Insane Viewings of excelfox, (Tens of Thousands)
Insane Viewings of excelfox, (Hundreds, Thousands, Tens of Thousands) Part 0
View History,
and History leading up to the problem week( 8 June- 16 June (SchlappenTag) )
Bing Bot Crawling Spiders & Co.
Currently on average, and over the last 7 years or so, we have less than a dozen humans looking in to excelfox. But, there are other "things", "watching us", showing up as some of the views ( users on line )
https://i.postimg.cc/x1RJj8Ch/users-on-line.jpg , http://www.excelfox.com/forum/online.php
https://i.postimg.cc/TYn5SCXR/Who-s-Online-pages.jpg
More than a hundred "things" on line at any time means that likely most are these bots, spiders, crawlers. A few dozen or so of thse "Bot" things, I don't know exactly, have been doing their deeds for many years. It has not usually had any obvious bad effects on forum performance or accessibility. Somewhere in the thousands is perhaps when your might get concerned.
Depending on Software, Host and other things of that nature, ( that I do not understand yet ) , forums and internet sites seem to get hurt at between thousands and tens of thousands. About 80000 is our pain limit, after that we "buckle under the weight"
History of the bots, spiders, crawlers at excelfox, and the history of them getting over busy at excelfox
This is a bit patchy, as time went on it was looked at a bit more. But it has rarely been monitored full time , so things may have been missed
( This thread and some associated ones ( https://www.excelfox.com/forum/showthread.php/3007
https://www.excelfox.com/forum/showthread.php/3008 ) , were started as we first got major problems as a result of this high viewing Bot Phenomena.)
The next posts are mostly from the time before I was around and monitoring , and is mostly got from internet research, in particular using web archive org
Posts from about post #6, take it from the time I was beginning to notice actual things going on et excelfox com, mostly from about the time I was a "Moderator" and approximately from when the idea of me buying excelfox com was beginning to be discussed. Here and there are a few comments or rough notes to help me personally orientate on a few things. So for anyone else, it is probably best to just try and glean some general overall info and not necessarily look at this Thread as a precise concise account of the situation
Alan
Hof , from approx June 2025
Early days of excelfox.com (Insane Viewings of excelfox, (Tens of Thousands) )
The results and conclusions in this post come from internet research, mostly using web archive org
First a few odd notes and observations
Archive org …..
Archive org , is a great and incredibly useful site. It is ot always too intuitive in use, has a few quirks and sometimes needs a bit of fiddling and keeping your wits about you when using.
Our/ My start point is usually the Wayback machine , where I type a known old or existing URL in ( https://postimg.cc/Sj4n0zw0 )
Using either http://www.excelfox.com or https://www.excelfox.com returns something very similar
http://www.excelfox.com
(The URL bar shows https://web.archive.org/web/20110501000000*/http://www.excelfox.com )
https://i.postimg.cc/bDKKrXHv/archiv...celfox-com.jpg
https://www.excelfox.com
(The URL bar shows https://web.archive.org/web/ 20110601000000* /http://www.excelfox.com )
https://i.postimg.cc/dkzz3Mm3/archiv...celfox-com.jpg
The different number is explained by what you may have selected, they will or could be exactly the same if you did things exactly the same: There may be some browser history effecting which number finally gets there, so do not think it is related to using the http or https. So consider the screenshots as almost identical with just the last bit of the URL bar having the http or https.
For either http://www.excelfox.com or https://www.excelfox.com, what happens next after selecting any capture ( https://i.postimg.cc/GhqFYPDn/select-a-capture.jpg , https://postimg.cc/7fJJr2XK ) , is always the same.
