Rate Limit Exceed

[Skippermark]

!UNBELIEVABLE!

 

That's the first time that a site stops me from surfing. And - nota bene - I'm a premium member and pay every year for having fun with gc.com. BUT now, should I really pay again? I've never seen anything like that before - hope this is only a april fool :-((

Yes, it's an inconvenience when something happens that prevents you from accessing the site and doing what you want.

 

In a way it's similar to a car. They run great most of the time but every so often something goes wrong, and they need to go to the shop to get repaired. The GC site is very similar. It works great most of the time but something went wrong, and the shop is working on getting it fixed.

 

Give it some time, and it'll be back like new.

[+pppingme]

Imagine if google deployed a "whoa page" on searches?

They actually have, and it works quite effectively, without hurting real users, the reason most people don't even know its there.

[+dakboy]

!UNBELIEVABLE!

 

That's the first time that a site stops me from surfing. And - nota bene - I'm a premium member and pay every year for having fun with gc.com. BUT now, should I really pay again? I've never seen anything like that before - hope this is only a april fool :-((

Yes, it's an inconvenience when something happens that prevents you from accessing the site and doing what you want.

 

In a way it's similar to a car. They run great most of the time but every so often something goes wrong, and they need to go to the shop to get repaired.

This analogy only works if it's the mechanic who intentionally did something to the car to cause something to go wrong "every so often."

[+t4e]

 

We're seeing less than .01% of users/hr being throttled. We have yet to determine how many of those are valid. We're still seeing reports from users that they're being throttled, but very few in comparison to before the time sync issue. We plan to release an update to the throttling code tomorrow to gather more information to help determine what issues still exist.

 

posted only few minutes ago

 

http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php...p;#entry4287753

[team tisri]

For what it's worth I haven't seen the issue despite scrolling maps extensively. My local cache map has a large roundish area centred on my home with no un-found caches, so I tend to scroll the map extensively when I'm planning a caching trip to help decide which area I want to visit.

 

I also routinely use two or three Firefox tabs at a time when I'm logging - typically one to show me my local cache maps, one to log caches, another to log trackables out of caches.

 

When I'm planning a cache trip I'll often have three or four tabs open, one for the map and some number of cache pages open to check for anything that would suggest I'm wasting my time visiting a cache.

[+Boo_Daddy]

Wow. Just wow. After reading this thread I am sad to see that my 3 bucks a month that I have been paying for a LONG LONG time now has gone to such a waste

Its sad that not only is there no really good Windows Mobile solution, I cant hardly use the website anymore.

[tiiiim]

I would suggest that you take the time, to think why a few of your customers find it nescacary to violate their EULA/TOU.

 

I do think you can boil it down to very few reasons. If you could make a few changes, I'll bet you that you could remove 90%, if not all, of the need for spidering and other abuse of gs's site:

• include the same number of logs in a PQ, as in a directly downloaded GPXfile for a cache
  
• When defining a PQ, add the functionality to get (recently ?) archived geocaches
  
• Laslty I would suggest that requesting a GPX-file on ones own caches, should give you *all* logs
  

Why spider for GPX-files, if you can get the same in a PQ ?

 

Why spider for GPX-files on archived caches, if you can get it with a PQ ?

 

In stead of starting a battle against (potentially) millions of imaginative abusers, why not just remove the need to become an abuser ? Then you would not accidently harm legitimate customers, and if there is no need to abuse, the number of abusers would be very limited.

 

I'll bet you that buying CPU-power and bandwidth is very much cheaper in the long run (hence eliminating most of the need for the battle), then paying developers and sysadm's for fighting a never ending battle.

 

You staff (that is doing a very good job, btw), could then use time on developing nice-to-haves, instead of fighting abusers hiding between happy customers. In the end your employees would be more happy as well, when they can dedicate their time on making things that makes customers happy.

 

Just some thoughts from my keyboard...

 

Ys

Thomas

 

You know this entire post really comes off as a threat.

