The Stovebolt Site Forums The Back Office IT Short Bus Very Slow again.

SLOOOOOOOOOOOOOW!!!!!

Seriously!

Couldn't get into the site last night around 2300 CDT. Gateway timeout trying to get in thru the front door or directly to a PM.

I just checked and of the 386 guests, IP addresses starting with 146 and 202 seem to be almost all of the traffic, both from Singapore.

Do that many people in Singapore own vintage GMC/Chevy trucks? And currently 710 guests??

Craig - IMHO, the quick and dirty answer is NO! From what I've found for that ASN in just the last 7 days it's being reported as 87.3% Bot activity. The ASN is a Chinese owned Data Center/Service Provider and is primarily based in Singapore, but also Hong Kong, Thailand, Turkey and Mexico, all using those IP group numbers noted by Phil.

They've been an active and many times excessively large portion of our "Guest" list for a long time. BOOO!!!

Seems to me that China is finding other ways to infiltrate our community. As Paul closes down one avenue, they open up another.

Maybe they bought all the Old Navy trucks.

If they did, no wonder they're upset at stovebolters!

parts research. what crap can they double up on.

I came on about a half hour before you did. It worked fine for the first 15 or 20 minutes, then froze up entirely like you said. I think it timed out 2 or 3 times before I finally got logged back out.

Only 80 guests at 11:00 pm. NICE !!

Been logged in for about an hour just cruising along and got the fatal error. Slow to log back in and IP Adresses 146 and 202 are back, log jamming the system.

I just posted and got that fatal error again. The 146/202 IP addresses are dominating the site again. I wonder if its related?

Almost 20 seconds to get to the site's front page at 12:50 CST Sunday 10/5. There are 1174 anonymous guests right now. I don't know how to display their IP addresses.

Other web sites are loading at normal speeds.

630 Guests? Wow!

Been pretty slow until just now. Hundreds of guests, and when I checked random IP addresses of guests, I get place like Singapore, Vietnam, Brazil, Netherlands, etc. None of the ones I checked were from the US, although a couple were from Canada.

Bill, if you want to check IP addresses click who's online on the left, then the IP addresses on the list that pops up. Pics show how.

When I do that Kevin, all 508 current (21:05 CST 10/8/2025) guests are "Anonymous". Maybe your moderator status makes the IP address show???

Yep, I guess only moderators can see IP addresses. Sorry for the misguided instructions.

We'll watch out for bad actors for you.

This weekend has been a continued slow down with some delays, some longer than others.

The Who's On Line "Guest" count has been steadily climbing most of the weekend, now currently exceeding 1900 and sometimes 2000 guests. A random check through IP addresses, I sampled about 50 different IPs, shows about 80% of those guests are supposedly located in South America. Brazil and Argentina are the most prominent of the South American locations, but there seems to be no rhyme or reason to the various IP's. These represent multiple ISPs (service providers) and don't appear to be "bots", but I can't recall when we have had this much activity from the southern hemsphere part of the world.

There are also repeat guest blocks of IP's from Vietnam (200+ beginning with 14, 100 + beginning with 113, 70 + beginning with 123), and many random IP's from Singapore.

Just info for thought should there be something to help identify what's going on and perhaps a means to counter the overwhelming activity.

Slower than my old pickup right now, with 2,711 guests.

Once again super slow this morning (accessing via phone). I had 2 different server time out instances while just trying to sign in.

Below is a current screenshot shows active high guest count now of over 1800.

Some time yesterday we hit a new high guest count of 3,622 guests on line???

Not sure this is a good thing as the validity of the visitors being actual guests IMHO is questionable.

Over 2,100 this morning just after signing on. Posting took over thirty seconds.

1800+ guests right now, but not having a slowness issue.

1500+ here now and ours is actually faster than most mornings.

Bother ....

Right now over 2000 guests (Maybe we should call them intruders instead) and it took well over a minute to get here.
[on edit] another minute+ to get the fatal error message, another minute+ to go to active threads to display the post, another minute+ to open the post, another minute+ to open the post for editing.
I also noticed that the sidebar with the picture of me under my truck pops up about 30 seconds after I start to edit. Site is nearly unusable. Probably why there's not many new posts since I last logged in.

Every other site I visit comes up in under 5 seconds. :-(

GRRRRR!!!!

Only 6 members online now and a random sampling of the intruders shows Brazil, Vietnam, Tunisia, Pakistan, etc.
Sure wish there was a way to disallow any "guests". It might make it harder for legitimate folks trying to join, but if the site's so slow they probably won't stay around anyway.

And we're back!! Thanks Paul for whatever you did (or didn't do).

It took forever to get on last night. Once I did, I couldn’t do anything. Very, very frustrating. Almost 2,300 guests!

Another fatal error posting this!

I'll offer a BIG 2nd to say "Thanks" to Paul for getting things back accessible and functioning again. Your efforts don't go unnoticed!!!

