ViperPits Web Site Running Slow

[The_target]

wilco 

[Willy]

Web Page Admins

Is this sluggish server response when creating posts problem being looked into?  Apparently others are seeing this not just me.

[Sandman]

Our forum has seen a sudden increase in "undefined errors"- mostly "guests" attempting to access forum content without proper registration.

The forum security features are working overtime.  Our server's "error log" has recorded over 69,757 improper "guest" requests that were denied over the past two days alone.  By contrast, there were only 80 registered user "errors" for the past 30 days (mostly mis-typed passwords during log in, or syntax errors in attempted postings).

I have sent an email to Mike, but I'm not sure we can do much to reduce these.  They are likely automated "bots" trying to download photos and/or posted information as an unregistered guest.  We may need to severely limit Guest Access to the forum if this continues.  We can track the IP addresses of these "Guests", and selectively ban these IP addresses, but they are using multiple addresses.

Additional funds are usually used to increase online storage and special features (like "Classifeds"), but additional money really doesn't improve forum speed during these periods of unusual activity.

[Willy]

Thanks for the update Mark.  I vote we turn off Guest access for about a month if you think that will block this.  Maybe that will get the bots to move on to other sites.  It's getting to the point that it is difficult to make a post which kinda negates the whole purpose of our forum.

[Sandman]

Still waiting to hear from Mike

[Rambowski]

To reduce automated boots and spammy accounts login attempts I would suggest to implement the Google captcha which will reduce such attempts to a minimum. I am using it on my website and it works like a charm...

[Willy]

Yes, please do something.  It is getting nearly impossible to post.