Community Forums: Cloud Flare harassment | Roll20: Online virtual tabletop

1452558422

Hi,  Every time I try to log unto roll20, I get tagged by cloudflare, demanding a captcha. It's getting to the point of it being ridiculous.  Before, I only had to fill in one captcha, and it was easy, just 3 numbers read from a street sign usually.  NOW, it's every 2 minutes if I navigate on the site, and it's mumbo jumbo sentences I can't read.  I'm wondering why you've installed this measure, and if you're planning on not harassing your paying customers. 

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Edited 1452559450

Silvyre

Pro

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That's really weird; I've never heard of this happening repeatedly before. As you said, this is a security measure taken by Roll20's hosting service, not Roll20. You'll probably have to end up taking it up with them ( Cloudflare Support ). You're not using a proxy/VPN/TOR etc. to access Roll20, are you?

1452559810

Gen Kitty

Forum Champion

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While I doubt it is a browser issue, I have seen some crazy situations pop up, so if you would please follow Steps 1-3 of our Solving Technical Issues checklist (confirm you're using the latest non-test version of Firefox or Chrome and try switching browsers briefly; turn off all extensions, addons, and anti-virus; and clear your cache) to see if one of those components is causing the problem. We can only help if we can recreate your issue, so it is important that you follow each step. If doing that fixes the issue, just let us know. Otherwise, move on to Step 4 , and we'll want all that information, particularly the console log, to further assist you.

1452562234

Riley D.

Roll20 Team

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We've been using CloudFlare for quite a while now (over a year) and have never had any issues with it. According to our logs on there, very few people get flagged at all (like, 0.01% of visitors). And in addition to that, it's currently set so that if a person passes a challenge (like the CAPTCHA you are describing), they shouldn't have to re-do it for a minimum of an hour (if not much longer). I'm not seeing anything in our logs indicating that anyone is getting flagged every few minutes, certainly. If you want to PM me some of the details of your network setup (your IP address, are you using any proxies to access the site, VPN, etc.) I will do my best to take a look and see what I can find out from CloudFlare. While our intent is never to have anyone using the site in a legitimate fashion caught up in that net, unfortunately the nature of the Internet as it stands today requires sites of our size to have some sort of protection in place...case in point, DDoS attacks last week. We would be suffering through that type of attack on a weekly basis if we didn't have something like CloudFlare helping us filter traffic.

1452567552

Zunami

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I'm using a VPN. I have always been using a VPN however, and my problems started within the last few months I would say.  2 minutes may not have been entirely correct, but I certainly do not feel that an hour passes in between me having to fill in a new captcha. It's getting to the point where it's delaying my access to the site several minutes, because I can't read the goddamn captcha texts.  Before, I generally had to do them once a day - at least that seemed to be the average, but now I have to do them all the time.  I'll try PMing you and see what we can figure out. 

1452653101

Zunami

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I don't know if you did anything, but the captcha have gone back to 3 digit numbers, which is nice.  I can't believe I'm saying that... It's come to the point where I find myself appreciating only having to constantly fill in 3 numbers to access the site.  I mean, it flags me EVERY time. I can't tell if an hour passes, but maybe? 

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Gen Kitty

Forum Champion

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Sami, It would be helpful if you could follow Steps 1-3 of our Solving Technical Issues checklist (confirm you're using the latest non-test version of Firefox or Chrome and try switching browsers briefly; turn off all extensions, addons, and anti-virus; and clear your cache) to see if one of those components is causing the problem.  It's a long shot, but I have seen some crazy things get cleared up by a simple browser swap or cache clear, and you'd be surprised what issues seemingly-innocent addons can cause :)

1452657045

Zunami

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Done.  I only use one extension, and that's adblock. It doesn't seem to make a difference whether it's on or not. Clearing my cache hasn't solved the problem, and I'm using Chrome, and it's up to date. 

1452696919

Riley D.

Roll20 Team

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Based on the info you sent me in your PM, it seems like the most likely culprit is the VPN you are using. When you use a VPN, you are "sharing" an IP address with lots of other users. It's possible that someone who has used that VPN has done some bad things that CloudFlare has seen previously, and so it is flagged in their system as a possible bad actor.  I will up our CAPTCHA period so that you only have to solve the CAPTCHA once every 4 hours (instead of every hour) which should help. But beyond that I'm not sure if there's anything else we can do on our end unfortunately.

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Zunami

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Would it help if I tried VPNing through a different tunnel? One that, perhaps doesn't have the equivalent of an internet criminal record? 

1452701208

Zunami

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And thank you, by the way, all of you, for trying to help. 

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