Problems with Website Stability!

[Ted Craven]

Recently there have been significant problems with the website being inaccessible! Usually you get a long a cryptic error message (SQL database code for the forum).

The problem is -- the site is experiencing a VERY LARGE bot 'attack' which has just recently flared up, though it has occurred randomly in the past.

I can get the site to run normally by clearing a temporary database table, but then it rapidly fills up again until it hits a server limit and the site shuts down again.

If you look at the 'Whats happening' section at the bottom left of the main page, you will the the number of actual Members logged in, then also the number of Guests (i.e. 'bots'). If you refresh the site and look at the number of Guests/bots, you will see that count rises RAPIDLY into the thousands or 10s of thousands! We can not handle that.

Next, I have to investigate a 'Cloudflare' 'Bot-prevention' service to prevent this from happening. I will work on this over the weekend.

Very sorry this is happening and interrupting our use of P&C I will keep everyone updated on progress in this thread.

Ted