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

[susanreads]

I just had a 403 multiple times trying to post a comment (a reply to someone else on this post). I tried Preview and to post it from there, but it still took several tries.

Yesterday (I haven't tried yet today) I couldn't access some of my reading filters using the usual links, getting a Forbidden error. When I go to Home, i.e. www.dreamwidth.org, and use the links there, it works.

Now to see how many times I have to post this before it works ...
only twice this time.

[ratcreature]

I currently get 403 when I try to tag posts to a community I admin (by clicking on edit tags of the entry on my reading page) after I try to save the new tag. It then works when I reload and save it again.

I also got a 403 when I tried to submit a support request about this, and that wasn't helped by reloading or trying again.

[violateraindrop]

Since you still seem to be working on this, I'd like to add that I also get 403s when commenting on entries. Reloading the page gets rid of the problem.

EDIT: Yep, it happened again. (+Again when editing.)

[rexy_craxy]

"403" for almost all editing actions, broken images upload, ringed capture... Could you roll anything back? Thanks in advance.

[crimevelvet]

Thanks for all your hard work!

[beatrice_otter]

The RSS feed to ifttt works again, thank you!

[covert]

Hi, getting constant 403s here, apparently other friends are too.

[pilottttt]

Hi!
As for the 403 error, I want to add that I always have this error exactly twice. The third time everything works. For example, I write a post, click the "Post to..." button, and get a 403 error. Then, by clicking the "<<" button in the browser, I go back to the "Post an Entry" page, click "Post to..." again and get 403 for the second time. And if you do the same manipulation for the third time, then everything turns out. That is, always for the third time.

[mekare]

I noticed the same thing. Refreshing two times works, too!

[mumblemumble]

I'm trying to renew my expired paid account and I'm consistently getting a 403 when trying to check out, over the last few days. (Small correction: I thought it had expired, but it's apparently only due to expire on Sunday. Hopefully I can renew before then. 🤞)

[cubs]

Thank you for still being here.

[teyla]

Can confirm that there's trouble with 403s, I get this when I try to log in and have been for a few days. I delete cookies on the regular so tend to not be logged in when I visit DW. Using the login form at the top of my or someone else's journal page or a community will give me a 403.

I've been able to log in using the login interface you get when you post a comment (open comment form while not logged in > select to comment as a DW user > select to log in), which posted my logged-in comment as expected and one other comment on the same post. On the third comment (also same post), I ran into a 403 upon posting the comment (on the talkpost_do page). This is the fourth comment, so we'll see if I'll be able to submit it. :D

[teyla]

Yay it worked!

Login

[tennoseremel]

Took me 3 times to login.

[trobadora]

Regarding the 403 errors when commenting, idk if it's just chance, but so far it seems that they only happen on the first comment I try to post on an entry. Once the first goes through, subsequent comments seem to post without error.

(Unlike other people, it's happening no matter whether I use the default icon or not.)

[mekare]

I hope this will be helpful rather than the umpteenth commenter with the same thing. I was getting the 403 error on Windows 10 (browser Firefox, with or without add-ons activated), and iOS 15.6.1 (Safari).

Okay, I tested, and tried to reply to a comment on one of my posts from today just now and it worked fine! (iOS)

ETA: This comment also went through on the first try. Hooray!

ETA2: Okay, so the comment went through. Then I went to edit it to tell you that and got the 403 message upon hitting 'update reply'. I needed to refresh the 403 page once and then the edit was posted. The second edit went through on the first try. How strange.

[jazzyjj]

I did some editing in my journal during the week and got a page upon submission that looked like it might have been a new beta page or something. When I checked my edits had not gone through, but the issue seems to be resolving itself. The other thing I want to say is that the new Dw inbox is nice. The old one worked well with my screen reader, and so does this one. I just noticed that this one is a bit quicker because of the omission of some stuff. Nice job as always Dreamwidth!

[illcatchyou]

Thank you for your hard work!

All the parentheses on comment pages are kinda weird, though. I'm on mobile, default view.

[wire]

Seconding this, it’s odd.

403

[tinny]

I see that all my friends already reported the 403 error.

So I'll just sum it up again: I'm not on a VPN, it happens on every page I want to post a comment on or make a post or edit a comment. It takes two to three retries to go through every time. Once I've successfully posted a comment to a post, it tends to work right away for subsequent comments.

If you need someone to reproduce the error with one of your volunteers, I'd be up for that. I'm in a European timezone, though, I hope that's not a problem.

Another issue

[akatsija]

My ljArchive is broken - it gets an error trying to open an SSL connection to the server. Used to work just fine prior to the migration.

Just letting you know...

--
А.Кац и Я

[lupestripe]

I can confirm I am getting 403s, particularly when trying to post entries

[sunshine304]

I've gotten an 403 from any page that wasn't the main page today (and even there it only worked on the second try). Same issue when I use the search function...

That's never happened before so I can only assume it's to do with the changes. Hope you can resolve these issues soon (it seems it happens for commenting too) because it's, uhm, a PITA. XD

[filialucis]

I seem to be getting 403 errors when trying to edit an entry (or just the tags on an entry). They don't always crop up though; I was just able to complete an edit after about my fourth attempt to save it.

[bonibaru]

I've been unable to access anything on any browser or any device (except: the main DW.org landing page, my inbox, and the "Post" form) for a week. I cannot see my own journal, nor my reading feed, nor any journal including DW news/support/etc. I have a support ticket pending. On the advice of a friend I finally downloaded a VPN and voila - when logging in via VPN, suddenly I can access DW again in order to come here and see what's going on. But I don't like using free VPNs and paying for one just so I can access DW from an entirely legitimate major metropolitan location in New Jersey, USA, isn't a long term solution. Hopefully the support ticket will rise through the queue speedily.

[zero_pixel_count]

re: the 403s - I've seen them in other places as well (adding a new keyword to an icon, and at some point in the process of subscribing to an RSS feed but at the time I thought I was just doing it wrong so didn't take a note).

In the icon case, it was either intermittent OR it was resolved by turning 'Site Privacy Protection' (in Firefox extension 'DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials') off and on again.

(My #1 theory is cacheing. My #2 theory is 'that one Apache bug which now that I think about it is also cacheing'. Intermittent connectivity-ish problems affecting only some users are The Worst.)

[assholic]

I mentioned a gap in the username usage that didn't show up in the comment I posted (it's on your post itself with alierak and the gap between the userhead and name) but I hadn't noticed it anywhere else until I did an update on a page in my journal.

Here you can see all the gaps on every username mentioned and it's a huge one and very jarring. I know that another dev mentioned that it probably happened in the roll back from the inbox and that's why the page number boxes are stretched/there's the parenthesis gaps, but when I tried an @ on the comment itself as a test, it didn't show up. I don't know if it's only in reference to @ that it doesn't do that or if this is a user name code issue, but I wanted to add in that it's an issue and still ongoing. Thank you :)

Edit to add: that I finally used my brain and noticed that the usage in my comment isn't in a ul/li format like it is in your post and in the page I linked in question. So it seems to be a table thing.

[bogolt]

hi, i get 403 when using XMLRPC api to post an entry