked. Please report here if things are resolved at your end

 

[Steve Williams]

Bots killed.....speed should be back to normal

 

[djsina2]

Seems worse than ever today.

 

[Kingsrule]

Yep...slow

 

[dminches]

Not normal on my end. Posting a comment can take 15-20 seconds.

 

[PeterA]

Very sloooowwwww

 

[Steve Williams]

are things still slow for you Peter. Im on and speed is very fast at my end

 

[MarkusBarkus]

...good now, SW.

 

[PeterA]

Just checked. Returned to normal Steve. Thank you.

 

[Steve Williams]

Here’s what they found today when they checked again

Hello,

We found some settings on Cloudflare that was not enabled and also the direct port 80 and 443 was not closed on the firewall.
So we enabled the Cloudflare extra security options and closed port 80 and 443 and only allowed Cloudflare to get to the server.
Everything seems ok now.

Everyone should be enjoying normal speed. Please post here if any issues.

 

[Kingsrule]

Much better now

 

[Solartiger]

Good morning Steve,

It is working fine. Much better than a year ago. I don't need VPN to log into the forum anymore. This is very nice and a huge user experience improvement.

Best,
Ecki

 

[Kingsrule]

Unreachable for a good period earlier this evening

 

[Steve Williams]

here is what I discovered .....there are always. BOTS on forums. We typically have 1200-1500 at any one time. A few hours ago there was 1500 on. I was told that forum software can handle this but lately busy forums are being hit with bot attacks and I was told that when the number hits 4000-5000 at any one time it is like a DDoS and that is what we have been seeing . A few weeks ago we had an attack out of Brazil which is becoming a common source. We put a firewall around the Brazil and things have remained well until recently when we are being hit again. I was talking to a member of WBF today who is a Xenforo techie and writes add-ons for Xenforo. He has one which monitors the number of bots on a forum to the point where they can be blocked. The issue is putting firewalls around involved countries as this excludes valid members which we dont want to do . This member is going to apply his add on tomorrow re bots on our site. He has a way to block them and rather than doing the block indefinitely he says that they go away and bother other sites.and then the firewall can be liftted

This seems lately to be the source of our snail pace slowness at times. All I can say is we are acutely aware of it as it affects all of us including me...So I am hoping that this add-on might help to shed light on how to deal with the problem but not put fences around every country from which teach attack originates