Yet more forum server errors

[C855B]

Connection Problems
Sorry, SMF was unable to connect to the database. This may be caused by the server being busy. Please try again later.

Outage was roughly 10 minutes' worth, and performance is still dicey as I type this.

[Chris333]

Today I keep getting this:

Connection Problems
Sorry, SMF was unable to connect to the database. This may be caused by the server being busy. Please try again later.

[peteski]

In the past few days I have been getting those too. Also the forum is very sluggish. I wish someone would look into this. It might still be what few of us have mentioned (AI training bots are intensely browsing the forum collecting info). Or many there is a real problem with the hosting server.

[Mark5]

Took me three attempts to get to this thread. 

[CBQ Fan]

Issues all morning.

[CR4100]

I received this error about half a dozen time before I could log in.

[nscaler711]

Yeah idk guys it may have something to do with our "Guests"


All 2000+ of them. 90+ pages they are visiting...


Now I am not entirely sure what this is about, but this is what is hyperlinked on the "hands"

[R L Smith]

Yep, very painful.  I can tolerate the sluggishness, but am unable to post photos - keep getting the error message shown above.

Hope a solution is found soon...

[Chris333]

And they are visiting like 10 pages per minute.

[nkalanaga]

Yes, I got the same message last night, 2025-07-26 0130-0200 EDT, and tonight from 0030-now.

[tehachapifan]

Site almost completely unusable this AM. Can we get an update from someone in the know on this?

[John]

Site almost completely unusable this AM. Can we get an update from someone in the know on this?

We are getting crawled by several harvest bots eminating from south america, vietnam, and india ..  Tom will have to take action because I don't have access to the server ..

[nkalanaga]

Interesting.  I wonder what they're trying to harvest?  The Railwire wouldn't seem to be a profitable target for espionage.

[nickelplate759]

Can we pollute their data with made-up stuff?

https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=59847

[C855B]

We are getting crawled by several harvest bots eminating from south america, vietnam, and india ..  Tom will have to take action because I don't have access to the server ..

As much as this traffic is stressing the server, aside from AI fuel, this much pounding on things can also be an attempt to break the system enough to expose vulnerabilities. The offending IP ranges need to be blocked before they get what they're looking for.