Give it me or else!! - is how I read it.

 

I'm sorry if thats how it sounds, because it was definately not how it was intended.

I think the users 'demanding' these features are VERY few and far between. Why can't you just live with the site as presented. Seems like a novel idea.

To clarify... I dont need these changes, I'm perfectly happy with the functionality as is. Actually I still haven't seen the warning-page in question.

 

My point was that if you rethink using time to battle abusers, and instead use the same resources in changing the site in a way, so the abusers don't have any reason to abuse, you could use the same resources in a constructive way instead.

 

I.e. instead of trying to battle abusers (and harming some lgitimate users in the fight), why not just remove the reason for abusing ?

 

I did not state that we should get 20 logs/cache in a PQ, just that you should get the same number in a directly dl'ed GPX, as you get in a PQ. That could be 10 instead or even just 5 last logs in a GPX and PQ. The main thing is that you remove the reason to spider for GPX-files, when you can get the same data in a PQ.

I am sorry for the legit users seeing issues but for the 'bad guys' suddenly having issues - I have no pity.

(sorry for going AOL) me2.

 

But I do have pity on the legit users, getting slapped on their hands, because it has been decided to battle abusers instead of just removing their reasons to abuse.

 

Lastly I want to notice that the site has been slow the last ~2 days. But I dont know if its the cables from Europe or gs's servers sweating due to some mean abusers.

 

Ys

Thomas

 

For what it's worth, tcorell, I couldn't agree more with you. Spend time and money upgrading the obviously broken system, instead of spending more and more time and money patching it up. Last time I said this though I was politely told to go away cos people didn't wanna pay more for a better/working service...

[+jellis]

I don't believe I am that fast but I am still getting the message. This has only been twice since I got it.

I may have GreaseMonkey but the logging I am doing is no different then what I usually do.

This is from today.

 

Whoa! Slow Down

 

You've been redirected to this page because the site hamsters noticed you are viewing pages faster than humanly possible. There are several reasons why this may be happening:

 

* You may have installed an add-in for your browser that is doing things you don't see.

* You are using some automated tools to pull information on the site.

* You have super human abilities.

 

What You Can Do

 

* Stop! Have a cup of coffee, glass of water or go out geocaching. We'll let you back in shortly.

* Disable any add-ons to your browser, like Greasemonkey, that may be hitting the site too fast.

* Stop using automated tools to access the site. Like Mos Eisley Cantina, we don't allow droids here.

 

To the Super Humans

 

We're jealous! Hopefully you are the hero types and not the villains, but we don't judge. Just don't steal geocaches.

 

However, if you could be so kind as to slow down your super surfing, it would help our servers respond to other users that don't have super strength, speed, or tight fitting leotards.

Edited April 7, 2010 by jellis

[+jellis]

It has been 15 min and I turned off Greasemonkey and tried using IE and Google Chrome. Still can't view or log a cache.

[Skippermark]

This analogy only works if it's the mechanic who intentionally did something to the car to cause something to go wrong "every so often."

Point taken.

[Skippermark]

It has been 15 min and I turned off Greasemonkey and tried using IE and Google Chrome. Still can't view or log a cache.

Up above Jeremy said if you get one of those messages, the best thing is to wait a few minutes before doing anything then try again in a couple minutes. If you keep trying to refresh the page, the site will lock you out for longer.

 

I'm not sure if that's the case but something to consider if it happens again after you get back in.

[+jellis]

Talking about bots. I am not tech so that is above my head. But I did report to GC about another cacher logging in caches that had 1 to 3 letter logs. Logged a friend of mines twice on the same cache, claims to find 20 caches in areas would be almost done by someone "superhuman" The response was maybe they actually did find them since most were confined in a small area. Areas that are extreme hikes. A few days after I saw the posting I went caching in that area and two of the caches they claim they found were not signed by them. Someone told me these may have been bots.

Wow to pay a premium price to be a sock puppet and log caches they didn't find. Why? To establish an account to look real?

