Zompist Bboard Again

Raphael wrote: ↑Thu Aug 14, 2025 11:01 am Did someone do something? Because I've got the impression that I've seen a lot fewer error messages than I've gotten used to over the last few days.

Same here -- while I still see X number of guests connected in the last five minutes (where X is a big number), there seems to be significantly fewer errors as of late.

Same to me.

zompist, what did you change that made the Zeeb operate better (despite there being 1514 guests in the last five minutes as I write this)?

Travis B. wrote: ↑Thu Aug 14, 2025 12:51 pm zompist, what did you change that made the Zeeb operate better (despite there being 1514 guests in the last five minutes as I write this)?

Nothing. 1 guest right now. Maybe the scrapers have finished scraping the Internet

zompist wrote: ↑Fri Aug 15, 2025 6:56 pm

Travis B. wrote: ↑Thu Aug 14, 2025 12:51 pm zompist, what did you change that made the Zeeb operate better (despite there being 1514 guests in the last five minutes as I write this)?

Nothing. 1 guest right now. Maybe the scrapers have finished scraping the Internet

There are hundreds of guests right now, and I still don't see any problems. And that was the case when I first noticed the absence of problems, too.

Perhaps Dreamhost has increased its bandwidth, so that scraper bots cause fewer capacity problems now?

Raphael wrote: ↑Sat Aug 16, 2025 7:17 am

zompist wrote: ↑Fri Aug 15, 2025 6:56 pm

Travis B. wrote: ↑Thu Aug 14, 2025 12:51 pm zompist, what did you change that made the Zeeb operate better (despite there being 1514 guests in the last five minutes as I write this)?

Nothing. 1 guest right now. Maybe the scrapers have finished scraping the Internet

There are hundreds of guests right now, and I still don't see any problems. And that was the case when I first noticed the absence of problems, too.

Perhaps Dreamhost has increased its bandwidth, so that scraper bots cause fewer capacity problems now?

Maybe. Dreamhost surely hosts many other web sites which were probably buckling under the bot traffic as well, so they had to do something. Whatever it may be, the ZBB works fine now, and whoever did whatever this effect, should be thanked.

Raphael wrote: ↑Sat Aug 16, 2025 7:17 am Perhaps Dreamhost has increased its bandwidth, so that scraper bots cause fewer capacity problems now?

Or perhaps the objections to too many requests are now being directed to the offending client?

Richard W wrote: ↑Sat Aug 16, 2025 10:56 am

Raphael wrote: ↑Sat Aug 16, 2025 7:17 am Perhaps Dreamhost has increased its bandwidth, so that scraper bots cause fewer capacity problems now?

Or perhaps the objections to too many requests are now being directed to the offending client?

Yes, of course, that's possible, too.

The board has as many "guests" as before, but it is rarely slow any more, and I haven't seen a "Too Many Requests" error for days. Whatever that may mean, what counts is that the board runs nicely and is well usable.

It seems to have calmed down for me too.

Today, there have been episodes of the board being slow and "Too Many Requests" errors. Not as bad as it was earlier this month, but the battle is not won yet.

Still working only intermittently for me, yesterday (?) I got a bunch of "429 Too many requests" errors, and today I got both "429 Too many requests" errors and "HTTP 500" outright-refusing-to-load errors.

I wonder whether the issues are due to Trump fans running DoS attacks because of the US Politics thread. But perhaps that is only a conspiracy theory. Just a brain fart of mine, sorry.

WeepingElf wrote: ↑Fri Aug 29, 2025 11:34 am I wonder whether the issues are due to Trump fans running DoS attacks because of the US Politics thread. But perhaps that is only a conspiracy theory. Just a brain fart of mine, sorry.

Nah, this is affecting the entire web. It's almost certainly AI scrapers at fault -- they are affecting everyone right now.

Travis B. wrote: ↑Fri Aug 29, 2025 1:11 pmNah, this is affecting the entire web. It's almost certainly AI scrapers at fault -- they are affecting everyone right now.

Really? What other websites are constantly crashing like this one?

malloc wrote: ↑Fri Aug 29, 2025 3:28 pm

Travis B. wrote: ↑Fri Aug 29, 2025 1:11 pmNah, this is affecting the entire web. It's almost certainly AI scrapers at fault -- they are affecting everyone right now.

Really? What other websites are constantly crashing like this one?

AI scrapers have been really running up people's hosting bills and hurting their availability as of late. git forges and like across the web have been grinding to a halt recently due to AI scrapers attacking high-CPU-load functionality such as git blame. This kind of thing is why tools like Anubis have become so popular recently, as a way of fighting back against the AI scrapers.

WeepingElf wrote: ↑Fri Aug 29, 2025 11:34 am I wonder whether the issues are due to Trump fans running DoS attacks because of the US Politics thread. But perhaps that is only a conspiracy theory. Just a brain fart of mine, sorry.

Lol, lmao. This board is so obscure that nobody outside a very small circle of a very small circle cares about it.

malloc wrote: ↑Fri Aug 29, 2025 3:28 pm

Travis B. wrote: ↑Fri Aug 29, 2025 1:11 pmNah, this is affecting the entire web. It's almost certainly AI scrapers at fault -- they are affecting everyone right now.

Really? What other websites are constantly crashing like this one?

Others might not be constantly crashing, but as Travis said they are experiencing the Great AI DDoS¹, but they are either able to put up with the higher hosting bills/energy bills if self hosting etc., install some kind of effective AI blocker, as they aren't phpbb boards on hosts that don't let you do some useful computer thing run by a hobbyist² who can't spend all there attention on keeping it running, or just drop the website. The zbb is just in the relatively small overlap between “Can't reliably handle the situation” and “refuses to shut down”.

¹ Coined by me, just now
² I think it's safe the call the ZBB a hobbyist board, because even though Almea (+400) is no longer entirely a hobby, the ZBB doesn't directly factor in to that.

I’ve noticed I seem to encounter more errors on mobile than on a machine.

Man in Space wrote: ↑Fri Aug 29, 2025 6:59 pm I’ve noticed I seem to encounter more errors on mobile than on a machine.

On at least one occasion recently, I called up the ZBB on a mobile, and for some reason was shown the desktop version.