Is the board really slow loading up for anyone else?

[Calm]

It’s happening on both my ipad and phone, so am thinking it’s a board thing, but no one else is complaining about it.  And it is horrendously slow, so thinking someone else would. Just wondering if I need to check my tech for a virus or something. 
 

added:  it does come and go, it’s been bad all evening, but as soon as I posted this, it sped up, even editing, which often looks like it’s frozen 

Edited October 14, 2025 by Calm

[teddyaware]

YES!!

[InCognitus]

Yes, yes, and more yes.  And at times the login doesn't work for me right away.

[bluebell]

Yesterday I couldn't get it to work on my phone but it was fine on my computer.  Today it's been better for me.

[bsjkki]

Yes! 

[Pyreaux]

1 hour ago, Calm said:

It’s happening on both my ipad and phone, so am thinking it’s a board thing, but no one else is complaining about it.  And it is horrendously slow, so thinking someone else would. Just wondering if I need to check my tech for a virus or something. 
 

added:  it does come and go, it’s been bad all evening, but as soon as I posted this, it sped up, even editing, which often looks like it’s frozen 

Before you mentioned it, I thought all day I just had too many windows up, because closing some usually helps and I thought I had a virus. I don't think the 170 Guests on the forum are human.

Now it definitely sounds like the forum is still under a cyber attack, specifically involving bots.

What Happened: There was a Spam Bot attack or a malicious campaign using botnets to quickly create fake accounts and distribute unwanted content. The mod having to stop new joiners was a necessary action to mitigate this immediate threat.

Now Being Very Slow to Log In/Open a Reply Window: following the initial bot attack, strongly suggests a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack or an Application Layer Attack.

DDoS: The forum's server is being overwhelmed by a flood of traffic, requests, or connection attempts, making it slow or unavailable for legitimate users (like you trying to log in or post). Even if the spamming has calmed, a continuous, lower-level flood can still cause severe performance degradation.

Application Layer Attack (e.g., Slowloris/R.U.D.Y.): The bots could be opening connections (like when you try to log in or open a reply window) and keeping them open by sending data very slowly, or they could be submitting complex, resource-intensive requests that tie up the server's processing power.

170 Guests That Aren't Human: This is a near-certain sign of ongoing malicious bot traffic. These are likely the bots or automated scripts, possibly part of a botnet, that are constantly hitting the site.

They might be DDoS/Stress Testing Bots: Simply making repeated requests to keep the server overloaded.

Initial mass bot spamming followed by persistent, unexplained performance slowdowns and a high count of suspicious "guests" is highly consistent with a sustained bot-driven cyber attack, most likely a form of a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack targeting the forum's application or server resources.

[Calm]

If you know what is going on and how to fix it, maybe offer your help to Nemesis through the report function.  

I have reported the slowdown just in case he hasn’t had reason to notice.  I have no clue how it works behind the scenes, whether he gets alerts about attacks or they only get noticed when using the board.

Anyway, no need to flood Nemesis with cries for help, mine was probably pitiful enough. 😛 

Added:  the report took forever to get accepted, but the submit and edit right now are at top speed.

Edited October 14, 2025 by Calm

[Calm]

Spoke too soon.  The save edit looked like it didn’t take after an extended moment, but it did after all.  So it fluctuates back and forth pretty quickly, it seems.

[Rain]

Yes. Most often when I click on the star or circle to the left of the topic.  It still loads slow, but much faster, if I click on the number for the last page of a topic.

[ZealouslyStriving]

Yep, slow here also.

[Nemesis]

I’m looking into it.  Not sure how long it’ll take to get to normal but I’m sure it’s temporary. 

[rpn]

Has been since Saturday and still is 10/14/ 5:14 PM EDT.

[rpn]

At 10/14 8:45 it worked as it has normally, for me.

[Calm]

Thank you, @Nemesis!

Edited October 15, 2025 by Calm

[Calm]

Things are going much better, but it did appear to stall when saving just now for the first time in quite a few hours.  Most of the time when this happens, it actually saves.

Added:  It did not save it this time, so it makes me think it is more an old glitch where it flashes the no longer can edit this post sign (which it did).  It doesn’t happen often enough to care.  It was very fast the second time I tried.

Edited October 15, 2025 by Calm

[Nemesis]

Clear your cache and cookies. Is it just this site? And is this just happening in Utah, or is it wide spread?  The weather has been weird so could it be that?  I have problems with some connections especially on the 5g networks. FYI I haven’t had any issues with the site at all.  

[Rain]

1 hour ago, Nemesis said:

Clear your cache and cookies. Is it just this site? And is this just happening in Utah, or is it wide spread?  The weather has been weird so could it be that?  I have problems with some connections especially on the 5g networks. FYI I haven’t had any issues with the site at all.  

Arizona here and it was (not now) incredibly slow for a few days.  Only this site, both wifi and 5G.

[Calm]

Utah and same as Rain.  Weather never did this to me before…though got to say one of those storms last week was over the top in the water it dumped on us and the wind before the rain had the helicopter seeds hitting our second floor window like little hammers, a first (they have to fly upward a bit).

Edited October 16, 2025 by Calm

[bluebell]

Wyoming here and there were a couple days where it was really bad.  It seems to have righted itself though. 

[Rain]

On 10/15/2025 at 7:36 PM, Nemesis said:

Clear your cache and cookies. Is it just this site? And is this just happening in Utah, or is it wide spread?  The weather has been weird so could it be that?  I have problems with some connections especially on the 5g networks. FYI I haven’t had any issues with the site at all.  

Things are starting to get slower again for me.  Weather is nice here in AZ.  Was windy and raining last time it was sliw. 

[Calm]

3 hours ago, Rain said:

Things are starting to get slower again for me.  Weather is nice here in AZ.  Was windy and raining last time it was sliw. 

It started last time with notifications being slow.  That just happened again, but everything else seems fast enough, not instantaneous as it can be at times, but not long enough to make me think “this is slow”.

Edited October 18, 2025 by Calm

[Nemesis]

I’m keeping an eye on the server it’s not showing much, but I’ll try to see where the issue is as best as I can. 

[bluebell]

On 10/17/2025 at 6:09 PM, Calm said:

It started last time with notifications being slow.  That just happened again, but everything else seems fast enough, not instantaneous as it can be at times, but not long enough to make me think “this is slow”.

That's how it's been for me too.  The board has mostly be fine but I couldn't get notifications to load at all.