Hi all,
Just a heads up that I made some changes to the way some of the sites work from a domain perspective. We have been having some increased server load lately. Not sure what is up with that. Maybe too many of you are stuck at home enjoying the new Covid normal. Whatever the reason I needed to utilize some caching options and make some changes to the way our domains resolve. To that end...

- Internal caching of some pages (like the homepages) is now back on.

- External caching is also being provided by Cloudflare. This is a web site intermediary that basically looks at traffic and trys to cache those pages it can to avoid load on our server and database. They also keep an eye out for denial of service attacks and the like. If you are having any issues reaching one of our sites it's likely because your ISP has old nameserver data for one of our domains and that means.. No workie. You will have to wait for them to catch up or call and pester them to flush their DNS data for us. They also cache stuff you see.

- I have finally taken the step (long overdue) of reducing the amount of domains that actually resolve to unique sites here. Wow Jim that sounds complicated. What does that mean. Well.. it means that http://www.aeroscale.net and https://aeroscale.kitmaker.net no longer have their own google cache (there is that word again). They both resolve to https://aeroscale.kitmaker.net. Luckily any links out there should still resolve to the page you are looking for on the kitmaker domain. As 'most' of you use this domain when you are logged in anyways this will likely have zero effect. However I bet there are people with REALLY old logins that were using the non-kitmaker domains all this time and yes... You'll need to re-log.

- Armorama.com was not effected by this change as I didn't want to screw with our page rank on Google for that domain.

I am already seeing a performance benefit from the Cloudflare thing. I will need some feedback from all of you though if there are issues I missed.

Thanks,
Jim

Yeah. Not digging the Cloudflare. I understand the reasons for the changes but now you've added even more time accessing the site. Having to do captcha when coming here can add up to a minute or more to the time accessing the site. I know I know don't dump your cookies. Well I usually use a VPN for added security and I routinely dump cache and cookies to stop tracking and speed up my system and tablet. Logging on when using my VPN means I have to do the captcha and again after I dump the cache.

Well sir, I don't like it. Don't like it at all.

You have to do a captcha? Hmmm... I wonder if that is because of the VPN IP. How many people are getting a captcha vs. just the 5 sec delay screen before first page loads?

Also just and FYI but those screens are only in place temporarily as we are getting slammed pretty hard by something so I switched on the DDos protection stuff. I shouldn't need to keep it on all the time.

I have switched them off. Will have to see how the load changes. It was at 50 before I turned that on and went down to 10.

I don't get a captcha
I don't use a VPN
I don't log out either .....
/ Robin

I was getting the 'captcha' earlier today — seems to be working without it now. However, I can't get to the KitMaker Gallery at this time. I assume it's being worked on.

Thank's,
—mike

No the gallery goes offline automatically when the load on the server is above a certain value. It's suppose to be around 2-5. We are running between 10 and 50. So yeah it won't be back until whatever this is, is over.

Normally I don't get hit with captcha, but a couple hours ago I looked at the site on my tablet and was forced to find bicycles for the first time in ages. Closed my browser, and just re-opened it now with no captcha or other weirdness - it just went in as normal. Curiouser and curiouser...

FWIW,

I had no trouble signing in.

Gallery is, as expected, OTS:


So far so good.

Hi Fred,
Where are you getting that gallery link from? That is old and out of date. It should be at photos.kitmaker.net

Thanks,
Jim

I logged out, then back in and I can leave messages and I can go to my gallery but then I cannot access any images ?

You're sure right that something's wrong. The forums are taking a very long time to load and I'm getting the "server busy" message when I try to get to the galleries.

Michael

Well, got into the gallery, but it won't let me login. It says the site can't be reached when I click on the login link, "gallery3.kitmaker.net’s server IP address could not be found."

Michael

That's the same for me

There must be some old config data in the gallery with that outdated domain. I will need to login and either edit a config file or change a database setting tomorrow. To be honest though until this load issue resolves the gallery will likely be unavailable most of the time.

Jim

Hi Jim,

I used the GALLERY button along the top banner. I tried again, and the URL shows https://photos.kitmaker.net/. But same problem as before.

Thanks

First a rare opportunity to thank you Jim for everything. Second, right now (around 03.15 June 14 East coast U.S. time) everything’s working like the well-oiled machine it usually is for me, even the Gallery. As you mentioned just a 3 or 4 second load lag on initial entry (and when I log in) but that’s just enough time for a micro-nap

However just noticed this forum's security certificate's expired...

Hi Jim,

Gallery is still fubar for me. Is it worth adding a banner across the top of the pages announcing temporary issues with the gallery and that it's being worked on, so folks know the score?

Good luck on sorting the server load issue!
Tom

yup-no happiness here either:

No access to the KM Gallery (server busy msg) and none of my images show in any of my posts This seems to be common for posts by anyone using the KM Gallery to host their images...

Fingers crossed for a speedy recovery!

The gallery login should be working now.

Cheers,
Jim

no problems logging in now, but images still not showing up in posts

Sunay, June 14, 2020 - 2055hrs Eastern

Everything - including gallery - running 5 X 5.

Thank you, Jim.

nope, still no pictures in posts, just the icon...

it seems the html code to link the picture to the post has changed... for example, the original post's html would have been

img src="https://gallery3.kitmaker.net/data/31450/Hangar_001_spitfire_mk1.JPG" /

but now, if I regenerate the html link it is...

img src="https://photos.kitmaker.net/data/31450/Hangar_001_spitfire_mk1.JPG" /

notice the address has changed...

this means that every photo, in every post, by every user, using the KM Gallery to host images now requires editing to restore the images

Russel, what posts not loading. I just sampled a recent post with photos (Radial Engine Campaign) as well as various other posts with pix, and features. My browser is loading pix.

Post the URL of a page not displaying photos in a post?

Jim, I use Firefox.