Is the forum slow for anyone else?

[Robert Ramsay]

I've noticed in the last few days that the forum intermittently slows to a crawl when I click on things. Just wanted to check whether anyone else was getting this, and whether @SkullTraill had noticed anything?

 

[SkullTraill]

Slow right now, over 4,000 members online…

 

[Robert Ramsay]

Forum slow at present with 2,241 users.

 

[MorganBlack]

Noticed this slowdown today too.
Wait.
OVER 4,000 at once! Daaaamn! We are Behemoth!

 

[Aeternus]

Noticed this slowdown today too.
Wait.
OVER 4,000 at once! Daaaamn! We are Behemoth!

Well, I still have my slow down problems at 7:30 P.M.

Either way, I guess people are interested in the community . Too bad though that the people are those representative of the Dead Internet Theory

 

[SkullTraill]

Wow, turning on the bot fight mode worked instantly on the current slowdown (3,600+ active)

 

[SkullTraill]

@Robert Ramsay I'll leave it on for the next few days, please let me know if you experience any slowdowns during this time (to narrow down the cause) - I don't like keeping this setting on so if this fixes it I'll see about upgrading the cloudflare plan and implementing targeted rules.

Everyone else too.

 

[Robert Ramsay]

@Robert Ramsay I'll leave it on for the next few days, please let me know if you experience any slowdowns during this time (to narrow down the cause) - I don't like keeping this setting on so if this fixes it I'll see about upgrading the cloudflare plan and implementing targeted rules.

Will do!

I got a brief screen of "checking you are a hooman" before taking me to the forum. Don't know what other people's experiences are, but I could certainly put up with that if it keeps the bugs away

 

[Aeternus]

@Robert Ramsay I'll leave it on for the next few days, please let me know if you experience any slowdowns during this time (to narrow down the cause) - I don't like keeping this setting on so if this fixes it I'll see about upgrading the cloudflare plan and implementing targeted rules.

Everyone else too.

I got the Cloudflare check and it isn't problematic. Well, since it is now 3:08 P.M. in my country, the forum works fine. I will check back at 7:30 P.M. and see if it behaves way too slow like it used to do. If, and hopefully won't behave slow, it means that the bots / ai crawlers can go straight where they came from

Post automatically merged: Aug 25, 2026

@Robert Ramsay I'll leave it on for the next few days, please let me know if you experience any slowdowns during this time (to narrow down the cause) - I don't like keeping this setting on so if this fixes it I'll see about upgrading the cloudflare plan and implementing targeted rules.

Everyone else too.

Well, I checked at 7:30 P.M. (as per my country time) and it didn't slow down. Bravo @SkullTraill , now the AI crawlers will certainly know their place: the recycle bin

Post automatically merged: Aug 25, 2026

Now it is 10:23 P.M. and it is not slow

 

[Morell]

If the bots are the problem, then some trap might help. Back in the day when I was having a blog, we had a lot of problems with bots spamming our comments. We all solved it by adding to our webs link to antispamer web, which was a trap where the bots got stuck. Doesn't probably work anymore, but it was damn effective. Surely there is some more modern alternative today.

 

[SkullTraill]

I've had to turn off the bot fight mode because it was blocking PayPal API notifications for new benefactor upgrades. However, since I know broadly speaking what works now, I'll work on a more targeted Cloudflare ruleset to curb the bots/scrapers. I'll also try and see if upgrading the server itself would be worth it.

 

[Robert Ramsay]

Very slow at the moment, noticed at 11:40 UK time. Still going on ten minutes later.

 

[SkullTraill]

Very slow at the moment, noticed at 11:40 UK time. Still going on ten minutes later.

Yeah, see above. Will work on a solution to it when I have some time. Since I'm fairly sure about the cause now.

 

[Frater M.M.]

It's been an hour. How is it now?

Yeah, I noticed it was a bit slow around 30 mins ago. Seems ok at the moment

 

[ewiz]

I hadn't logged any times the slowdowns happened for me, but I did notice there were thousands of guests when it did happen (4000-5000+.) We had issues like this on the SA forum multiple times, especially before the end, and I thought they were caused by bots/crawlers as well, but didn't have admin access to look into doing something about it. I don't think the normal filters are reliable anymore with these AI bots, but don't know enough to help other than offer my opinion, I think you've found the cause.