Difficulties to access the Forum ...

[wefalck]

Lately, the Forum often has not been accessible. I am getting the following error message:

SQL ERROR [ mysqli ]

MySQL server has gone away [2006]

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

Is this a bandwith-problem with the hosting servers and have others experienced the same problem?

[EJFoeth]

Appears all the time, forum often not accessible for days.

[BB62vet]

I've gotten the same messages for the last 2-3 days. This is the first time the site actually came up on screen within moments of clicking on the site tab. Not only frustrating, but wearing me out! Seriously!

[Timmy C]

Yes, this is the same issue that's been discussed here: https://www.shipmodels.info/mws_forum/v ... p?t=415785

Tim's aware of the issue, but it's apparently been difficult to track down as to how to solve it. Hopefully he can provide an update.

[Cadman]

From the tech:

It does look like your site in particular was definitely getting hammered by bots which was crippling the server. I was able to stop it by blocking a few countries, user agents (bots), and some IP ranges with the Traffic Blocking tool.

The server is still experiencing a bit higher usage, but no where near where it was and is still available. I'm still working on it as I write this and hope to lock it down some more.

I'm not sure if there is a good solution for these DDoS attacks. The more we block, the more new IP addresses show up.

[FFG-7]

I've noticed since the site changed software that not as many "supposedly" new members has joined per day compared to before which is good. when the site was using the old software, I noticed new members joining with similar names which tells me something fishy is going on as that is not normal & I have been a moderator now lead moderator for well over 15rs so I know what I m talking about. I still see those "supposedly" new members but they do not post.