The first couple ( 27 June, 28 August, 2011 ) give this, ( note they have http _ in URL bar, so identical URL bar – both end in same place, or look anyway completely identical )
https://i.postimg.cc/7hLWMHKh/archiv...ugust-2011.jpg
https://i.postimg.cc/ft6CMNnQ/archiv...ugust-2011.jpg
The registration link is https://web.archive.org/web/20110828002211/http://www.excelfox.com/forum/register.php
The ExcelFox.com forum link is https://web.archive.org/web/20110828002211/http://www.excelfox.com/forum/forum.php
The next few, ( 12 Nov 2011, 1 Feb 2012 , 12 Mar 2012 , 13 Apr 2013 ), all look identical like this ( which sometime s somehow shows up as "My Website" when hovering over the browser tab
https://i.postimg.cc/1zxDbpb2/Next-few.jpg
https://i.postimg.cc/RWR3HnSL/Next-few.jpg
The links are
Forum https://web.archive.org/web/20120412142856/http://www.excelfox.com/forum/forum.php
Hire Us https://web.archive.org/web/20120412142856/http://www.excelfox.com/office/index.php
Contact Us https://web.archive.org/web/20120412142856/mailto:excelfox@excelfox.com
Registration https://web.archive.org/web/20120412142856/http://www.excelfox.com/forum/register.php
Forum https://web.archive.org/web/20120412142856/http://www.excelfox.com/forum/forum.php
Register https://web.archive.org/web/20120412142856/http://www.excelfox.com/forum/register.php
Log-in to ExcelFox https://web.archive.org/web/20120412142856/http://www.excelfox.com/forum/login.php
From 2013, once again it makes no difference if you use http://www.excelfox.com or https://www.excelfox.com, you end up getting redirected ( because of a " Got an HTTP 301 response at crawl time ", which I presume they got ) : https://i.postimg.cc/SYGmn8hD/Redire...celfox-com.jpghttps://i.postimg.cc/BPCJjD07/Redire...celfox-com.jpg
, and finally you end up at something like
https://web.archive.org/web/20130127104612/http://www.excelfox.com/forum/forum.php
These first two are identical, ( differing only in what I searched for, http or https
https://i.postimg.cc/BtgKnnS9/Redire...celfox-com.jpghttps://i.postimg.cc/MXDQpp6S/Redire...celfox-com.jpg
In other words, those last two screen shots are identical, - regardless of using http or https____ we get me the same
As a result of this last discovery, my main start point a bit later was to look at http://www.excelfox.com/forum/forum.php or https://www.excelfox.com/forum/forum.php
1 Attachment(s)
Early days of excelfox.com (Insane Viewings of excelfox, (Tens of Thousands) )
Looking mainly at ______ /forum/forum.php from now on.
Initially either http or https____ gets the same.
https://i.postimg.cc/BtCc8G5b/http-forum-forum-php.jpghttps://i.postimg.cc/8sGmPCvM/https-forum-forum-php.jpg
A few notes before we start
_Lets a have a quick look at that graph in detail and also here for comparison the
__ first screen shot is ____ www.excelfox.com
and
__ the second is the ____ www.excelfox.com/forum/forum.php, ( from either of the two above screen shots )
https://i.postimg.cc/C5XyCvrj/excelf...rchive-org.jpg
https://i.postimg.cc/j2mV683N/http-f...rchive-org.jpg
Possibly the number of captures makes sense, if they have crawled both links approximately the same amount of times, then the redirect to the www.excelfox.com/forum/forum.php from www.excelfox.com gives finally approximately twice as many www.excelfox.com/forum/forum.php ???
A few things noted along the way
_ Sam ( Owner Administrator ), did the http to https on Sunday, 3 May , 2020.
One thing I notice is that if I use the http://www.excelfox.com/forum/forum.php , then from Jan 11 2022, or after , then the URL bar gets a s added on the http , just a second before , the captured page arrives
So it finally somehow recognised that change.
( It does not work the other way around: use a https on any early date and it stays https )
Another possibly related thing I notice is that captures Di,19,Mai 2020, Do,18,Jun 2020, So,19,Jul 2020 are wrong. They are somehow stuck at the previous Mi,29,Apr 2020. This strange things is snapped out of at Do,6,Mai 2021
This strange phenomena is the same whether you http or https.
_ A similar problem to the previous: Mi,22,Feb 2023 was incorrect – it shows the previous 3 Aug, 2022
Insane Viewings of excelfox, (Tens of Thousands)
Insane Viewings of excelfox, (Tens of Thousands)
Part 2: The problem time when we started to buckle under the strain, and current situation, (Approx June 8 –July 8 2025)
Big Problem week 8 June- 16 June (SchlappenTag)
In the days leading up to 9 June, at an ever increasing rate, new records in insane numbers of views. In these days, the record was broken a few time in the same day. ( Wednesday 4 June was my first transaction attempt hin and hier )
Monday 9 June, 2025 (Pfingstmontag)
The real problems started on Monday 9th June. The forum was unavailable for a few hours on Monday 9th June, 2025.
