Been having problems loading pages recently, as in last 24 hours. I get empty pages, eeasy fix though, just need a reload or 2.
Is this something on my end or is it a consequence of moving providers?
Been having problems loading pages recently, as in last 24 hours. I get empty pages, eeasy fix though, just need a reload or 2.
Is this something on my end or is it a consequence of moving providers?
been getting quite a few HTTP 503's the last couple days myself. Sometimes refreshing after a few seconds works, other times had to try many minutes later.
Twice today it's taken 30 seconds or so for the site to load.
Normally it's pretty much instant.
Starting for me today as well. Every few minutes, all I get are empty pages when I try to click a link.
No error message, HTML-response code is a solid 200, nothing weird... the page simply doesn't contains any content.
Firefox 137.
*EDIT* Just got another one, and noticed I was wrong. The 200 I get is for the fav-icon. The page itself gives a 503. Sorry about that.
Same here with Firefox for Android 137.0 (Build #2016081319).
At the Moment the Website works like it should, maybe at bit slow when hitting on Links.
Yeah, getting the same blank pages occasionally, with one or few reloads loading the page.
I tried posting a new chapter to a story but got the blank page in middle of the posting wizard and refresh broke the wizard so I guess I will have to try again once this is fixed.
I have also been having this issue since a number of days. It comes and goes, but seems to be happening for at least 2/3 of the page loads I attempt.
Also using Firefox 137 for Android, and it's happening for me both when on WiFi as well as mobile data.
The most common cause of this issue is being on a VPN connection.
It seems Cloudflare blocks some VPN connections.
I do not use a VPN and do not have currently any unusual problems with other sites that use Cloudflare. Using Firefox 133 on windows 11.
The situation seems to have gotten worse with about 2/3 of page loads failing currently.
Not using a VPN, and I haven't noticed any issues with other sites. No idea if any of them are using Cloudflare though.
Have to jump on the "I'm not using a VPN" bandwagon. I also don't have this issue with other sites that protect themselves through Cloudflare.
My usual Cloudflare-issues are that they suddenly show me a captcha to solve before they deliver the site's payload, not a 503.
Ironically, I had this problem when I tried to load this discussion.
I think it is related to the PHP.
That said, I prefer having a site with low censorship, even if it means I have to reload pages a lot.
Not using a VPN
OK. I'll investigate further.
For me, I never see this problem unless I'm on VPN.
It's not exactly worth investigating much since soon enough, the whole set up will change again as we move to our new hosting facility.
Please be patient.
It's not at the point where it would bother me. If it weren't for the one guy claiming it reset the posting process of their new story, I'd say: Just ignore us until the server-move is completed...
It is just an additional chapter and I have several next chapters queued up, so no interruption on that side. Just wanted to get more ahead on the posting part, so no hurry from that for me. But I do not know of course how others are affected.
But I do not know of course how others are affected.
It's been at best a minor inconvenience for me.
If it weren't for the one guy claiming it reset the posting process of their new story,
This only happens if it resets before the author chooses what type of submission it is.
After the type of submission is selected, the auto-save mechanism kicks in and progress is easily recovered by clicking 'resume'.
When is the change planned to happen?
And seems better this morning European time...
🤞
When is the change planned to happen?
No specific date/time.
The interruption would be fairly short, and we'll try to do it at around 4am EDT as that is the time of day with the lowest activity.
And since it's planned we'll have a 'the site down for maintenance' message until the transfer is done.
And seems better this morning European time...
I just experienced a 15 minute whiteout - Home page, Forum, Contact etc.
SciFiStories and FineStories were unaffected.
AJ
And again. SciFiStories and FineStories unaffected.
Could it be some form of denial of service attack?
AJ
And again. SciFiStories and FineStories unaffected.
Could it be some form of denial of service attack?
No attack. It's Cloudflare.
Finestories and Scifistories are now on a different server, and they're not behind cloudflare's proxy servers.
I'm trying to configure Cloudflare to minimize its DDOS protections, in order to minimize this kind of thing.
I'm trying to configure Cloudflare to minimize its DDOS protections, in order to minimize this kind of thing.
503 with blank page isn't due to cloudflare protection.
If the problem is with cloudflare (usually 502 or 504), there would be a cloudflare message, not a blank page.
If you do not see the error in your apache log, it's probably your load balancer.
You should check the cloudflare logs. When cloudflare protection is active, the visitor should see a some kind of security check warning. It's usual when connecting with tor. I do not think minimizing DDOS protection is needed or advisable.
https://developers.cloudflare.com/support/troubleshooting/cloudflare-errors/troubleshooting-cloudflare-5xx-errors/
By the way, you can replace your load balancer with a cloudflare service, that could simplify diagnostics. But I'm not sure it's as good as an F5 big-ip (not enough experience with that).
https://developers.cloudflare.com/load-balancing/load-balancers/
I don't know if it's of any use to you, but this is a response I got from the server yesterday: -
HTTP/2.0 503 Service Unavailable
Date: Mon, 07 Apr 2025 20:17:39 GMT
Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8
Vary: User-Agent
cf-cache-status: DYNAMIC
report-to: {"endpoints":[{"url":"https://a.nel.cloudflare.com/report/v4?s=7prz1g3pS1hCU7Ido0Ejgqb%2B9%2FhKrdaCmObX%2B3befM%2F7Bm%2BMyYdLHgMGNkfdKPircGIZwrPHES%2FGqObKdFCG2mukoQ907a4Ly6gb%2Fck3gVm9UspyOFZUmsjsTRlH9JVVbvk3"}],"group":"cf-nel","max_age":604800}
nel: {"success_fraction":0,"report_to":"cf-nel","max_age":604800}
Server: cloudflare
cf-ray: 92cc35aa3a6148bc-LHR
server-timing: cfL4;desc="?proto=TCP&rtt=35499&min_rtt=7901&rtt_var=49148&sent=9&recv=13&lost=0&retrans=0&sent_bytes=1648&recv_bytes=1557&delivery_rate=356656&cwnd=101&unsent_bytes=0&cid=219396e9910b06b6&ts=16627&x=0"
X-Firefox-Spdy: h2
That was from the forum. It was ok when I tried again a few minutes later. First time I had seen it in recent months.
Since things are changing soon I'd say to leave this be, even if it might be interesting to know why it's occuring, the impact of the problem combined with the ease of the workaraound doesn't elevate this to more than a temporary annoyance.
Now if it continues after the move, that would be a whole other thing.
A further observation regarding this, it seems to be periodic, as in works for timeperiod, white pages for timeperiod.