Forum Outage 29th July 2025

[Anmer]

Update 29th July 2025

Yesterday the forum experienced a massive increase in visitor numbers.  In a typical day we get about 200 visitors at any time.  Yesterday this reached over 28,000!

Consequently, the server couldn't cope with such demand and you may have seen a message - "508 Insufficient Resource".

This was possibly a Denial of Service attack.  But why?  There's nothing of any value and I can't afford a ransom!

By setting the Forum to Maintenance Mode, the visitor count has reduced.

The Forum is now back online, albeit with a few missing features, such as Chat.  This should be restored later, depending on ongoing performance.

Please acceot my apologies for this outage.  We don't get many but everyone is regretted.

[the laird]

Mike, no need to apologize, you do a magnificent job keeping the site going and with the members adding finance and expertise, hopefully it will remain one of the best for information and help to others. clive

[Anmer]

Thanks Clive.

Unfortunately, from what I've read, these AI bots are going to become a bigger nuisance and difficult to handle.

They use multiple IP addresses, scraping the Internet for as much content as they can grab.

As soon as someone closes one door another two open.

There may be more disruption to come!