On the 9 June I started getting a bit worried as we were going in the direction of a few tens of thousands of views, and whilst not all the time, there were the full set of errors and we were rapidly getting new records in the same day.
https://i.postimg.cc/Fzt7B3HP/24168-9-June-2025.jpg
https://i.postimg.cc/sxpvdxB3/cgi-sy...-June-2025.jpg
https://i.postimg.cc/xCNX5tnJ/databa...-June-2025.jpg
We went from a record of about 20000, a few new records were achieved after going through 30000 and finally ended up on that Monday, with a figure of about 33000
( Note also just on that day, the 9 June, 2025, cgi error again. I was unsure as to whether that was because the annual payment was missed?)
Tuesday 10 June, 2025 ( 10 June was my second transaction attempt hin and hier )
Not much change in the situation other than an increase to 41353 views
https://i.postimg.cc/HLYgjC0Q/41353-10-June-2025.jpg
Wednesday 11 June, 2025
No new record was made on this day. The forum was sometimes available, sometimes not. I saw this error a few times
https://i.postimg.cc/DzbQ3pX4/This-p...-June-2025.jpg
Thursday 12 June, 2025 (Crazy Alligator fighting , airplane crashing ,Thursday)
( I was busy talking transactions at my Bank, Sam was fighting Alligators )
From early morning we were at 42000 views, and new records were achieved, the forum finally buckling big time with almost permanent errors
https://i.postimg.cc/VsdpktFf/Too-ma...-June-2025.jpg
https://i.postimg.cc/qgH6y0Kk/504-Gateway-Time-Out.jpg
https://i.postimg.cc/rsrtDzKn/This-s...-June-2025.jpg
This was interpreted, (with hindsight possibly incorrectly) as a broken forum, and a fight with an Alligator ( chat with the hosting team ) was made ( https://app.box.com/s/t4um5acstd8fuqhho03udksawlyis7ad , https://app.box.com/s/2elu19c61o796ktd7kuac9qiovtdvszi )It resulted in a restart of the forum to 30 May, 2025, the site record view back at an old record of 14211, which was got on the 23 May, 2025.
But
, a few hours later we went to a record of 23010, https://i.postimg.cc/KzGF9ytF/New-re...e-watching.jpg , and shortly after that it shot up to an insane level never reached ever yet of 64016 https://i.postimg.cc/vmdGVnB4/64016-12-June.jpg
This error occurred a lot https://i.postimg.cc/qR1rSZGK/Too-ma...-2025-7-pm.jpg
Friday 13 June
Quite a few errors that day, maybe a third of the time no access. The usual errors of late
https://i.postimg.cc/hjJXCyNm/Databa...-June-2025.jpg
https://i.postimg.cc/pyMRJqtP/HTTP-E...-June-2025.jpg
https://i.postimg.cc/7ZVJbTg5/Too-ma...-June-2025.jpg
On the Friday we reached a new record of 69974
https://i.postimg.cc/HxVmDj0c/69974-13-June-2025.jpg
Saturday 14 June
This day was not so bad. No new record was made, but there were a few of the usual errors
Sunday 15 June
This was a bad day. There were a lot of errors in the first half of the day, all the usual errors
https://i.postimg.cc/bw50qBk6/Databa...-con-balls.jpg
https://i.postimg.cc/xdbv83P9/This-s...-June-2025.jpg
https://i.postimg.cc/xCDKzNsM/Too-ma...-June-2025.jpg
We broke new records of views, got to over 80 thousand. I caught a few:
https://i.postimg.cc/8CVY1chX/79932-15-June-2025.jpg
https://i.postimg.cc/y8R54cSS/80048-15-June-2025.jpg
https://i.postimg.cc/c42jbX6S/81877-15-June-2025.jpg
In the second half of the day, it has been almost impossible to access the forum. Almost always you just get one of the errors
Monday 16 June (SchlappenTag)
Continued to have almost no access, just a slight raise in record number of views to almost 82000
https://i.postimg.cc/DfMKQ7rQ/81968-...eeks-later.jpg
3 weeks later we still have that recorded… and surprisingly, things have not been at all bad: As the last drunk people were walking the streets home here in Hof on SchlappenTag, things suddenly went down to no more that a couple of hundred views , and stayed that way for the next week.
The weeks after we have been going up again.
