Bogleheads Forum website running VERY slow?

[Stinky]

I'm experiencing very slow response from the BH Forum both yesterday and this morning.

It's taking 15-30 second for the website to respond. Both on my iPhone and on laptop.

Is anyone else experiencing the same issue?

[Candor]

Yes, same here intermittently.

[bogles the mind]

Same here but much longer.
Edit: working now

[KlangFool]

Hi,

It takes about 10 seconds to pull out an existing post since yesterday. I have 1 Gbps fiber optic Internet access. It is probably a forum problem.

Thanks in advance.

KlangFool

[jebmke]

Also getting timeouts this morning

[Rocinante Rider]

Same for me yesterday. Much better this morning.

[eaglesfly]

Yes. It seems like it started today as yesterday it loaded normally. All the other websites I frequent are loading fine - I thought it was my computer but it's not.

[dalbright]

Noticed this yesterday around the time there was a post about someones password issue on BH when on phone...Then this post wouldnt load today on laptop haha.

[ResearchMed]

Same.

Better right now, but for quite some time previously this morning, it was painfully slow, with "nothing haappening at all for what seemed quite a long time (but obviously wasn't really).

At first I suspected our WiFi, but the next website I went to worked in an instant.

ETA: Oops, still a problem. Or again a problem?

RM

[rkhusky]

Got much slower when I logged in.

[bogles the mind]

Back to slow

[student]

Same here since last night. I used isitdown to check, same for them too. (It was briefly quick this morning.)

[heartwood]

same here and getting longer.

checked https://downforeveryoneorjustme.com/bogleheads.org

and they say it's down

OTOH https://www.isitdownrightnow.com/bogleheads.org.html

says it's up.

[Rocinante Rider]

I retract my previous comment - much slower or even unresponsive again.

[bogles the mind]

I don't know if it is the cure but it seems to be working well again after
I restarted my device and so far so good.

[Kendall]

KlangFool's post has been merged into the ongoing discussion.

(Thanks to the member who reported the post and provided a link.)

[ResearchMed]

KlangFool's post has been merged into the ongoing discussion.

(Thanks to the member who reported the post and provided a link.)

I wanted to "report" the two threads... but the BH site was just too slow and I couldn't keep waiting!

[Seems better right now??]

RM

[Stinky]

KlangFool's post has been merged into the ongoing discussion.

(Thanks to the member who reported the post and provided a link.)

I wanted to "report" the two threads... but the BH site was just too slow and I couldn't keep waiting!

[Seems better right now??]

RM

It’s been working at normal speed for the last 15 minutes or so.

[nisiprius]

It was slow last night, very slow to stalled completely half an hour ago, but seems OK now.

So if someone fixed something, thank you!

[Kendall]

I wanted to "report" the two threads... but the BH site was just too slow and I couldn't keep waiting!

Fortunately the site seems to be working fine now.

[well9boy9]

I was always wondering who is maintaining this website. Since it is free and open and no ads, I assume they are all volunteers. Thank you for whoever is doing it.

[Peculiar_Investor]

I was always wondering who is maintaining this website.

Take a look at the Online history section of the wiki article The Bogleheads® - Bogleheads for some insights.

There are a number of dedicated volunteers who are responsible for keeping things running smoothly.

[ResearchMed]

I was always wondering who is maintaining this website. Since it is free and open and no ads, I assume they are all volunteers. Thank you for whoever is doing it.

Yes, they are all volunteers.
AND there are indeed at least some costs to running this site... use of servers, electricity... etc...
So round about holiday time, you may see some links to donate.

That can be done any time of year: Look at the top of the page just under the blue header for "Support this Site". There is a place to click to Donate.

Here is the first paragraph from that linked page:

"Since Larry Auton and I (Alex Frakt) created this site in 2001, we have put in thousands of hours and thousands of dollars providing programming, hardware, bandwidth and management. We have done this gladly, directly inspired by the examples of Jack Bogle and Taylor Larimore, without asking for recompense of any kind. However, the increasing popularity of the site has led to ever-increasing demands on our time and pocketbooks. As we prefer to keep the site commercial-free and are opposed to membership fees, we have decided to see if our members can provide ongoing support through donations. Also, when you buy through affiliate links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission."

This is indeed an AMAZING forum!
So helpful!

And the assorted admins/mods really do an excellent job keeping things civil. Mostly, things ARE civil anyway. It's just a pleasant place on the Internet.

