Hi All,
Sorry for the recent downtime. I've spent the last week working to resolve a number of issues. Recent updates have caused some unexpected problems, and it seems like every bot on the internet is currently trying to gain access to the server.
The Zone may experience some additional downtime before everything is fully fixed and stable again.
I know I don't post on the forums much these days, but I'm still working behind the scenes to keep this place running and alive.
Thanks for your patience and support.
Steve
Downtime
Moderator: martauto
webmaster@e30zone.net
I can only really take credit for the technical side of things.
What has always made E30Zone special is the team that has kept it alive and active over the years, especially Mart, who has continued in the later years to keep this place ticking over even during periods when I wasn't around as much as I should have been. The guy is genuinely amazing, and E30Zone simply wouldn't be what it is without him.
Of course, the biggest credit goes to the members. You are the people who made The Zone what it is today. From sharing technical knowledge and helping fellow owners, to organising meets, road trips and friendships that have lasted for years, you've all played a part in building something special.
From the beginning, my goal was simply to create a place where E30 enthusiasts could come together, help each other, meet up, and enjoy their cars. Looking back, I'm incredibly proud that we've achieved exactly that.
Social media may be king these days, but for me, nothing beats a good forum. The depth of knowledge, the sense of community, and the friendships built here are things that are very hard to replicate elsewhere.
Long may it continue.
What has always made E30Zone special is the team that has kept it alive and active over the years, especially Mart, who has continued in the later years to keep this place ticking over even during periods when I wasn't around as much as I should have been. The guy is genuinely amazing, and E30Zone simply wouldn't be what it is without him.
Of course, the biggest credit goes to the members. You are the people who made The Zone what it is today. From sharing technical knowledge and helping fellow owners, to organising meets, road trips and friendships that have lasted for years, you've all played a part in building something special.
From the beginning, my goal was simply to create a place where E30 enthusiasts could come together, help each other, meet up, and enjoy their cars. Looking back, I'm incredibly proud that we've achieved exactly that.
Social media may be king these days, but for me, nothing beats a good forum. The depth of knowledge, the sense of community, and the friendships built here are things that are very hard to replicate elsewhere.
Long may it continue.
webmaster@e30zone.net
Hi everyone,
I've spent a good chunk of time digging into the server and forum to find the root cause. Initially it looked like a general server problem, but after quite a bit of investigation it became clear that the main issue was a huge increase in automated traffic from search engines, AI crawlers, scrapers and bots hitting the site.
Unfortunately, E30 Zone's content is a bit of a goldmine for these systems, with over 20+ years of forum posts, technical guides and wiki articles. The downside is that it can generate a significant amount of background traffic that most members never see.
To improve things I've made a number of changes, including:
I'll continue keeping an eye on things over the coming days and make further adjustments if needed.
Thanks for your patience while I worked through it.
I've spent a good chunk of time digging into the server and forum to find the root cause. Initially it looked like a general server problem, but after quite a bit of investigation it became clear that the main issue was a huge increase in automated traffic from search engines, AI crawlers, scrapers and bots hitting the site.
Unfortunately, E30 Zone's content is a bit of a goldmine for these systems, with over 20+ years of forum posts, technical guides and wiki articles. The downside is that it can generate a significant amount of background traffic that most members never see.
To improve things I've made a number of changes, including:
- Optimising parts of the phpBB database.
- Adding new database indexes to speed up some of the forum's most common queries.
- Increasing available PHP worker capacity.
- Reviewing and tightening crawler access.
- Updating robots.txt to discourage a number of AI and scraping bots.
- Temporarily disabling new user registrations while I monitor bot activity.
- Tweaking some forum settings to reduce unnecessary processing.
I'll continue keeping an eye on things over the coming days and make further adjustments if needed.
Thanks for your patience while I worked through it.
webmaster@e30zone.net
Yup being hit again currently!
webmaster@e30zone.net