I know some of us do that but at least they could have actually gone out and logged it.

Edited April 7, 2010 by jellis

[+TrueRed06]

Logging by hand is breaking the terms of use? What did I miss?

 

"by hand" means "using an automated tool" in snark, of which I am fluent. At least it should be. Our records show that the user was throttled several times. This only happens if the user isn't looking at what they are doing, which generally means it is a bot. Regardless, read the message and slow down.

Give me a break... I've had the same problem as lots of GC.com users the past couple of days, but tonight was by far the worst (so from my perspective, the problem isn't getting better). I'm using a laptop and a keyboard and my own brain. Yes, I type 130 words a minute, and maybe GC.com can't handle that. I'm using IE and am not using any automated tool to browse caches. I was doing what I've done hundreds of times before: simply using Google maps to search for caches, and got locked out for 12 minutes and 45 seconds. It's been interesting, reading the complete forum thread on this topic, and seeing how many Premium members like myself have been throttled to the point of not being able to plan the next caching trip, or log their finds. It's a pain in the... well, you know. Hope you can find a solution soon.

Edited April 8, 2010 by Truered06

[+The Fat Cats]

We've been locked out twice in the past week. Once for logging a power trail of over 500 caches whose cache pages were cut n pasted, which you allowed, so we used the field notes option and we cut n pasted (our first time ever to cut n paste logs, btw) and we got booted. The second time is when I was creating a bookmark list for a challenge.

 

How exactly am I breaking the rules?

[+mambero]

We're in the process of upgrading the site now with updated throttling code. Here's what we've added:

 

1) If you are throttled, the page you'll see will have a Captcha form, which will allow you to enter text to prove that you are not a bot. When you pass the Captcha test, we'll remove the throttle and you'll be able to browse the site again. We'll also log information the information we used to determine why you were throttled. This will help us identify bugs in our algorithm and perhaps users who do not realize they're using a tool that over burdens our servers. Passing the Captcha test does not prevent you from being throttled again. In effect, it resets our stats and lets you start anew. If you trigger the throttling code again, you’ll be shown the Captcha form again.

 

2) We’ve updated the algorithm based on data we've received over the last week. We'll continue to update this to make it as accurate as possible. That’s all I can say about that.

[+ReadyOrNot]

I'll find out what is going on with the throttling. I apologize to the OP for insinuating he was scraping the site.

I hope ya get my drift here.

 

I do and I don't agree with ya.

 

For what it's worth, if you made the data available, either from scraping the site or an API, I'd probably try starting my own site with the data... I think the current policy is a good survival policy and shouldn't change, but you probably already know that

[+mambero]

We're in the process of upgrading the site now with updated throttling code. Here's what we've added:

 

1) If you are throttled, the page you'll see will have a Captcha form, which will allow you to enter text to prove that you are not a bot. When you pass the Captcha test, we'll remove the throttle and you'll be able to browse the site again. We'll also log information the information we used to determine why you were throttled. This will help us identify bugs in our algorithm and perhaps users who do not realize they're using a tool that over burdens our servers. Passing the Captcha test does not prevent you from being throttled again. In effect, it resets our stats and lets you start anew. If you trigger the throttling code again, you’ll be shown the Captcha form again.

 

2) We’ve updated the algorithm based on data we've received over the last week. We'll continue to update this to make it as accurate as possible. That’s all I can say about that.

 

For the last hour, the update looks solid. We've seen two users use the Captcha form and 4 users repeatedly suspended. And we can see that those 4 users were using automation to retrieve data. Looking forward to reviewing the logs tomorrow. A sentence I never thought I'd say or type.

[+Chrysalides]

We've seen two users use the Captcha form

Have you identified the usage scenario that resulted in this happening?

[+Frank Broughton]

I'll find out what is going on with the throttling. I apologize to the OP for insinuating he was scraping the site.

I hope ya get my drift here.

 

I do and I don't agree with ya.