RM

[Dottie57]

I was always wondering who is maintaining this website. Since it is free and open and no ads, I assume they are all volunteers. Thank you for whoever is doing it.

Yes, they are all volunteers.
AND there are indeed at least some costs to running this site... use of servers, electricity... etc...
So round about holiday time, you may see some links to donate.

That can be done any time of year: Look at the top of the page just under the blue header for "Support this Site". There is a place to click to Donate.

Here is the first paragraph from that linked page:

"Since Larry Auton and I (Alex Frakt) created this site in 2001, we have put in thousands of hours and thousands of dollars providing programming, hardware, bandwidth and management. We have done this gladly, directly inspired by the examples of Jack Bogle and Taylor Larimore, without asking for recompense of any kind. However, the increasing popularity of the site has led to ever-increasing demands on our time and pocketbooks. As we prefer to keep the site commercial-free and are opposed to membership fees, we have decided to see if our members can provide ongoing support through donations. Also, when you buy through affiliate links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission."

This is indeed an AMAZING forum!
So helpful!

And the assorted admins/mods really do an excellent job keeping things civil. Mostly, things ARE civil anyway. It's just a pleasant place on the Internet.

RM

+1. The site was very slow for me last night too. I send email to admin at the time.

[LadyGeek]

Sorry, I missed this thread. mingstar (site owner and server admin) fixed it earlier this morning.

[iceport]

Sorry, I missed this thread. mingstar (site owner and server admin) fixed it earlier this morning.

I think maybe the fix didn't take. Seems to have reappeared. But I know from first hand experience how persistent mingstar is at resolving issues, so I have faith.




Now back to normal, in the time it took to write this. So it's very intermittent...

[jebmke]

Seems to be bogging down again, yes.

[Morgan22]

Seems to be bogging down again, yes.

I'm experiencing the same. Took 15 seconds for me to get to this screen to reply.

[Farmboyslim83]

Back. More than 15 seconds, geez.

[random_walker_77]

It was incredibly slow, but now appears to be fixed again.

[edit: or at least somewhat responsive. The text at the bottom says 0.3-0.4 seconds, which is probably longer than normal]

[whodidntante]

Somewhere there is an upper class hero staring at the Fischer Price vanguard.com and wondering why his account balance is zero.

At least the crashes here don't scare anybody.

[Mel Lindauer]

Was extremely slow a few minutes ago, but now seems to be back to normal. Based on the posts above and my experience, it sounds like it's some kind of intermittent problem. Hopefully, Larry can find and fix it.

[oldcomputerguy]

Same here, I was seeing typical times of fifteen seconds or longer to load a page. The load times displayed at the bottom of the page, which normally run in the range of 0.2 seconds or so, were running about ten to twelve times normal, which seems to indicate a forum issue. It's back to normal now.

[nedsaid]

Interesting, I was experiencing problems too. Things seem back to normal. Thanks to thus who maintain this forum and website.

[Stinky]

It’s slow, slow, slow again this morning.

It was fine earlier today, but now waiting 10-15 seconds for response.

[dcabler]

OK, it's not me. Kind of sporadic, though...

[jebmke]

OK, it's not me. Kind of sporadic, though...

yes; seems to be very sporadic. Sometimes times out, other times fast refresh

[ResearchMed]

It’s slow, slow, slow again this morning.

It was fine earlier today, but now waiting 10-15 seconds for response.

Even s..l..o..w..e..r than that.

RM

[like2read]

30 to 60 seconds for page refreshes this morning. No access at all from mobile.

(Thanks to all administrators for keeping the site going!)

Edit: better now.

[nisiprius]

Yesterday: bad to unusable in the morning, then seemed more or less fine in the afternoon.
Today: unusable until now, still slow. Not sure if this will post! Yes, seemingly back to normal.

[mingstar]

Hi folks,

The site is weathering a prolonged distributed denial of service attack (DDOS).

Normally, we keep an eye on individual client hosts that are misbehaving and ban their traffic for a while. This is usually sufficient.

However, when a bad actor has access to hundreds or thousands of hosts, no single host has to exhibit grossly abnormal behavior in order for the aggregate to be overwhelming.

That is the situation we're facing now: there are several origins of attack, just one of which is using hundreds of hosts to assault our server.

I am working on software to improve our ability to respond automatically but separating the wheat from the tares is challenging.

