Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.
Basically, we implemented rate-limiting rules on Cloudflare, but those CDN links for images should be opened inline in a thread, not visited as a new tab.
You somehow visited a thread with images hardcoded to use the old CDN image URL, which triggers the rate limit.
I've adjusted the nginx...
It seems our current external SMTP is blocked or having issues sending out to Hotmail.
Please try enabling the "Two-step verification" via the app.
https://hardforum.com/account/two-step/
2-factor auth will expire every 30 days, and when you attempt to visit the forum or a background request does request the forum after 30 days, it will automatically send a request for a new 2-factor code.
Testing link...
https://rumble.com/v709wk0-borderlands-4-echo-log-till-death-do-us-part.html?e9s=src_v1_cvp
I will report this issue with the embed code add-on developer.
When this happens, please open HF in incognito mode so the real error will be shown.
Or a hard reload will do on a desktop browser (Ctrl + Shift + R).
So the lag isn't related to AI bots, as this is just a normal online user count.
When the lag happens, how many online guests are on the forum?
Can be seen here: https://hardforum.com/online/
It could also be some very aggressive AI bots hammering the forum.
We are using Cloudflare as a firewall and CDN, but with your screenshot it seems your ISP isn't able to reach Cloudflare servers and just times out.
I can say the issue is between your ISP and Cloudflare.
Cloudflare hasn't indicated any issues on their side: https://www.cloudflarestatus.com/...