 

For what it's worth, if you made the data available, either from scraping the site or an API, I'd probably try starting my own site with the data... I think the current policy is a good survival policy and shouldn't change, but you probably already know that

 

Ya, so what - so many teams try to win the championship of their particular sport - only one does! May the best man win - I like a champion's attitude. Because of the head start and underpinning GC has they would be hard to beat. The competition would be good for us the cache owners & seekers as much as for GC!

 

ATTACK boys, yes we all love the heroes of the Alamo but.....

[+Frank Broughton]

Looking forward to reviewing the logs tomorrow. A sentence I never thought I'd say or type.

 

Hey, I like analyzing logs.... I really do

[+Xsoft]

Ehm, Hi.

Ok, what you did is your choice.

 

BUt please white for us some info at least.

- is based on IP of an account?

- how many pages can we watch per minute?

- what is counted - sended GET/POST request? (is view of gape without limit)

- are there same limits for not logged / free / premium users?

- is there any unban page (like googles "enter captcha and contunue")

- what time limit is setted for unban? (45minuts, one per hour)

 

...

 

Thanks

(premium user )

[+mambero]

Ehm, Hi.

Ok, what you did is your choice.

 

BUt please white for us some info at least.

- is based on IP of an account?

- how many pages can we watch per minute?

- what is counted - sended GET/POST request? (is view of gape without limit)

- are there same limits for not logged / free / premium users?

- is there any unban page (like googles "enter captcha and contunue")

- what time limit is setted for unban? (45minuts, one per hour)

 

...

 

Thanks

(premium user )

 

You will see captcha when you are throttled, and we'll be monitoring captcha use to catch abusers. That's the only question I can answer directly for two reasons. First, answering the others gives too much information to those who look to abuse our system with automated tools. Second, we'll be continually changing these settings, so any info I give now will be short lived.

[+Xsoft]

You will see captcha when you are throttled, and we'll be monitoring captcha use to catch abusers. That's the only question I can answer directly for two reasons. First, answering the others gives too much information to those who look to abuse our system with automated tools. Second, we'll be continually changing these settings, so any info I give now will be short lived.

 

Well, I see both sides. I know that giving (limited) info abuot abuse protection just helped people to bypass those restrictions, but you will not avoid this. You should only slow things down. (othervise said: people will find those limits withing few days/weeks).

 

TIP: - use ReCaptcha, its better.

- try again to reconsider to releae a publi API (you have it ht*p://api.groun***peak.com/Geo**chi*API**/ser**ic*s.asmx ), Rapidshare did. This SHOULD help you decrease erver/db load, but its up to you.

- any bot/program can do what homan can do, so resulds will be probably slowed down automated program to human response time, but they will still be there (geocaching is popular, what can I say more). Maybe people will not used those program if they will find what they want on gc.com. Adding those features OR allow public API will be good step to their wishes (my opinion).

 

What more could I say. Its up to you, just be wise and dont let Geocaching killed (I dont want to swithch on OpenGeocaching, I just want to play a game, .. so keep it pelase playable).

 

gl

[+mambero]

Well, I see both sides. I know that giving (limited) info abuot abuse protection just helped people to bypass those restrictions, but you will not avoid this. You should only slow things down. (othervise said: people will find those limits withing few days/weeks).

 

Agreed, and this is why we'll occasionally tweak the settings. As soon as we publish numbers, we'll be expected to keep them.

 

What more could I say. Its up to you, just be wise and dont let Geocaching killed (I dont want to swithch on OpenGeocaching, I just want to play a game, .. so keep it pelase playable).

 

In order to keep the site available for everyone, we need to be able to prevent people from abusing the system, whether they realize they are or not. This is the beginning of the process.

Edited April 11, 2010 by mambero

[+Frank Broughton]

In order to keep the site available for everyone, we need to be able to prevent people from abusing the system, whether they realize they are or not. This is the beginning of the process.

 

How many steps away from public flogging followed by tar & feathering are we at?

Edited April 12, 2010 by Frank Broughton