Error 403 forbidden

[Crunked]

Since the move to the new site I often experience the above error. It's hard to predict when it will occur. Suppose I click the button for new posts and it loads 3 pages. I am able to read pages 1 & 2 but if I click page 3, or Next, I may get the error. Sometimes when I click Mark all Forums read I get the error, but not every time. I have cleared cookies from the site but that hasn't helped. Am I the only one with this problem?

 

[theGrogfather]

I'd say PM @kavadude but he seems to have vanished.

 

[Groggy]

It's a server issue, it's been happening to me as well;
Check this thread for more info.
http://kavaforums.com/forum/threads/java-error.10073/#post-119865

 

[worrier]

This is happening to me very regularly too. I was going to create a thread about it.
@HeadHodge I'm a PHP/Apache developer; if you need help or advice with the technical issues etc. please just ask.

 

[kasa_balavu]

I've had this happen as well.

 

[Zentri]

I honestly thought the site was throttling my requests because it happens when I try to open several new tabs in a row ..

 

[The Kap'n]

Are you guys getting this on any specific page that happens more frequently, or is it just happening randomly?

 

[Deleted User01]

I think I got that back when we were having problems but I haven't seen that error in a while. If you guys get that error, report it ASAP and try to give @Kapmkrunk as much info as possible. Time, date, the last thing you clicked before it happened, etc.
I will say this, I have noticed that sometimes when I punch the Post Reply Button, it will spin forever before posting. I didn't think much of it but if this is a bitchin' session, that's my contribution. I guess I need to also report it next time it happens.

P.S. It posted quickly on this one.

 

[Zentri]

As I said previously it seem to me that I'm being "throttled" almost like it's your DDoS protection? It seems SUPER OVERT.


http://i.imgur.com/xbZ6XXg.png

http://i.imgur.com/BVP2egN.png

That happens ALL THE TIME, even when trying to "like" a post I get a message that is basically the same as the reply error message but with an error regarding not being allowed to "like" ... now know that I am the type of person to open 3-5 threads into 3-5 new tabs in quick succession so I am making a few good requests to your servers in a small amount of time but it feels like I am literally limited to like 2 requests a minute sometimes ...

I'm not sure what throttling or DDoS protection you have in place but this seems to be the cause of it in my opinion. I am no spam bot, I love this community, love learning and want to read and post without hindrance, please put me on the whitelist! lol

Much love everyone!

 

[Zentri]

http://i.imgur.com/UETWgNk.png

I try to edit my above post ^ a moment after posting it and then bam ... I must be throttled or your servers are just horrible (no offense at all) After I X'd off that error message I tried hitting edit again and the page just sits there not visibly doing anything and then ~30 seconds later the same error finally pops up. Very laggy/throttling seeming.

 

[The Kap'n]

http://i.imgur.com/UETWgNk.png

I try to edit my above post ^ a moment after posting it and then bam ... I must be throttled or your servers are just horrible (no offense at all) After I X'd off that error message I tried hitting edit again and the page just sits there not visibly doing anything and then ~30 seconds later the same error finally pops up. Very laggy/throttling seeming.

This absolutely shouldn't be happening. I see you're on comcast, and that should be totally fine. If it were a comcast issue I'd be having it too.

And, @Zentri you're not throttled. It must be something to do with our host because I was refreshing the page a few times in a row the other day and it literally locked me out of my own website for spamming. There have been a number of kinks. Apache is killing me because I know literally nothing about it.

Are you running a spam blocker that's maybe chipping away at some vital bit of CSS that the page keeps trying to serve? I personally know it's really laggy if .javascript isn't deferred upon load, another something that could be caused locally possibly.

Edit: and both of your Ips you've used definitely aren't blacklisted.

 

[Zentri]

This absolutely shouldn't be happening. I see you're on comcast, and that should be totally fine. If it were a comcast issue I'd be having it too.

And, @Zentri you're not throttled. It must be something to do with our host because I was refreshing the page a few times in a row the other day and it literally locked me out of my own website for spamming. There have been a number of kinks. Apache is killing me because I know literally nothing about it.

Are you running a spam blocker that's maybe chipping away at some vital bit of CSS that the page keeps trying to serve? I personally know it's really laggy if .javascript isn't deferred upon load, another something that could be caused locally possibly.

Hmm, yes I'm on Comcast and I have a very good connection, am able to do 10 megabytes (not megabits) a second download and with a ~20-30ms ping to most large servers, I'm also hard wired with CAT6 into a 1gbps high end router so my connection is extremely solid and reliable.

The host is definitely doing something, it almost seems like sometimes there are dropped packets with how long it takes to load sometimes, it acts buggy, like I said it sat there for 30 seconds doing nothing and then the error finally popped up. I'm not network engineer or anything like that though lol.

