Resolved Can we change/tune the "frequency" filtering?

[tjZ06]

I imagine I'm not the only one that runs into this... but perhaps I just browse differently than others. I tend to go to the "New Posts" link, then I launch a few threads in new tabs. I tend to skip around through them, replying in some, looking up things in older threads to link in some of my replies, etc. etc. Inevitably, multiple times per day the forum filtering blocks me for 10-15 minutes. It makes for a poor user experience, and makes it harder to share with the community.

Any chance we can tune this to allow for more dynamic users?

-TJ

 

[Jim SoG]

What do you mean by blocks you? I have ran into a "WHOA!" thing when I try to do a post right after one I just made, is that what you mean?

 

[tjZ06]

What do you mean by blocks you? I have ran into a "WHOA!" thing when I try to do a post right after one I just made, is that what you mean?

My IP is and my account are temporarily blocked from establishing 80/443 connections. I can verify with a proxy or VPN using a browser w/o my account cached at the same time. It's pretty easy to recreate, go to a thread you've posted in and open 3-4 pages of that thread in different tabs.

-TJ

 

[Jim SoG]

Copy the msg you get and past it here, lets see what is going on. I did not get it to duplicate....

 

[DRAX]

My IP is and my account are temporarily blocked from establishing 80/443 connections. I can verify with a proxy or VPN using a browser w/o my account cached at the same time. It's pretty easy to recreate, go to a thread you've posted in and open 3-4 pages of that thread in different tabs.

-TJ

I've tried this and haven't been able to reproduce it either, probably opened close to a dozen tabs for different threads in quick succession and not a single error. What message are you getting when you're "blocked"? Are you connecting to the forums through any services besides your ISP? You mention testing with proxies and VPNs, are you using one when this happens? What browser? What OS? What ISP?

 

[tjZ06]

Copy the msg you get and past it here, lets see what is going on. I did not get it to duplicate....

It's not a message, I can't connect to the site anymore. I'm testing now... for example if I open my thread about my WJ: 2003 Jeep Grand Cherokee Overland Build

I then try to open pages 2 and 3 in new tabs, and click the "next" option to cycle to page 4. Before I can even get to page 4 I begin being blocked by your site's firewall:



It's very repeatable. In fact, just opening that thread and clicking "next" through several pages seems to do it reliably.

-TJ

 

[DRAX]

Ok, I was able to reproduce this by opening multiple tabs as fast as possible. I just selected a thread, right clicked, and clicked "Open link in new tab" about 8 times and now my connection is being blocked. This may be a DDoS or similar "attack" mitigation method being used by whoever hosts the OB site, it's not the forum software itself doing this.

 

[tjZ06]

This seems to be something wrong on your end or with your internet connection. Please see my post above and include those details. I've never seen this site or any other block web connections for simply doing what you're doing.

I agree, I've never had this be an issue on any other site. That said, I've done this from multiple different machines and phones, from multiple different geographic locations, on multiple different connections/ISP (both wired ISPs and mobile data), with every different browser out there etc, including using various proxies. If it's related to my account, I could understand that. But I'm pretty confident it's not related to my connection.

-TJ

 

[DRAX]

I agree, I've never had this be an issue on any other site. That said, I've done this from multiple different machines and phones, from multiple different geographic locations, on multiple different connections/ISP (both wired ISPs and mobile data), with every different browser out there etc, including using various proxies. If it's related to my account, I could understand that. But I'm pretty confident it's not related to my connection.

-TJ

You replied too fast, I updated my post above as I was able to reproduce the exact issue by opening a bunch of tabs for the same thread as quickly as possible. It's not the forum software doing this, but seems like OB is using some wonky alternative to Cloudflare and its "attack" mitigation is pretty awful. You can read about their offerings here - Sucuri - Complete Website Security, Protection & Monitoring

Curious to see how long this blocking lasts.

 

[DRAX]

The network-level block (causing the connection timeout) has been removed but I do get this error now.

 

[tjZ06]

You replied too fast, I updated my post above as I was able to reproduce the exact issue by opening a bunch of tabs for the same thread as quickly as possible. It's not the forum software doing this, but seems like OB is using some wonky alternative to Cloudflare and its "attack" mitigation is pretty awful. You can read about their offerings here - Sucuri - Complete Website Security, Protection & Monitoring

Curious to see how long this blocking lasts.

Glad it's not just me, and confirms what I was thinking that this is a "feature" that might be tunable. I haven't checked exactly but I think the block is ~10min.

-TJ

 

[DRAX]

And now full functionality has been restored for me.

 

[tjZ06]

The network-level block (causing the connection timeout) has been removed but I do get this error now.

View attachment 220214

Great data. An IDS/IPS makes perfect sense, and should be something the admins can either tune, or ask to be tuned. I'd like to see what the metric it is using to block is. Is it something like X pages in Y time?

-TJ

 

[Jim SoG]

Ok got it, let me elevate to dev team... Will post updates.

Jim

 

[tjZ06]

Ok got it, let me elevate to dev team... Will post updates.

Jim

Thanks!

-TJ

 

[slomatt]

I've also experienced this issue many times in the past, though not recently (in the last month or so). Like the OP I tend to visit the "New posts" page and then open the posts in separate tabs so I can read them without having to click back to the "New posts" page and losing my place. This results in me opening multiple pages in a relatively short period of time, though the requests are still seconds or more apart so it's confusing why that would trigger some kind of DDOS. Eventually the site stop responding and I have to wait for a period of time before it responds to my requests again.

 

[Jim SoG]

The team is trying to reproduce and are working on this..... Stand by.

 

[Jim SoG]

Still waiting update...

 

[tjZ06]

Still waiting update...

Awesome, thanks for the work from the team and the continued updates.

-TJ

 

[Jim SoG]

Ok, Dev Team is not able to duplicate the issue and in fact I can not either. They are suspecting your net connections but they are now checking into the firewall and other logs. Will post more when I am told.....