508 Resource Limit Reached

[Galadriel55]

Since my last post I haven't seen any major issues. Numbers have mostly stayed at 3K. A couple times, like just now, I would need a single refresh - that's when the numbers go into 4K.

So far, actually quite accurately in keeping with Hui's estimate of 6K being the critical number. Though when the site is really inaccessible, can't see what the numbers are.

On a different note... The tidal wave seems to have passed for now at least. So long as it remains a temporary and infrequent occurrence... Would be interesting to know what's behind the influx.

[Snowdog]

It seems to be back to every other click for me.

[Galadriel55]

For the longest time now guests have been at 3-4K and I have had minimal instances of errors. Then today I had to refresh several times with most clicks, and lo and behold we are over 6K.

I doubted at first, but I am forced to conclude after careful observation that Hui's proposed 6K threshold is indeed very accurate.

Dunno how to prevent it - but at least it seems to be a very temporary thing as the guests ebb and flow on their own accord.

[Jeremy]

It's due to the server not being able to keep up with increasing traffic from AI bots. All forums are easy targets for these AI bots because they provide years of human-written content, freely available for anyone to to access. These bots are from multiple companies, some of which are probably a bit sketchy, all scraping hundreds of pages a minute, hoping to help build their massive databases. It seems most forums on the internet have been hit like this in the last year, some ready to deal with it more than others.

I recently made this account because I saw the issue and I'm worried it's going to eventually break this website permanently if it's not addressed, which would be a tragedy considering the history in the place. I can help if an admin could contact me. I'm not sure if Ron himself is active here anymore?

[Elvellon]

Originally Posted by Jeremy

It's due to the server not being able to keep up with increasing traffic from AI bots. All forums are easy targets for these AI bots because they provide years of human-written content, freely available for anyone to to access. These bots are from multiple companies, some of which are probably a bit sketchy, all scraping hundreds of pages a minute, hoping to help build their massive databases. It seems most forums on the internet have been hit like this in the last year, some ready to deal with it more than others.

I recently made this account because I saw the issue and I'm worried it's going to eventually break this website permanently if it's not addressed, which would be a tragedy considering the history in the place. I can help if an admin could contact me. I'm not sure if Ron himself is active here anymore?

This has been a problem since at least December of 2023. You can read more about it here: http://forum.barrowdowns.com/showthread.php?t=19965. At the time it was because of links to an LOTR Parody thread being shared, and that seems to have lead bots to that thread. But you're right, it seems that the problem has spread more evenly now across the whole forum. It's a real shame, it's basically killed my enthusiasm to continue participating in the Translations from the Elvish project because I can't quickly search, move through thread pages, or post, without reloading.

I hope that the admin takes you up on your offer for help, because it's ridiculous how easily AI activity like this is creating a dead internet.

(Here I go, time to hit "Submit Reply" and get a 508 error.)

Edit: Sure enough, took 3 tries to submit this post.