Hi folks,
apologies for the outages of the forum system over the last 12 hours or so - we have been bombarded with a ridiculous amount of traffic which overloaded the database connection to the forum database. I have made some changes that have sidestepped the problem for now and still allow users to find and use the forums (you may need to re-login). You might notice that the web address of the forums has changed slightly (but links to the old address should still land you in the right place).
I am now looking into a more permanent fix. Please post here or use the 'Contact Us' button below if you notice any new issues with the forum.
thanks,
Robin
Forum Outages
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Re: Forum Outages
Hi,
update on outages - I have moved the forums back to their usual web address and enabled CloudFlare protection for the forums to try to prevent the sort of overload that was happening this morning. You may get asked to 'Prove you are a human' now and then if you are accessing certain parts of the forum that seem to be being attacked more (the user control panel, member list, etc). This will also happen to all users and all requests from a handful of countries (Brazil, Vietnam, Russia, etc) that were accounting for a large amount of traffic but have a small number of SharpCap users.
You may also see some temporary issues as the changes take full effect - if you do see any, please wait a few hours, restart your computer/browser and try again. If things are still broken, please let me know.
thanks,
Robin
update on outages - I have moved the forums back to their usual web address and enabled CloudFlare protection for the forums to try to prevent the sort of overload that was happening this morning. You may get asked to 'Prove you are a human' now and then if you are accessing certain parts of the forum that seem to be being attacked more (the user control panel, member list, etc). This will also happen to all users and all requests from a handful of countries (Brazil, Vietnam, Russia, etc) that were accounting for a large amount of traffic but have a small number of SharpCap users.
You may also see some temporary issues as the changes take full effect - if you do see any, please wait a few hours, restart your computer/browser and try again. If things are still broken, please let me know.
thanks,
Robin
Re: Forum Outages
one thing that ive noted is still broken is that then you try to download the 0.25 plate solving database there is a 403 forbiden error.
Re: Forum Outages
ConfirmedPhoenix wrote: Tue Jul 22, 2025 6:55 pm one thing that ive noted is still broken is that then you try to download the 0.25 plate solving database there is a 403 forbiden error.
Menno
Meade LX200 8" f/10 ACF OTA / Ioptron CEM25EC / Zwo ASI071MC Pro / Zwo ASI482MC
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Re: Forum Outages
Oooh, thank you - good spot! My rules to challenge 'dodgy' looking requests were a bit too broad and were catching the index download (and checks for updates too). Fixed now.
cheers,
Robin
cheers,
Robin