We are having major server issues
We’re having MAJOR server issues and have been as of last night (23/04/19).
Nothing so far has been diagnosed. Clearly it’s possible some malfeasance is responsible, but so far we haven’t found any direct signs thereof.
We’re working on it and will keep you all our readers updated.
In the meantime – your comments are not being censored if they fail to appear. We strongly advise making copies of any longer posts before hitting send.
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Haven’t had time to pay much attention here. Looks like you are using EIG/Bluehost? Could be a problem with WordPress plugins per se (“too many”) or, if the problem has “resolved itself“, the “too many” plugins effect plus Bluehost’s load balancing efforts choking them or choking on them (hence the rash’s clearing up when their admins noticed it). Big Brother will almost certainly be watching a site like this but equally almost cerainly won’t be doing anything active enough to get caught at it…
I’d concur with the view below that you are likely to have a malware / hacker problem. It may be on the back end database side rather than front end WP and difficult to trace. Whatever, there is definitely an issue with database or communications between it and the front end in my humble opinion, hence the delays in response, and possible re-routing / hacking.
Another thing I’ve noticed is that some of the icons and graphics produce are corrupted and / or produce strange artifacts, at least on my iPad with iOS 12.3. For example, your “support Paypal” icon above, the top 20% has weird diagonal lines all over it and hiding almost completly the word “support”. I’ve never seen such effects on any other device or any other site…in decades! Some of the icons on the left leave artifacts as I scroll through, weird. Perhaps it’s related to the database problem, or hackers, or something local to me, but I don’t get this on any other site.
Good luck with sorting it out!
Frank
Fyi, formerly Frankly Speaking – had to change my nickname because too many characters in the new commenting system!
Hmmm… thanks for that feedback. If anyone else has similar – or other – issues – let us know
Hi ‘Mod’,
A minor point, but it may be symptomatic of bigger issues, I have been unable to insert a ‘smiley’ emoji. On the rare occasions that I use ‘smileys’ I tend to just use the appropriate keyboard punctuation keys and the smiley automatically appears in the final published version. However when I have tried a couple of times recently (can’t recall if it pre-dates the server problems) the final version appears as a small square box. Possibly it’s just me! 🙂
09:10 sunday
Seems better today.
Yes! As of Sunday morning (9am BST) the server load is back within normal limits.
Can’t guarantee it will last – but we’ll see.
Loads faster. Vote up/down faster, i’ll see if the message posts faster.
Yes it did!
But the dns 162.241.132.154 still not connecting
Its possible its not NSA type spying but simple malware. I tried to sign up to support you via PalPal a week or two ago and the process failed. However, a few days later I got a letter from PayPal Bank declining to offer me credit because they couldn’t verify who I was.
I hadn’t applied for credit, of course. I spoke to PP about this and they explained how they’d stopped the application. Now, although I’ve had an account with them for a decade or more I don’t use it that often, the last time was literally months ago. I can only suppose that someone harvested my information from your site — maybe a man in the middle, maybe a direct hack — and tried to use my credentials but failed on the second factor authentication that PP uses (also, they know where I live….).
I check through the site software. (After all, if I was one of those three letter agencies that wanted to do you harm I’d not attack you directly — at least not in a way you’d notice — but then I ‘d open the door for all sorts of crapware. The best way to kill a site is to destroy its reputation and reliability.)
I had the same issue with PayPal, process just broke somewhere near the end. Two weeks ago plus minus
Sorry to hear that – have you tried again since?
Gone are the days when a few smart backroom blokes could get it over the forces of darkness. Partly because the NSA et al have spent a lot of resources either hiring or distracting many of the smartest security woke (doncha hate the ubiquitous usage of that word by aged straight arrows tryin to be relevant? I do) tech thinkers, and the other reason is even Linux let alone windows servers with their layers of active directory tosh and seemingly impossible to find levers n switches, have become so complex it is fuckin tough to be able to visualise an entire server’s data flow anymore. This means the arseholes can pull stunts when they choose to and the only real indication of how much the pricks loath a particular site is the novelty of the attack. I’m sure the creeps in amerika won’t have dragged anything previously unused outta the box – so called zero day for OffGraun (come to think of it though the low lifes at gchq may have, altho I cannot see the yanks letting those types who are 99% dipshit anywhere near their top of the line attacks). What I am trying to say is that the fact your site admin and server support types struggled to get to the bottom of this should be taken as a compliment to OffG since a largely unknown attack has been used. Whatever it was/is the problem will be solved as always and everything can go back to normal. Those who are particularly paranoid should invest in a vpn which has no presence in the US – otherwise as I’m sure most are aware, the US presence gets a visit from the fbi and either have to hand over their logs or if they have none, permit the feds… Read more »
The DNS 162.241.132.154 for the domain is not connecting!
Has the server been changed?
No it hasn’t. But it’s vastly overloading (x10 -x60) and we are not able to find out why yet.
There are dark forces who have unlimited budget for the purpose of disruption and creating chaos.
Will a longer term (perhaps also short term) solution be ‘to avoid doing business with the US’, and moving to a host outside the US? [BUT] a server can be attacked no matter where is physically located.
Tricky situation!