An update on where we're at

[mark]

Howdy everybody.

Now that we're entirely off of Cloudflare, I figured I'd give an update on some of the sharp edges and things we're still working on.

First of all, we've had to push a few changes out to update some configurations and this has had the side effect of pushing out some changes (like an overhaul of the Inbox.) Normally we try to give advanced notice of site and code changes, so I apologize that this change is coming as a surprise. We'll keep an eye on feedback here so we can iterate on things as needed. This has been reverted.

Now, on to the other things.

• (TBD) VPN. I know that some of you use VPNs to access Dreamwidth and you're now getting overly familiar with the CAPTCHA solution that AWS offers. It's, well, not a great solution. It solves the robot problem fairly well but it is pretty suboptimal for our users, we hear you. We are investigating other solutions here to see what we can do, but it will not be an immediate fix, unfortunately.

• (Investigating) 403s. Secondly, I'm seeing some reports of 403s on commenting. We're investigating this, but nobody on the volunteer team has reported it / can reproduce it, so we're still trying to figure this one out.

• (Done) RSS feeds. Thirdly, when I set up the CAPTCHA, I did forget to add rules allowing access to RSS and ATOM feeds. alierak fixed these up, so you should be able to access your feeds again via IFTTT and similar services. If not, please let us know in the comments.

• (Done) IP logging. Fourthly, the config change we pushed (that deployed updated code) did fix the issue where IP addresses were showing up as 'via' or not as your own IP. This was a proxy misconfiguration on our end and is resolved now, so you should be able to see real IP addresses again.

• (Done) Inbox. Going to update the default so that messages that are unread are expanded. I rolled it back to how it was. No more unneeded code push!

I think that's the list of things I'm aware of. Please comment if you see other issues -- and again, thank you so much for your patience here. We've tried to keep the disruptions to a minimum, but we have effectively replaced a significant set of technologies that we use (CDN, proxying, WAF/DDoS protection, anti-robot, etc) and it's never apples-to-apples.

Comments

[vitus_wagner]

I can give an access to my web proxy where I'm encountering 403 errors if this helps.

[felis]

Just as another data point: both the site search and preview/edit/delete for entries and comments give me 403s the first time I click on them, but pretty consistently go through on the second try.

... and the same goes for posting this comment I see.

[elwendell]

I suddenly started getting the 403 message when trying to reply to comments this morning. I'm glad we were warned.

[maxiwell]

Dreamwidth has not opened by a proxy since April of this year.

Therefore, I had to transfer the old photos to another hosting (the old hosting is blocked in my country).

[jb_slasher]

I got 403 errors yesterday when posting and editing entries.

[andrewducker]

Thank you for fixing RSS!

[cmcmck]

Thanks for this.

I mentioned on help that our icons appear to have gained a blue/black margin after some vanishing entirely for a while (that seems to have been sorted). It isn't so much of an issue, but I wondered if it was deliberate or an error?

[proofofconcept]

hey friends, thanks for everything! i have broken icons on several accounts and clearing my cache didn't fix it. any other ideas to try?

[pauamma]

Wiki is back for me.

[tropicsbear]

Re: VPNs and 403s, I started encountering a 403 error whenever I tried to access my journal while using my default VPN location. But I could access the Dreamwidth homepage with no issues. Switching to a different VPN location solved the problem.

I'm not sure if that's helpful, but just adding my own experience to the info pile.

[dancing_serpent]

I'm another one of those who gets the 403 on basically any action. Logging in? Hitting post on a comment? Sending a pm? Sometimes it goes through when I repeat the action, sometimes it takes up to four attempts.

[runpunkrun]

Thanks for fixing the RSS! IFTTT is no longer giving me (new) horrible error messages.

Yesterday, Semagic started telling me it "Cannot contact server" when I try to log in to my DW account, though. Have those settings changed?

[runpunkrun]

Okay, with some experimenting, I got Semagic to log on by changing the server from "www.dreamwidth.org" to "dreamwidth.org." (It still isn't displaying my userpics though.)

[ysilme]

Thank you all for all your efforts, it's much appreciated! ♥
Just FYI in case the data is helping: I have the same 403 issues many others reportet whith comments done with the default icon, but also not with another icon. Trying to remedy this I deleted my cookies, and then wasn't able to log into DW anymore with any possible login variation, always getting a 403 error. I deleted the cookies again and then restarted my machine, which solved the issue.

[mark]

Have you ever seen/solved a captcha on Dreamwidth?

