Trouble connecting to the site

L

Lucky Day

New member
I have been experiencing intermittment problems connecting to www.c-brats.com. I frequently see this error:

phpBB : Critical Error

Could not connect to the database

If I keep trying to connect, sooner or later I get through. Anyone else experiencing this?
 
I have seen it several times, too. For me it is always when trying to connect on my phone and I figured it was somehow related to that. Maybe not. Maybe it's becuse The Nerd is out of town and will have infrequent access for a couple weeks.

But hey - thanks to everyone for keeping after it!!
 
On vacation right now, so haven't been online much - I'll look into it in the next couple days.

Last time this happened, we had an over-exuberant site pounding us to no end, and I had to block them.

If anyone notices it again, please follow up here with an approximate date/time you saw it. Don't ferget to include your time zone...
 
Da Nag":3qn3582f said:
On vacation right now.
Click to expand...

Does TyBoo know yer hitting up the tip jar?

How's Tahiti?

:lol: :lol: :moon

Have fun. Did you bring Dana and Da Dawgs too?

No phpBB errors yet but some serious slowdowns and timeouts between 6:55 and 7:10 this morning in the "Paradise" time zone; Pacific

Don
 
Thanks for the info, Don - I found the culprits based on your report.

And unfortunately, it's a well known name to me...they've hosed us many times before. Our fine friends at Lockheed Martin are to blame.

They have misconfigured proxy servers that have brought our server to it's knees on many occasions. Unfortunately, every time I block one of their proxy servers, it's just a matter of time before another server of theirs hits us again.

I've sent off several emails to them in the past, to their published network abuse department. They have resulted in no replies.

I've just added the latest proxy server to the list. Should they hit us again, I'm going to block their entire network from accessing us...which might very well nail some C-Brats who work there surfing from work, but that's the breaks when one's employer has an IT department that lacks clue.
 
I don't get the "Critical Error" Message today like I did yesterday at 9-10 am, but I note that there are currently 6 Registered Users on line and 16 guests, most of which look like they're perusing the Forum Index and probably copying everything for their files/servers/search engines.

I thought most of that latter activity was usually programed to occur at night when the load was light?!?

Seems to slow response time down at times.

Joe. :teeth :thup
 
Within a couple hours of blocking the fourth Lockheed Martin server that was raining thousands of requests per second upon us, they hit us with yet another server.

Sorry if any of you C-Brats work there, and if so, hopefully you'll see this from home - but I just blocked every published Lockheed Martin network I could find.

I've sent them one final email at their published technical contact address, giving them all the details they need to halt this abuse. If I receive a personal reply from one of their IT support folks, and it appears they are taking this report to heart, I'll open up access again...but so far, my emails to them have gone unanswered.
 
Sea Wolf":1znnfktv said:
...but I note that there are currently 6 Registered Users on line and 16 guests, most of which look like they're perusing the Forum Index and probably copying everything for their files/servers/search engines.
Click to expand...

Well behaved search engine crawlers, spread out their requests so as not to cause excessive load.

Well behaved search engine crawlers, also abide by rules we have in place that that define who can crawl the site, and what content they can index.

The Lockheed Martin crawlers don't abide by either of the above - they are the worst abusers I've seen in all the time we've had the site up. Others who have nailed us in the past, were quick to respond to my emails and addressed the issues on their end.

In researching things this morning, we're not the only site that has taken such drastic steps against them...they're either technically clueless in their IT department, or simply don't care. Either way, the problem should be behind us now.

Now...I'm going back to my hammock, which is ideally situated next to 12 lbs. of smoking pork butts.
 
Maybe this is a dumb question, but what does Lockheed Martin IT need our site content for?

Are they a major search engine on the side, or do they want our secret Star Wars Technology and Enhanced Radiation Bomb designs? (old School Technology!)

Joe. :?: :!: :?:
 
I thought it was sabotogue for the Boeing Tanker Contract! Glad to hear that it is "fixed" I hadn't complained, but it was a major problem for me in the lst few days!

Thanks!
 
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