this post was submitted on 17 Sep 2025
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Announcements about system updates or other things related to this instance.

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Hi guys,

Server has been quite slow the last couple of days, and it turns out its because the old.lemmy.today user interface was being hammered and scraped by bots. I turned them off now temporarily while i look into this.

In the mean time, enjoy a faster instance, hopefully.. :)


Edit: And the user interfaces are back online.

Now everyone is rate limited on their real ip before hitting any of the alternate user interfaces. This means the web server can protect against bots hammering the site.

Currently it looks like its working. Both the default web site and the alternate user interfaces are fast again. Give the alternate ones a try if you are using a web browser to access the site. :)

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[–] nothingcorporate@lemmy.today 15 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Thanks for your efforts Mr. Manager! 🍌

[–] mrmanager@lemmy.today 10 points 3 days ago

Cant let the bots win!

[–] JawnZ@lemmy.today 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

btw, I just noticed that old.lemmy.world has a Cloudflare captcha check (not sure if it's only old or their main), I wonder if it's to deal with the bot scraping?

You mentioned IP rate limiting but it's possible that the CF-captcha could help

[–] mrmanager@lemmy.today 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

We dont use cloudflare so thats a bit strange. Can you show a screenshot when that happens?

[–] JawnZ@lemmy.today 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Probably difficult for me to capture, but I'm saying that WORLD is using the cloudflare captcha, so maybe an option to put on this instance?

[–] mrmanager@lemmy.today 1 points 2 days ago

Aha sorry i misunderstood. :)

I have increased the rate limit from 6 to 10 now, will see if it improves things.

I dont really want to add cloudflare in front of the instance. Then we are depending on them all of a sudden.

Leta tune the rate limiting a bit and see if we are happy.

[–] JawnZ@lemmy.today 7 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

thanks for posting about it, I was very confused.

ps. If your username is an Arrested Development reference, I especially love it!

[–] mrmanager@lemmy.today 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

:) Its not but now I have to check that out!

The username is just a joke really. The entire office culture of managers and how they see themselves as very important, often just making the place worse for employees. :)

[–] Buelldozer@lemmy.today 8 points 3 days ago (1 children)

...turns out its because the old.lemmy.today user interface was being hammered and scraped by bots.

Of course it was bots.

[–] mrmanager@lemmy.today 10 points 3 days ago

Very annoying. But big thank you for sending me that message about the slow server! :)

This will be fixed eventually, just need to figure out a good config I think.

[–] admiralpatrick@lemmy.world 6 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Yeah, that's a very common thing with Mlmym, and a lot of instances have that issue. It's also hard to rate-limit because all client connections to the API come from Mlmym's server rather than the users.

[–] mrmanager@lemmy.today 5 points 3 days ago

Yeah that was the exact issue. I figured I could just forward the real ip from the incoming connection to the container, but couldnt get it to work.

There must be a way, I will keep looking.

[–] postcapitalism@lemmy.today 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Thanks. Let us know how we can support you

[–] mrmanager@lemmy.today 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Just spread the word about the instance if you like the hands off approach to moderation. :)

[–] postcapitalism@lemmy.today 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Sounds good sir!

I like the open federation (I think one instance was banned - not even sure which but must be deserved) and relaxed moderation.

Thank you for your work. As long as we keep the bots and any prolific spammers off it’s a great model for the fediverse.

[–] mrmanager@lemmy.today 4 points 2 days ago

Naah, we are still in perfect shape, 0 instances blocked and 0 instances blocking us: https://federation-checker.vercel.app/

Compare with lemmy.world for fun. I mean, I understand a super large instance needs to do what it needs to do though. But there are nice bonuses to being small.

[–] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

is it thats why the site lags from time to time while loading posts.

[–] mrmanager@lemmy.today 1 points 3 days ago

Yeah most likely. But it should be faster now. What do you think, notice any difference?