[calliopes_pen]

In Internet Explorer, even with clearing the cache and deleting history and cookies, all I can see when I try to access the site since the changeover from Cloudflare is the following message:

"This page can’t be displayed

•Make sure the web address https://www.dreamwidth.org is correct.
•Look for the page with your search engine.
•Refresh the page in a few minutes."

It's been a few days of this. I can still access the site with my trusty Firefox Developer browser, at least. So if this turns out to be an incidental permanent alteration, then I'll just stick with using that method of getting here.

I recall hearing people getting errors with a VPN in use. I don't have one, so it's definitely not that doing this.

(However, the glitch of missing icons ended for me as of a few minutes ago in Developer, so yay!)

[grey_and_furry]

regarding error 403

regular connection, normal https (FF105.0b8 64 bit), login scenario regularly ends with error 403
connection through tor network (tor 11.5.2 on FF 91.13.0esr) (32-bit))- successful logins

[methylethyl]

Thanks!

403 errors are a minor annoyance. I find that it only happens when I log in, and the login actually works, I just end up on the error page-- so if I then use a bookmarked link to go to my own page, everything's fine.

This last week, I ran into a new thing that had never happened to me on DW before: I tried to log in from a different computer. Every time I tried it, I got diverted to an endless series of "prove you're not a robot" puzzles. Find the end of the car's path. slide the thingy until you complete the cylinder/cone/ball shape. You know. I'm cool with that but only if I can get through after 1-3 of them. I literally could not get out of the sequence. There was no end to it. I started counting and got up to like ten in a row before I finally was like "F this" and quit. I still could log in from my old computer just fine. No idea what was up with that.

[satismagic]

I'm in Germany (Windows 10, Edge). If I try to log in normally all I get is a "403 Denied You don't have permission to view this page." message. If I use VPN set to an American server, and I solve a score of anti-robot puzzles, I can log in and everything seems to work fine, except that I keep being forced to do more puzzles when I try to access other journals or comment.

[filialucis]

Some icons still seem to be broken? The one you used for this post doesn't show up and the user name above it is an indecipherable mess of what seems to be multiple layers of text superimposed on one another. On my own account three (seemingly random) icons are broken too.

[susanreads]

If the context menu (right-click in Firefox) gives you an option to Reload Image, that's what worked for me. People are saying clear the browser cache, but that way you lose your History and I use mine a lot!

[castiron]

The only issue I've seen post-switch is that font size of my text has shrunk, even though I haven't made any changes to my themes. Is this an aftereffect of the switchover, or is it more likely to be due to the latest Firefox for Mac update (which I'd installed around the same time)?

[jenab]

I'm having the same issue starting today, Sept 8. I'm using Firefox as my browser.

semagic stopped connecting to the server

[life_reflecti0n]

how to restore work?

Re: semagic stopped connecting to the server

[melannen]

Someone upthread said switching from www.dreamwidth.org to just dreamwidth.org worked for them.

[sokye]

FYI my LJ Juggler on Chrome is broken (don't have it on other browsers). My guess is it's related to the 403 error when trying to log in.

[eller]

I'm also having the 403s!

[slippery_fish]

I got the 403 error when trying to log-in. Somebody in a community mentioned that the 403 error when commenting vanished when reloading the error page. The same worked with the log-in.

[slippery_fish]

Oh, had the 403 when commenting here, reloading the error page twice solved this as well.

[interstellartrooper]

Hey! So I'm using Dreamwidth from Sweden. I do not use a VPN. My main driver is Mozilla Firefox. I get these 403 issues often. I get them when I log in or log off. I get them when I post. They pops up more often than not. It takes me two or three attempt before I get redirected properly. The error message is very barebones.

This is what I get:
403 Denied
You don't have permission to view this page.

[interstellartrooper]

Edit. The error also show up when trying to edit the profile page.

On the bright side, my icons seems to have been fixed.

I appreciate all your work.

[lightningbearer]

Reporting an error for a friend: said friend can access the site just fine when visiting any page prefixed by www, but cannot load any other page with a subdomain. So no communities, no individual journal pages, etc. This only occurs when she's connected through her ISP; if she switches her mobile device to use data instead she doesn't have trouble accessing the site, but when connected via her ISP it doesn't matter what device/browser she uses, she can't get through. It's apparently coming up as a 301 error, and the ISP in question is Optimum.

We're suspecting this is likely to just be a problem on the ISP's end, but dropping a note about it here in case it's not just an isolated issue or gives you some insight to the other stuff!