The new TAT2.0. And how it works (technical questions)

[ponchi101]

The updates were done around 8PM eastern. At that time, the page had literally been wiped out. Updating for phpBB means overwriting lots of files, so indeed, it was not that the page was down. The page was gone.
(After you do that, you recover all data from the Dbase).

[ptmcmahon]

For those who haven't noticed...

User Control Panel - Board Preferences - Edit Global Settings - "Enable Smashable Christmas Lights"

Although I do love them, when the volume is up on my pc they get way too loud

[mmmm8]

For those who haven't noticed...

User Control Panel - Board Preferences - Edit Global Settings - "Enable Smashable Christmas Lights"

Although I do love them, when the volume is up on my pc they get way too loud

This is my most favorite time of the year, smashing those lights is free therapy!

[ptmcmahon]

I do too, but when I'm working from home or in office and have sound on I cant really have smashing sounds all the time

[ponchi101]

Dear all.
As luck would have it, our IP provider has scheduled a new server transfer for JANUARY 13TH. It will be done between JAN 13th 10:00 UTC and JAN 14th 10:00 UTC. That falls right smack in the middle of the second day picks for the Aussie Open SP.
And there is nothing I can do to change that schedule.
SO: for the picks for Jan 13th, after you submit, MAKE SURE THAT YOU DID BY LEAVING THE POST TOPIC, AND COMING BACK IN. Especially if you are doing this through a phone.
I am sorry that this is being done but, again, nothing that I can do. However, our forum is in reality only 1GB big (we are small) so such a change should not take long.
Write down the page where your posts will be, come back and look for them. I hope nothing major happens.

[texasniteowl]

I assume I'm not the only one getting this a lot the last few days?


General Error
SQL ERROR [ mysqli ]

User 'u236777983_2Ximl' has exceeded the 'max_user_connections' resource (current value: 50) [1226]

An sql error occurred while fetching this page. Please contact an administrator if this problem persists.

[ponchi101]

Everybody is getting it. We have been flooded by bots.
I am trying to find extensions that will help with that. What a pain.

[ashkor87]

I keep getting error when I log in
SQL error user has exceeded max user connections resource (current value: 50) [1226]

[ponchi101]

The status is this.
It seems that new bots are roaming the web. They are AI bots, which are unleashed on sites for "language training". Unfortunately, we cannot stop these attacks because the attack is triggered just by trying to access our site. By this I mean it is something like this: somebody knocks on your door, and you are expecting guests. Well, you cannot NOT answer the door because some guests are legit, but you have to turn away the other 5000 that are not. But it means you do have to answer the door 5000 times. They will not come in, but it keeps you busy.
We have all the software I can think of. We are in Cloudflare, and that should stop a lot of stuff. But the bots are still at our door.
I had to purge all sessions, so you needed to sign in again, and the new session limit (for guests) is 60 seconds. That is where I stand at the moment.

I hope this will help but I am not convinced. I will monitor this as much as I can, but I am working in Iraq and, well, it is kind of hot here.

UPDATE: I will have to change the .htaccess file in the forum, but I will not do it while the SP is ongoing, in case we lose access to the site. At least, right now we have access, crappy or not. After the USO is over and we have no contests, I will do it.

[ponchi101]

My apologies to everybody, although it is clear that this was not much my fault. But I know that the forum has been down at the most terrible of times.
Just to share.
I believe that at the peak of the attack, this was originated by our host:
Your database is under heavy strain, especially with over 70,000 active sessions and more than 2 million rows in search_wordmatch — that’s a serious load.

I had to boot everybody out, so sorry that you had to login again. I believe the attack is being fended off well, because, well, I had to activate something that is called: UNDER ATTACK mode. It may be keeping the bots away.
I wonder who was the a**hole that decided that this forum was worth the time.

Please, let me know if there are still some issues. I am still at work, but I am paying attention to what is happening.

[ponchi101]

No, the bots were not repelled.
I had to upgrade our plan, to a more secure one. Let's see if the bots count starts dropping to a manageable level. It was down to 45 before the new attack began.

[ponchi101]

And I woke up to see that I could not reach the site. The message was: your resource cannot be reached from your country.
Did anybody else see that too?

[PeterCan]

I thought perhaps the message I was getting earlier this evening "Your country is not allowed to access this resource" or something like that was a directive from the White House.

[ptmcmahon]

And I woke up to see that I could not reach the site. The message was: your resource cannot be reached from your country.
Did anybody else see that too?

I did as well ( from Canada.)

[ponchi101]

Ok. So everybody was getting the same response. I have to talk to the host. That was not acceptable.