mark: A photo of Mark kneeling on top of the Taal Volcano in the Philippines. It was a long hike. (Default)
Mark Smith ([staff profile] mark) wrote in [site community profile] dw_maintenance2022-09-07 03:36 pm

An update on where we're at

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. [personal profile] 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.

ysilme: Colourful pile of Lego bricks. (Lego)

[personal profile] ysilme 2022-09-08 03:01 pm (UTC)(link)
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.
ysilme: Detail of London tube plan made from thick ropes of oil paint. (Tate by tube)

[personal profile] ysilme 2022-09-09 12:02 am (UTC)(link)
No.Not using a VPN either, and am accessing DW either with PC or Notebook, Win10 64 pro, Firefox newest release.
Since a couple of hours I have the hardets time commenting, this is the 16th 20th attempt here.
Thank you so much for everything!
ysilme: Detail of London tube plan made from thick ropes of oil paint. (Tate by tube)

[personal profile] ysilme 2022-09-09 12:16 pm (UTC)(link)
I also wanted to add that I have recurrent issues of logging into DW in the first place after deleting my cookies; it only works if I restart my computer first. My current workaround is that I can post comments most of the times when accessing the entries or comments from my reading page (what I don't usually do), but when I go by a journal directly, or follow a notification, I'm now getting a 403 error nearly all of the time.
Logging in only works after deleting the cookies and emptying the cache again, restarting my PC or Notebook, go to dreamwidth.org and login from there, no other option works.
ysilme: Detail of London tube plan made from thick ropes of oil paint. (Tate by tube)

[personal profile] ysilme 2022-09-10 08:40 am (UTC)(link)
Just to add in case you have any use for this data: by now I cannot comment on posts or journals diretly at all, but most times by using the reading list.
Trying to filter the reading list always gets me a 403 error and isn't possible, and posting new entries works the first time I open my browser, but not the second time, but again after I close and open it again, always with a 403 error.
I'm currently not daring to delete my cookies again as I'm worrying to not being able to log in again.
I'm really glad there are so many options for commenting so it's mostly working!
ysilme: STNG Picard going yay with caption "yay". (Yay!)

[personal profile] ysilme 2022-09-10 08:17 pm (UTC)(link)
Aaaand.... by now everything works again after a page refresh or two. Once again, thank you all so much for your awesome work to keep DW in good shape, and make it what it is. You folks rock big time!!! ♥