XF 2.2 Too many Guests

[emaw]

Hi all, happy 2025!

Our forum is small and never has over 20 registered users logged in, but recently it's been getting stuck due to 3000+ "Guests"/unregistered visitors arriving at the same time, which eventually triggers this error:

• MySQL query error [1114]: The table 'xf_session_activity' is full

and the forum content becomes unavailable and displays a standard message on the front end about a problem generating content. Then it seems to resolve itself and the content comes back up, but this is happening more and more often - a few times a day now. I suspect content scrapers for AI but i just really want the forum to be stable again.

I've set the forum not to display to unregistered users, but that makes no difference

I've checked access logs - user agents and IP addresses are not showing any obvious (to me anyway) culprits whose IP I could block

I've looked up the database error and found various obscure suggestions but i hope there may be a better way to sort this out than fiddling with the database?

Any suggestions would be very much appreciates, thanks in advance

 

[nocte]

Well, if you want to get rid of bot traffic, so that even not a session is created (i.e. the bots don't even get to your server), then Cloudflare may be a good solution:

Connect, protect, and build everywhere

Make employees, applications and networks faster and more secure everywhere, while reducing complexity and cost.

www.cloudflare.com

 

[emaw]

Thank you!

I was hoping there might be a way to manage the load within xf??

and also expecting that other forums might have had the same experience?

 

[webbouk]

Have you tried xf2addons.com Access Log add-on

When you use the Access log add-on, you can easily see which IP range to block.

Link:

Access log

Description: Shows a list of bots, guests and members accessing your forum. I suggest following the information in this thread to block bad bot access to your forum: https://www.xf2addons.com/threads/deny-and-allow-bots-by-user-agent.1135/...

www.xf2addons.com

 

[nocte]

I was hoping there might be a way to manage the load within xf??

You can either block traffic (e.g. with Cloudflare) or (better solution) tweak your server (especially MySQL) so it can handle more requests.

But IMHO there is nothing to do on the XF level.

 

[Jja]

Thank you!

I was hoping there might be a way to manage the load within xf??

and also expecting that other forums might have had the same experience?

If have no access to server mysql tuning you might try to change xf_session_activity table storage engine to InnoDB

 

[emaw]

Have you tried xf2addons.com Access Log add-on

When you use the Access log add-on, you can easily see which IP range to block.

Link:

Access log

Description: Shows a list of bots, guests and members accessing your forum. I suggest following the information in this thread to block bad bot access to your forum: https://www.xf2addons.com/threads/deny-and-allow-bots-by-user-agent.1135/...

www.xf2addons.com

Thank you I have used Mighty Andy plugins before +1 from me,

I was able to do some server optimisations which seem to have improved the situation - I havent seen the MySQL query error [1114] for a couple of days,
(i also changed the xf setting for user "Online status timeout",not sure whether that will have made any difference, though?)

another Q; does the IP banning in the xfacp prevent users from browsing the site? or just from registering??

Many thanks all for wise advices