Ditto on the THANKS PAUL!

Thanks again Paul.
That second round of blocks apparently did the trick. Guest count currently under 300.

Another night that I couldn’t get on line. Tried for thirty minutes around 8:30 pm and just kept getting a time out. This issue makes it really hard to moderate.

On another note, if it’s frustrating to us, it must be driving Paul crazy. Thanks Paul, for all your hard work. We all appreciate it.

Here's a thread that Paul just started explaining details of the issues we are encountering....


https://www.stovebolt.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php/topics/1589798/stovebolt-outages#Post1589798

Thank you Paul

You don't know the half of it. On top of dealing with this, I had to deal with a hosting company that was telling me this was all caused by the forum software. No explanation for why it's been working all along until just now.

If you want the gory technical details, I'll write a thread about it, but it will probably go over most heads and bore many others. Suffice it to say, the number of networks we're blocking at the firewall is larger now.

am no computer whiz (ie:Luddite), but a question: do these attacks routed thru users computers or are they direct (whatever that means).
I ask because often when I hit my link it opens as already signed in, and should it help if i/we all make a point to sign out..

Chuck

I just got about 3 gateway timeouts before getting in. And guest count is above 2000 again. GRRR.

Lots of guests from Brazil, a few from Dominican Republic, Hong Kong, Equador, etc.

I was able to get signed in with only a little (10-15 second) lag time this morning, but once in hasn't been doing that long on delay. Current Guests On Line number in the mid 1300's and yeah, LOTS of them from Brazil with a wide range of different IPs and service providers. Also a scattering of other South American countries, but I also saw IPs indicating from Russia, Ukraine, China, Pakistan and lots of other countries too. Crazy amount of activity and interest that doesn't feel normal.

We are currently getting inundated (hammered) with a huge amount of "Guests" from Huawei International Pte. (a Chinese company) out of Singapore. This is clearly identified as a "Data Center". Total guest count is over 1900 at the moment with the following 2 groups being huge:

IP's beginning with 146.176.X - Huawei International Pte. ASN: 136907 out of Singapore: Screenshot of guest count with matching IP group = 998 guests (1st pic below)

IP's beginning with 202.76.X - Huawei International Pte. ASN: 136907 out of Singapore: Screenshot of guest count with matching IP group = 619 guests (2nd pic)

Total "Guests" from this ASN = 1617

I have noticed a moderate slow down since these Guests have arrived.

Can/should these be blocked???

Quick edit: the IP group 146.176.X is now showing over 1000 Guests coming from this source! GRRRRRRR!!!!!

Singapore is blocked completely.

Thank You Paul as always!!! So much faster and more enjoyable getting on line this morning.

Only 172 guests? No one likes us anymore? Oh Boo Hoo!

I prefer a nice "crowd" of friendlies than a hoard of problem people (if they are really people -- the Bot Brotherhood ). Admittedly, this is all very crazy. It's odd for our group since we are talking about old trucks, and not any old truck, and actually very old trucks.

I believe this is data centers gathering info with their AI bots, causing all the issues. It’s probably going to get worse before it gets better.

Not super slow this morning, but I am seeing a lot of fellow Bolters mentioning that they are getting frequent fatal errors repeatedly and I think some of this may be attributed to more excessive Guest traffic.

Just now checked "Who's Online Now" and find we have over 250 "Guests" coming from Alibaba Cloud, LLC, a Data Center/Transit hub under ASN 45102. IP range 47.79.xxx.xxx is shown for every one of the 40 random Guest IP's I clicked to check on, all showing coming from the same ISP source. And go figure, out of SIngapore - GRRRR!!!

Alibaba Cloud last time I checked was a Chinese owned entity, so maybe these need to get the block too???

Paul - What say you sir???

It's slow for me also. Not the worse but not like yesterday, which was good and the old normal.

I got some "gateway timeout" errors today. When I did get on to the site I saw that there was 1800 guests. The number of guests has now gone down and the site seems OK now.

It was going pretty good for an hour or so. It's starting to slow down again. Boooooooo ...

1187 guests? So very slow
Now 1247? wow.....

At 1500 CST it took me 9 minutes to get from loading the 1st screen at StoveBolt.com through 2 other screens to be able to post this update. There were 1,775 guests when I started.

I couldn’t get on about 30 minutes ago. Now, no problem with only 171 guests.

I sure hope Paul can figure this stuff out. I know he's done a lot of blocks these days.

Sporadic and intermittent slow downs this morning. A quick peek at the Who's Online info shows 1420 some odd Guests on line. Of those a quick search shows that 482 of them are listed as "Logging in"???

All random IPs from all over the world. Mostly outside the US, but some also showing as inside the US.

1550 guests? Don't they need to go Xmas shopping or ........

At 11:02 response went from fast enough with less than 1000 "guests" to very slow and 1913 guests at 11:05.