More to the following weeks after the problem week, in the next post
Insane Viewings of excelfox, (Tens of Thousands)
Insane Viewings of excelfox, (Hundreds – a few Thousands)
Part 3: Approximately 5 Weeks after the big problem week, from approximately SchlappenTag to my Birthday
This period is characterised by mostly a constant viewing, with only occasional "waving", (- by "waving", which we see more in the next post period , I mean some apparent deliberate pattern of going up and down, rather than a mostly approximate constant viewing level. The waving is mostly regular, rather than irregular spontaneous peaks and/ or troughs)
Almost from the start here***, there are supporting measurements,
_ daily : SummaryRequestsIPsDailys.xlsm
_ attempts to group some similar dailys : SummaryRequestsIPsAlls(Merge)B.xlsm
Because of this I am starting again on the next page, page 2 , a few months later to add some more detailed notes
Approx Tuesday 17 June – Tuesday 24 June, 2025
This was surprisingly a quite period as regards views and associated problems . It seemed to swing from about 100 views to 200 views at any time. I never saw any problems/ ill effects, just as is expected with this relatively small number of views: This view level takes us back to the levels shortly before when I ever first noticed anything, around 2018/2019
( On the Friday evening, 20 June, this add in thing was taken out, by Sam I expect. https://i.postimg.cc/765n0g1k/Sam-to...-June-2025.jpg I never noticed any effect from that change
Approx Tuesday 24 June – Tuesday 1 July, 2025
We started sometimes going up to 2000 views or just occasionally higher but mostly under 3000. Mostly we seemed to be between 1000 and 2000. The number of views changes sometimes very quickly and once in a while was very low at a few hundred, but not for long.
(Spoke directly to Kris on 24 June, about a money transfer. He agreed to look at that the next week)
***I did a crude bit of VBA coding and a few other random testings to try to semi automate keeping a record of views
A Semi automated way to note the IP addresses of things viewing us I started using the coding every day from Saturday 28 June
Approx Tuesday 1 July –Tuesday 8 July, 2025
We seem to Pendle quite quickly between a few hundred and up to approx 3300 views, but as time went on the lower value was rarely there and we were usually from about 3000 - 3500
( Rajan_Verma started a couple of Threads on Wednesday 3 July, the first time here for about 8 years )
Approx Tuesday 8 July –Monday 14 July, 2025
Almost always around the 3000 - 3500
From approximately Monday Evening 14 July – Tuesday 22 July
We seem to be mostly around the 4600-4700, only occasionally going a few hundred lower
( Rajan_Verma was back again on Wednesday 16 July looking at one of his Threads )
From Wednesday 16 July, I did some things
_ I experimented with refreshing to see if results where similar to going through each page
_ I deleted a thread that was often top of the viewing list showthread.php?t=2993/Alan and Clare Testing ). It went ape shit on unknown locations trying to find it until Saturday 26 July, then from Sunday 27 July, it seemed to have given up looking
On Friday, 18 July, I made the coding a bit more automated for a version doing refreshing using Application.SendKeys ( https://www.excelfox.com/forum/showt...ll=1#post25088
https://www.excelfox.com/forum/showt...ll=1#post25090 )
From approximately Tuesday Evening 22 July - Friday my Birthday, 25 July 2025
There may have been initially a small short blip where there was pedalling between 3000 and slightly over 5000, ( the first time I have seen over 5000 since SchlappenTag, 16 June 2025 )
We mostly appear to be still at 4600-4700, only occasionally going a few hundred lower, then there appeared to be some hanging around 3000. Suddenly just after 8p.m. German time on my birthday it crashed right down and stayed all evening down around 200
Approx July 2025
RequestsIPsSummary_15 JULY 2025 https://app.box.com/s/4gqygbeqcrg8m0tcqocirb310cwng7cz
Insane Viewings of excelfox, (Tens of Thousands)
Monitored Insane Viewings of excelfox, (Tens of Thousands) Part 1
Summary of years from first noticing the bots up to when they gave big problems for us
2019/2020
I think I first noticed it unusually high, a few hundred, in late 2019
https://i.postimg.cc/2Sq5kpDM/Lots-o...y-Dec-2019.jpg
, but I did not give it too much thought.
2020/2021
The highest view record got up to around a thousand in January 2020. But it stayed at that peak, so got no new highest record in that year 2020. In fact I think for the next few years there was no new record, or if there was , then it was not much higher.
https://i.postimg.cc/jSGSC8q5/Member...-2020-2021.jpg
The high view number at any time during that period came and went seemingly randomly. I mean some days under a hundred views, then for a few days up to around a thousand. It may have been ones with an IP address starting with 114
One thought at the time was that possibly, the sudden increase may have started after the forum software was updated from3.8 to 4.2.5.
