Server Error Reports

[gnif]

So just a update on this.

A huge amount of traffic is being routed through AirTel (Indian provider) which has been difficult to nail down due to the enormous IP ranges they own and lack of consistent records for identifying them. I have found a way to identify them and I am working to implement it now, unfortunately it's a wide net but we have little option at this point. I am sorry to our Indian users that will be forced through the captcha gate now.

Edit:

If anyone is curious as to what is going on and why this has become such an issue. These bot farms are using proxies via desktop and mobile free addons/games, etc. Often the user has no idea that the "free" app they installed includes this in the agreement for using the product. This allows the bot farms to hide behind thousands of devices, blending their malicious traffic in with the general noise normal activity. There are some apps that even give the user's a kick-back for installing it on their phone, usually with the concept of getting paid for "sharing unused bandwidth". Google has been working to ban products that are acting as a proxy on their app store, but the damage is already done and we are left holding the bag.

[hans]

Good job!

I may want to add that I'm also seeing the double captcha gate now from my IP. I'm based in The Netherlands, could this be an unwanted side effect of the enormous IP ranges involved?
The IP logged on the bottom right side is NOT my real ip... (it points to a CloudFlare ASN)

[gnif]

This is my fault, I was out of contact today and Dave was forced to enable the cloudflare filtering without my involvement. I will need to make some server side adjustments to make this work correctly

[Dan N]

eevblog.com/forum has been down with Database Error for 10+ hours now (access from US, not logged in).  Had to click refresh probably 1000 times to finally get to a log in prompt to report this.

I see that "guests" are back over 100000 again so bring back the captchas.

[gnif]

Certainly has been a bit of a pickup in traffic but not enough to warrant database errors. We do still have the cloudflare filtering in place.
As stated though the guest count is not a good metric of server load or bot traffic due to how it works.

Ill have a look to see why we are getting database errors.

[Dan N]

Thanks.  Some relevant info in case I can't log in again:  I don't see any Database Error while logged in.  At the same time using a Private Browsing window (firefox) I can't get past the Database Error.

[gnif]

Thanks.  Some relevant info in case I can't log in again:  I don't see any Database Error while logged in.  At the same time using a Private Browsing window (firefox) I can't get past the Database Error.

I cant see any logged errors, or any server side indications of database issues. Perhaps cloudflare had cached a bad response at some point. I can clearly see that everyone else has been active on the forum over the last 10 hours without issue (myself included).

I will try and reproduce as reported.

Edit: I can't reproduce the issue in a private firefox session.

[Kean]

I cant see any logged errors, or any server side indications of database issues. Perhaps cloudflare had cached a bad response at some point. I can clearly see that everyone else has been active on the forum over the last 10 hours without issue (myself included).

Did you see this other report of database errors?  It might help understand the cause.

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/news/getting-a-lot-of-502-bad-gateway-errors/msg6359288/#msg6359288

[gnif]

I cant see any logged errors, or any server side indications of database issues. Perhaps cloudflare had cached a bad response at some point. I can clearly see that everyone else has been active on the forum over the last 10 hours without issue (myself included).

Did you see this other report of database errors?  It might help understand the cause.

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/news/getting-a-lot-of-502-bad-gateway-errors/msg6359288/#msg6359288

Excellent information, thanks, yes, IPv6 could be the cause. Disabling it is not an option when using CF as it's forwarding IPv6 connections we normally were not seeing.

[Dan N]

Did you see this other report of database errors?  It might help understand the cause.

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/news/getting-a-lot-of-502-bad-gateway-errors/msg6359288/#msg6359288

That could be it, I am using IPV6.

[gnif]

That could be it, I am using IPV6.

Can you please share with me your IPv6 address when in that private session where it's broken (You can DM it to me).

[gnif]

Wonderful.... SMF when it has a database error, logs the database error... to the database 

No wonder this didn't trigger an alert/alarm. Working on a fix.

[gnif]

This should be fixed now, @Dan N could you please test again now?

[TimFox]

It's working here (Chicago) now:  earlier, I couldn't get past the "database error" to send a message.

[EEVblog]

I had another new user complain about database errors. Not seeing it my end, the forum is super slick and reliable. I'm IPv4

[Dan N]

This should be fixed now, @Dan N could you please test again now?

Sorry I got bumped off earlier and couldn't get back in.  All seems to be working now, thanks!

[gnif]

I had another new user complain about database errors. Not seeing it my end, the forum is super slick and reliable. I'm IPv4

Yup, problem identified and fixed. I have also fixed SMF to properly log database errors so we don't miss these again in the future.