I do have Ublock Origin installed but it's set to whitelist this entire website, the only other thing I use is HTTPS Everywhere which tries to force HTTPS and that has also been completely disabled for like the past week at least because I was forced to disable it due to problems with a different site, so I can't imagine what the problem is.

I use Firefox and have the latest version installed. I'm not sure about the javascript thing but Firefox and my add-ons shouldn't be affecting it, I will try to look.

Maybe you can put in a support ticket with your host and forward them my information and what I've described?

I really appreciate your quick reply and confirmation I'm not being throttled lol (again I would never do anything untowards to this site or anyone here, I am just here to learn and participate )

Thank you Kapmcrunk.

 

[The Kap'n]

Hmm, yes I'm on Comcast and I have a very good connection, am able to do 10 megabytes (not megabits) a second download and with a ~20-30ms ping to most large servers, I'm also hard wired with CAT6 into a 1gbps high end router so my connection is extremely solid and reliable.

The host is definitely doing something, it almost seems like sometimes there are dropped packets with how long it takes to load sometimes, it acts buggy, like I said it sat there for 30 seconds doing nothing and then the error finally popped up. I'm not network engineer or anything like that though lol.

I do have Ublock Origin installed but it's set to whitelist this entire website, the only other thing I use is HTTPS Everywhere which tries to force HTTPS and that has also been completely disabled for like the past week at least because I was forced to disable it due to problems with a different site, so I can't imagine what the problem is.

I use Firefox and have the latest version installed.

Maybe you can put in a support ticket with your host and forward them my information and what I've described?

I really appreciate your quick reply and confirmation I'm not being throttled lol (again I would never do anything untowards to this site or anyone here, I am just here to learn and participate )

Thank you Kapmcrunk.

Oh, don't you worry. I'm sorry that you would feel that way. I promise I'm not singling these problems out on certain members, lol. Like we have to continually sacrifice one just so we can all work without the errors. I do apologize. If you could do one thing for me, and attempt to do what you were doing in another browser, just to see if it's the off chance of some strange browser cache system (I've seen more peculiar things). I ask that solely because the problems seem to be concentrated on a few members.

 

[Zentri]

http://i.imgur.com/gSBGCsj.png

Probably not the best test but basically I opened Chrome, completely cleared my cache/history/everything (I don't really use Chrome besides when sites don't work in Firefox, but I know Chrome is completely updated)

http://i.imgur.com/sAraoUX.png (this happens as I'm typing this message literally lol)

Then after clearing the cache on Chrome etc, I went logged into Kavaforums, clicked "new posts" and opened into new tabs about 10 tabs with no problem, all loaded very quickly.

I thought "hmm" and went back to Firefox, did the same thing, went to new posts, opened about 10 tabs and they loaded quickly but not as quick (probably just how Firefox renders considering it's not sandboxed) but with no issues or errors.

I switched back to Chrome and then immediately went to a random post in one of the threads I opened and hit "quote" and was immediately hit the error I posted at the top of this. You can see in that screenshot Firefox is open behind Chrome.

http://i.imgur.com/sAraoUX.png happened several times as I was typing this message, it feels so much like throttling lol. I mean it literally pops up, I stop typing, X it off, it pops back up, I X it off, start typing .. repeat. It just happened again as I was typing these very words and ironically I'm able to keep typing even though the error message is there. Seems like I don't actually have to X it off because I've typed all of this with it on the screen ... (useless info and I'm just rambling at this point)

Thanks for your time. I will try to browse the site in Chrome from now on as a test but the first test didn't seem good considering I got the error message the very first time I tried to quote someone in Chrome.

PS. It took me several minutes to even get the "Post Reply" button to work because it kept giving me the forbidden error and wouldn't let me make this post. This seems like the worst it's been yet because even if I tried to reply to a post in Chrome or load any page I was denied. Almost like opening those 20+ tabs and making a ton of requests marked me ... I believe you when you say I am not being throttled, but it just very much feels like it lol.

 

[The Kap'n]

http://i.imgur.com/gSBGCsj.png

Probably not the best test but basically I opened Chrome, completely cleared my cache/history/everything (I don't really use Chrome besides when sites don't work in Firefox, but I know Chrome is completely updated)

http://i.imgur.com/sAraoUX.png (this happens as I'm typing this message literally lol)

Then after clearing the cache on Chrome etc, I went logged into Kavaforums, clicked "new posts" and opened into new tabs about 10 tabs with no problem, all loaded very quickly.

I thought "hmm" and went back to Firefox, did the same thing, went to new posts, opened about 10 tabs and they loaded quickly but not as quick (probably just how Firefox renders considering it's not sandboxed) but with no issues or errors.