I and some of the other admins are doing it manually but that's not as responsive as an automated detection/response system would be.

Thus, when the attackers shift to a new set of attack hosts, it may take a while before we can adapt our defenses. In a message to the site moderators, one of the admins used an apt analogy saying that it's like playing "Whack A Mole" at Internet scale.

At the moment, I have the walls up in a very aggressive posture and the site is holding its own. The posture may be overly agressive but that's the best I can do for the next little while.

Larry

[Dottie57]

Sorry this is happening and taking up your time.

[jebmke]

The site is weathering a prolonged distributed denial of service attack (DDOS).

Must be a consortium of active management folks.

[Stinky]

The site is weathering a prolonged distributed denial of service attack (DDOS).

Must be a consortium of active management folks.

More likely it's all of Edward Jones and Northwestern Mutual reps.

Seriously, the site has been running fine for the last hour or so. Kudos to Larry and the team for fighting off the bad guys.

[ResearchMed]

The site is weathering a prolonged distributed denial of service attack (DDOS).

Must be a consortium of active management folks.

More likely it's all of Edward Jones and Northwestern Mutual reps.

Seriously, the site has been running fine for the last hour or so. Kudos to Larry and the team for fighting off the bad guys.

Yes, MANY thanks to everyone behind the scenes all the time, but especially at times like this when it must take far more time, effort, and probably aggravation.

I am totally unfamiliar with DDOS specifics. I've always assumed they were targeted, which does lead to the quesion of just who is "after BH"!?
[Maybe we shouldn't have been quite so critical of Vanguard...? }

Or are they sometimes (rarely, often, ??) arbitrary/random?

RM

[goblue100]

I am totally unfamiliar with DDOS specifics. I've always assumed they were targeted, which does lead to the quesion of just who is "after BH"!?
[Maybe we shouldn't have been quite so critical of Vanguard...? }

Or are they sometimes (rarely, often, ??) arbitrary/random?

RM

Yes, why would someone try to take down the BH website with what sounds like a very sophisticated attack? I can see that bad actors that are state sponsored might want to take down a site like Wal Mart or Costco to disrupt capitalism but we are pretty benign group, no?

[yankees60]

I'm experiencing very slow response from the BH Forum both yesterday and this morning.

It's taking 15-30 second for the website to respond. Both on my iPhone and on laptop.

Is anyone else experiencing the same issue?

Over the last few days prior to today experienced it several times while outside with my Amazon Fire on WiFi. Until I read this I kept thinking it was on my side ... that I was not giving the Amazon Fire a good enough WiFi.

[yankees60]

Hi folks,

The site is weathering a prolonged distributed denial of service attack (DDOS).

Normally, we keep an eye on individual client hosts that are misbehaving and ban their traffic for a while. This is usually sufficient.

However, when a bad actor has access to hundreds or thousands of hosts, no single host has to exhibit grossly abnormal behavior in order for the aggregate to be overwhelming.

That is the situation we're facing now: there are several origins of attack, just one of which is using hundreds of hosts to assault our server.

I am working on software to improve our ability to respond automatically but separating the wheat from the tares is challenging.

I and some of the other admins are doing it manually but that's not as responsive as an automated detection/response system would be.

Thus, when the attackers shift to a new set of attack hosts, it may take a while before we can adapt our defenses. In a message to the site moderators, one of the admins used an apt analogy saying that it's like playing "Whack A Mole" at Internet scale.

At the moment, I have the walls up in a very aggressive posture and the site is holding its own. The posture may be overly agressive but that's the best I can do for the next little while.

Larry

Thank you for all you have done in this regard.

[yankees60]

I am totally unfamiliar with DDOS specifics. I've always assumed they were targeted, which does lead to the quesion of just who is "after BH"!?
[Maybe we shouldn't have been quite so critical of Vanguard...? }

Or are they sometimes (rarely, often, ??) arbitrary/random?

RM

Yes, why would someone try to take down the BH website with what sounds like a very sophisticated attack? I can see that bad actors that are state sponsored might want to take down a site like Wal Mart or Costco to disrupt capitalism but we are pretty benign group, no?

This forum does contain many members who have been highly successful at being part of the capitalistic system. So who know?

[LadyGeek]

It could also be "good" bots, as everyone is now scraping the internet with AI bots. It's how they get their data.

Yes, AI bot scraping is now a "thing". You can google for more info.