6.50PM cst slow right now.

Minor slow downs when attempting to sign in this morning. Before signing in, the Guest count was 2,334 at about 8:32am. After signing in, the Guest count had increased to over 2,700 at about 8:36am. Took a little less than a minute to transistion from one place to another on the site, including signing in.

After signing in with the Guest count still above 2,700, a quick check indicated 677 of those Guests actions on the site were listed as "Logging in". A random check of several of those "Logging in" Guest IPs continue to show them from scattered locations all over the globe. There were also several from the check that showed from the continental US, but many of those were listed as Data Center service providers.

Current guest count is showing at only 965 and speeds are much better.

Whack-a-mole!!! Blah

Very slow getting on today and yesterday.

John

It should be fixed now. I dramatically increased the buffer size for the database, and that seems to have made a dramatic difference in CPU usage and therefore website responsiveness. Let me know if you continue to see delays after the time of this post.

Doing great this morning Paul!

Thanks as always!

Agreed with it running pretty good. Thanks Paul

Working good for me.

Thank you

2416 guests? Hopefully they took their shoes off before coming in......

Wow! 4600+ right now. A bit slow, but now as bad as previously.

Now 5027. Very slow

Think of if all those guests paid an admission charge! Time to move to Beverly Hills!

And a dizzying new number for most online - 7,194.

It's no wonder we can't seem to function on here at times!

I'm with Gord - a guest admission fee could fund Stovebolt for who knows how long.

Most on line! What a great number. I forget where are I put our last number. I'm sure it's around somewhere. It was in October I think.

Too bad the majority are data collectors and not real people!

The last two days, It has taken me about 30-40 seconds to log in.

EDIT: once in though this posted quick with 1,225 guests.

Been good for a month and a half, but at 22:30 CST 3/3/26 it took over 30 seconds to post a simple text only reply. The "Who's online now" listed 1 member (me), 2222 guests and no robots.

EDIT: It took over 90 seconds for this post to post.

I had trouble getting on line around 9:30 am CST with a couple of Gateway Timeout messages. When I did get to the main page and signed in, there were only 4 members and 176 guests on line.

Have been on since and have had sporadic times of quick and then slightly slow activities. Currently relatively okay response/action times at this posting time.

At 7:20 (Alaska time) this evening I was getting server timeouts and saw this on who's online when I did manage to get online for a little bit.

Weird that it didn't even recognize I was online.

Right now, pretty normal, but apparently I'm all alone here (well, me and 985 guests.)

Currently, 8 members, 243 guests. Runnin' pretty good.

I get that off an on too Kevin. I can be on for a few hours at a time sometimes and when I look, I may or may not be shown as still on-line??? Seems to usually happen to me when I spend a bit of extra time composing a post/reply, then when I do actually complete the post it shows that I'm not here.

Tonight it worked fine, but last night it timed out every time I tried to come on the site. I finally gave up.

30-45 second page changes- - - - -again! This is getting pretty frustrating!
Jerry

Currently over 7500 "guests" on the system. Been pretty slow today. When I first logged on just a bit ago, I got an error message indicating slow response from the server, and had to try again. Still takes at least 30 seconds for page changes to load.

Me too @ 22:23 CST


2 members (BillCollins, Joe Alan), 5,389 guests, and 0 robots. There were 6792 guests just a minute before I grabbed the 5389 guest data.

Back to normal this morning.

06:55 CST 3 members and 51 guests.

Whew!!!

I wonder what changed???????????? Glad to have it back to more normal speeds.

I think the system gets overloaded when we reach 5000 or more "Guests". Paul says that John needs to implement Cloudflare (whatever the heck that is.)

5700+ again now and real slow response. Apparently these guys fly by night. I can't see IP addresses to report them. Maybe someone else can.

I was able to check a few but most I saw were US based, but a few were from England and a few were proxy servers, which can disguise the true source.

Definitely annoying.

I logged on at 10:32pm MDT and it took a couple of tries before I got in without timing out.
The "Who's Online Now" window says that there are "0 members (), 5,865 guests, and 0 robots.
0 members is surprising because I am signed in as a member.

Just figured that I would report what I saw...0 members and 5,865 guests!!

At 9:30 PM Alaska Daylight Time today.

They've taken over. GRRRR. I'm apparently not even here.

I don't think you should eliminate "Guests", but is there a way to limit them to like 500 or so? Can it work that way?

8 members

57 guests ?? Where did they all go? Oh boo hoo !

Now 41 guests......

On Sunday night I tried logging in several times and never did get in. It kept timing out, and I finally gave up. Tonight it's back to normal.

I've been noticing that pictures are sometimes slow to load when I'm reading someone's thread? They might load OK the first time, but when I refresh, some pictures don't load again?

Have had the same issue and it’s not consistent.

I have found that even though the thumbnail doesn’t show in the thread, if you click on it, it will still display in full view mode.