I switched back to Chrome and then immediately went to a random post in one of the threads I opened and hit "quote" and was immediately hit the error I posted at the top of this. You can see in that screenshot Firefox is open behind Chrome.

http://i.imgur.com/sAraoUX.png happened several times as I was typing this message, it feels so much like throttling lol. I mean it literally pops up, I stop typing, X it off, it pops back up, I X it off, start typing .. repeat. It just happened again as I was typing these very words and ironically I'm able to keep typing even though the error message is there. Seems like I don't actually have to X it off because I've typed all of this with it on the screen ... (useless info and I'm just rambling at this point)

Thanks for your time. I will try to browse the site in Chrome from now on as a test but the first test didn't seem good considering I got the error message the very first time I tried to quote someone in Chrome.

PS. It took me several minutes to even get the "Post Reply" button to work because it kept giving me the forbidden error and wouldn't let me make this post. This seems like the worst it's been yet because even if I tried to reply to a post in Chrome or load any page I was denied. Almost like opening those 20+ tabs and making a ton of requests marked me ... I believe you when you say I am not being throttled, but it just very much feels like it lol.

Try having only one tab open at a time. It may be something that prevents someone from hammering the site with requests. Nothing I've personally included, but something the host sets up to keep its servers from being pounded into oblivion.

 

[Zentri]

That feels a lot like 1997 and counter intuitive to multitasking etc, sometimes I have several open because I am comparing strains or review profiles etc, ever since becoming a member I have basically felt like I need to be "very easy" on this site in order not to feel like I'm being throttled, which I understand if there's bandwidth limits etc .. but it's definitely kind of annoying.

I feel like if I try to open two pages and then make a post within one minute period I will be throttled for the next few minutes, almost like there is a grace period afterwards where my request limit is reduced even more. I waited 5 minutes without doing anything and tried to load the next page in a thread and STILL got the 403 immediately. It's very frustrating.

I understand it's not your fault or design though

 

[The Kap'n]

That feels a lot like 1997 and counter intuitive to multitasking etc, sometimes I have several open because I am comparing strains or review profiles etc, ever since becoming a member I have basically felt like I need to be "very easy" on this site in order not to feel like I'm being throttled, which I understand if there's bandwidth limits etc .. but it's definitely kind of annoying.

I feel like if I try to open two pages and then make a post within one minute period I will be throttled for the next few minutes, almost like there is a grace period afterwards where my request limit is reduced even more. I waited 5 minutes without doing anything and tried to load the next page in a thread and STILL got the 403 immediately. It's very frustrating.

I understand it's not your fault or design though

That gives me, I think, what I need to know to make a ticket with the host. I'm with you. I think it's completely reasonable to have more than one tab open. I'm going to get to work on this. I'm pretty sure it's the protective measures they have in place. I'll ask if we can get some extra leeway.

 

[Zentri]

I appreciate it a lot Kapmcrunk

I want to say, my friend was here for the past hour and I was not at the computer, I came back and refreshed this page and was immediately hit with the 403 again lol. Definitely not something that should happen to someone who hasn't made requests in like an hour, like I said it almost feels like my IP has been marked by the host.

Thanks so much for your time.

PS. As soon as I go to post I'm again hit with the "You don't have permission to access /forum/threads/error-403-forbidden.10167/add-reply on this server. " and "forbidden" thing .. I've not many any posts in over an hour. This was all done in Chrome.

At 8:10 PM I try to "Like" a post and immediately hit with the forbidden. (the post was in a tab I had already opened over an hour ago so I made no new requests between ~7:54pm when this was originally posted and 8:10pm when I was hit with the forbidden.

 

[worrier]

@Kapmcrunk I'm also seeing these errors repeatedly at least several times per day.

My money is on a server misconfiguration being to blame.

If you're running httpd security modules like mod_security or mod_evasive, I would check their settings first of all to make sure they're not too strict.

Helpful information may be in the logs at /var/log/httpd/ or /var/log/apache2/ depending on the Linux distribution the server is running.

 

[The Kap'n]

@Kapmcrunk I'm also seeing these errors repeatedly at least several times per day.

My money is on a server misconfiguration being to blame.

If you're running httpd security modules like mod_security or mod_evasive, I would check their settings first of all to make sure they're not too strict.

Helpful information may be in the logs at /var/log/httpd/ or /var/log/apache2/ depending on the Linux distribution the server is running.

Man, I tell you what, if I even had access to the server logs I'd read em'. What we're running with now is a fully managed "semi" vps semi server. It's a strange configuration, and not one I'm used to seeing. Our last host went belly up on us and suggested this one as a good replacement. The service is amazing, but we've been plagued with issues that are seemingly out of my reach.

The Host is: https://hostineer.com/

Just looking over their advertised setup may tell you something about them.

I've got a service ticket in with them. It seems like it really is some sort of anti-ddos action that's set super paranoid.