Dear Members,

Yes, I am aware that the error 500 - max_connections problem appears to have returned today, July 1. We're working trying to resolve the matter. Please bear with us.

Thankfully I have yet to experience any of them, thankfully! But thank you for keeping us abreast of what's going on!

UPDATE: The server was getting botted again, according to our hosting company. Things appear to have calmed down today.

It's been happening for me a lot today, and even just now when I tried to reply to this, had to refresh page twice to get in to reply.

36 minutes ago, janea4old said:

It's been happening for me a lot today, and even just now when I tried to reply to this, had to refresh page twice to get in to reply.

I just applied one of the most aggressive rule sets available to me to both the main website and the SON Community in the hope of preventing this bot attack from ever reaching the server level, at least 99% of the time.

If you or anyone is aware of another poster or visitor being blocked from viewing either site, please let me know immediately via email at [email protected] or [email protected]. Additionally, we can be reached via X (formerly Twitter) at @SoapOperaNetwrk or @ErrolLewis, facebook.com/soapoperanetwork, or instagram.com/soapoperanetwork.

I was forced to enable "Under Attack Mode" in Cloudflare due to excessive bot activity today, particularly on the SON Community, with our Google Analytics system reporting severe and unusual activity:

As a result, every user, regardless of country of origin (including myself), will receive a browser verification check notice that should clear quickly if you are human, but will require a button click if you are a bot (which won't be able to click the button).

This is a temporary fix to slow down the attack. I'll remove the setting shortly.

UPDATE: I've added another layer of security rules to combat the bot attacks. While not completely gone yet in our reports, the server load averages over the last 1, 5 and 15 minutes have significantly dropped, and active users per Google Analytics have been drastically reduced.

The new layer will now require browser verification for everyone, unless you are already logged in to your SON Community account. I will continue working to allow a minor adjustment for those in countries like the U.S., UK, Canada, Australia and Germany, the five biggest countries by active users/registerd members.

As shown in the graph below, the number for the last 30 minutes is way too high to be real and will drop over time. Meanwhile, the active users over the past 5 minutes appear more consistent with our regular averages.

I will continue to update you as I monitor this matter throughout the day and into the weekend.

UPDATE: The Google Analytics numbers have continued to fall, and the server load averages remain down as well.

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Google Analytics

SERVER

Thanks @Errol I'm sure it's a drag having to deal with this on a holiday! Thanks for all you do.

6 minutes ago, BoldRestless said:

Thanks @Errol I'm sure it's a drag having to deal with this on a holiday! Thanks for all you do.

Yeah, it can be annoying, but I wasn't going anywhere anyway. Haha.

As long as I can mitigate these issues, regardless of when they arise, I'm good. I'm actually glad it happened today because not only is it the weekend, but it's also a federal holiday in the U.S., which means fewer active discussions and less traffic, which, in this instance, was beneficial due to the enormous bot issue last seen on June 12.

Hopefully, we've seen the last of these issues after today. Don't want to jinx it, though.

Thank you Errol. It's no big deal. I waited a minute or two earlier for verification and was fine.