2021-2023/2024
We may have occasionally got a new record, the record number creeping up slowly to a few thousand, but I never noticed any ill effects.
May/June 2024
This is the first time things seemed to be going a bit insane. We had got to around 6000 as a new record.
https://i.postimg.cc/bYTrLHgC/Crazy-Bots-7-May-2024.jpg
I first noticed seeing some error messages. But not all the time, and not very often, so I was not sure if there was a connection. Mostly it was the typical database error thing: https://i.postimg.cc/TYNwvdZn/Databa...-June-2024.jpg
( On the 8 June, 2024 the forum was totally unavailable for a few hours, with some cgi error thing, https://i.postimg.cc/kGf54qD3/cgi-Su...-June-2024.jpg I am not sure if that cgi error was related, or if it may have been because of a missed annual payment ? )
So we were around a record of 7000 in June 2024, and I could often see that it was obvious which IP addresses were responsible as often there were a lot with the same few numbers at the start
https://i.postimg.cc/kGn4qBJv/Busy-B...-June-2024.jpg
https://i.postimg.cc/YqC9PGyp/Busy-Bot-June-2024.jpg
But I still had not seen much ill effects. There may have been the occasional error, but I probably did not relate it to the high views.
2025
Around Easter 2025, I decided to keep my eye a bit more on these views because
_(i) we got a rather high new record, around 8500 https://i.postimg.cc/bJPY9stf/New-Re...unday-2025.jpg
_(ii) Shortly after this, around April/May 2025, a lot of forums were going down often, with problems of not being accessible, and a possible cause was suggested as Bots from China, making maybe 2000-3000 views at once.
At this time at excelfox we were going in the direction of over 10000 but still not seeing any obvious ill effects, yet
Start of our problems , June, 2025
On the 9 June I started getting a bit worried as we were going in the direction of a few tens of thousands of views, and whilst not all the time, there were the full set of errors and we were rapidly getting new records in the same day.
https://i.postimg.cc/Fzt7B3HP/24168-9-June-2025.jpg
https://i.postimg.cc/sxpvdxB3/cgi-sy...-June-2025.jpg
https://i.postimg.cc/xCNX5tnJ/databa...-June-2025.jpg
( Note also just on that day, the 9 June, 2025, cgi error again. I was unsure as to whether that was because a missed annual payment again? )
Possibly we were finally buckling under the strain, having held out longer than many other places?
The next few days the craziness continued
https://i.postimg.cc/SKYBSv4x/41353-10-June-2025.jpg
https://i.postimg.cc/hPpWpmMc/504-Gateway-Time-Out.jpg
https://i.postimg.cc/rwH6LLvH/This-p...-June-2025.jpg
https://i.postimg.cc/659xrcrM/This-s...-June-2025.jpg
https://i.postimg.cc/t4J0fgmP/Too-ma...-June-2025.jpg
I think the forum was there, but somehow possibly saturated with views so hard to fight your way in**.
I decide it was time we needed to all look at this. But events over took us, and/or we were distracted on other things related to the long term future of excelfox
Crazy Thursday 12 June, 2025, amongst other things fighting AI Alligators
It may have appeared that the forum was not there. (With hindsight maybe it was**). Amongst other things an attempt was made to restart the forum from a date a couple of weeks back. https://app.box.com/s/t4um5acstd8fuqhho03udksawlyis7ad
But the same evening after the restart, we were buckling again
After a few days, the “attack”, if we want to call it that, went away. Touch wood, all is in manageable with the view numbers since then. This is my experience going on for 5 years with this phenomena. The last “attack” finished around
Monday, 16 June, SchlappenTag
where we hit the current views record of almost 82000
https://i.postimg.cc/GpqHKYFN/81968-16-June-2025.jpg
https://i.postimg.cc/grFJjKpw/81968-16-June-2025.jpg
https://i.postimg.cc/bGSyNZFH/81968-16-June-2025.jpghttps://i.postimg.cc/GTKrSGHr/81968-16-June-2025.jpg
Attachment 6219 https://i.postimg.cc/grFJjKpw/81968-16-June-2025.jpg
The next post summarises the state from the bad period, up to the current time that I am writing this, early July, so covers about a month
Monitered Insane Viewings of excelfox, (Tens of Thousands) Part 2
