XF 2.3 Weird connection error randomly

ekool

ekool

Well-known member
Licensed customer
I've been getting complaints about this connection error randomly. It's on different sites, all the sites are behind Cloudflare. I run pings on the machine and they aren't losing connectivity. I don't see anything in the logs. I'm not even sure what error message they are getting.

Cloudflare handles the DNS as well. These are all centminmod servers, different servers behind different hosting providers, different domains.

About the only thing that's the same is they are all running the latest version of Centminmod, although on various OS versions, all Alma 8, 9 or 10...

Sometimes just doing a page refresh and it works. It's got me tearing my hair out, and it's from multiple users, locations, etc.

Any idea what it could be? Please see attachment:

siteerror.webp
 
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ekool said:
I've been getting complaints about this connection error randomly. It's on different sites, all the sites are behind Cloudflare. I run pings on the machine and they aren't losing connectivity. I don't see anything in the logs. I'm not even sure what error message they are getting.

Cloudflare handles the DNS as well. These are all centminmod servers, different servers behind different hosting providers, different domains.

About the only thing that's the same is they are all running the latest version of Centminmod, although on various OS versions, all Alma 8, 9 or 10...

Sometimes just doing a page refresh and it works. It's got me tearing my hair out, and it's from multiple users, locations, etc.

Any idea what it could be? Please see attachment:

View attachment 337622
Click to expand...
I had similar issues on multiple client sites. Its all about cache rules, that is what we have changed to fix it.
 
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ekool said:
I've been getting complaints about this connection error randomly. It's on different sites, all the sites are behind Cloudflare. I run pings on the machine and they aren't losing connectivity. I don't see anything in the logs. I'm not even sure what error message they are getting.

Cloudflare handles the DNS as well. These are all centminmod servers, different servers behind different hosting providers, different domains.

About the only thing that's the same is they are all running the latest version of Centminmod, although on various OS versions, all Alma 8, 9 or 10...

Sometimes just doing a page refresh and it works. It's got me tearing my hair out, and it's from multiple users, locations, etc.

Any idea what it could be? Please see attachment:

View attachment 337622
Click to expand...
We’ve encountered this issue with several customers when HTTP/3 was enabled. Try to disable it and us know if works:
1778850829740.webp
 
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beerForo said:
I tried that and my sites became slow with CF connection error pages so I would keep this enabled.
Click to expand...

I haven't noticed any speed issues on our sites and the connection errors seemed to have gone away, so I've left it off now. I definitely hope it's something Cloudflare figures out and fixes as it would be nice to have it. It's definitely faster, especially from mobile.
 
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HTTP3/QUIC is much faster from mobile, which is the bulk of our traffic. It sure would be nice if we could figure out a Xenforo fix for this. It's not a problem on any other site and I'm seeing it across multiple sites of ours.
 
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I can't believe this isn't a bigger issue for people. Either you are OK with not having HTTP3/QUIC support or you are OK with having your users get an error page randomly for no reason. Xenforo's lack of response to this and lack of legitimate fix in the other thread is mind boggling.
 
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ekool said:
Xenforo's lack of response to this and lack of legitimate fix in the other thread is mind boggling.
Click to expand...
Did you file a bug report or open a feature request? If not: What do you complain about? Technically it is not a XenForo problem anyway but rather a misconfiguration that you did in Cloudflare or at least somewhat of a 3rd party problem. So possibly a feature request for HTTP3/Quic-support within XF would be more adequate tan a bug report, It is however questionable if this is a XF topic at all:

Judging from the other tread it is neither XFs fault nor necessarily CFs:

X

Post in thread 'Page could not be loaded'

After switching from the Let's Encrypt SSL cert to Google Trust Services for the SSL cert (as modern let's encrypt can have a compatibility issue with iOS 13 or older), and disabling HTTP/3 (QUIC) the issues appear to be resolved for my client.

The ticket from Cloudflare had this as the "explainer" for the http/3 (quic) issue, but only once I mentioned that I disabled this option.
You have identified the root cause correctly. Disabling HTTP/3 (QUIC) resolved the connection failures because there are known compatibility issues between Safari on iOS and the QUIC protocol...
Click to expand...
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Apart from that there is also this posting:

K

Post in thread 'Page could not be loaded'

Initial user feedback seems to indicate that disabling HTTP/3 "solved" the problem.

Is http/3 (QUIC) common with normal server installations or something that is mostly used by Cloudflare?
Click to expand...
Pesonally I'd still consider it kinda newish; Apache as of now doesn't stupport HTTP/3 at all.
nginx stable supports it since about 2 years (the first nginx version directly available via Debian stable was in Trixie, released August 2025).

I'd assume most shared webhosts (as of now) and most self-hosted XenForo installations (that do not use Couldflare) don't support HTTP/3.
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So it is less about XF but rather about the webserver below it (and the concrete issue rather an issue of old IOS versions). Can it be that you rage out into the totally wrong direction?
 
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smallwheels said:
Did you file a bug report or open a feature request? If not: What do you complain about? Technically it is not a XenForo problem anyway but rather a misconfiguration that you did in Cloudflare or at least somewhat of a 3rd party problem. So possibly a feature request for HTTP3/Quic-support within XF would be more adequate tan a bug report, It is however questionable if this is a XF topic at all:

Judging from the other tread it is neither XFs fault nor necessarily CFs:

X

Post in thread 'Page could not be loaded'

After switching from the Let's Encrypt SSL cert to Google Trust Services for the SSL cert (as modern let's encrypt can have a compatibility issue with iOS 13 or older), and disabling HTTP/3 (QUIC) the issues appear to be resolved for my client.

The ticket from Cloudflare had this as the "explainer" for the http/3 (quic) issue, but only once I mentioned that I disabled this option.
You have identified the root cause correctly. Disabling HTTP/3 (QUIC) resolved the connection failures because there are known compatibility issues between Safari on iOS and the QUIC protocol...
Click to expand...
  • Like

Apart from that there is also this posting:

K

Post in thread 'Page could not be loaded'

Initial user feedback seems to indicate that disabling HTTP/3 "solved" the problem.

Is http/3 (QUIC) common with normal server installations or something that is mostly used by Cloudflare?
Click to expand...
Pesonally I'd still consider it kinda newish; Apache as of now doesn't stupport HTTP/3 at all.
nginx stable supports it since about 2 years (the first nginx version directly available via Debian stable was in Trixie, released August 2025).

I'd assume most shared webhosts (as of now) and most self-hosted XenForo installations (that do not use Couldflare) don't support HTTP/3.
  • Like

So it is less about XF but rather about the webserver below it (and the concrete issue rather an issue of old IOS versions). Can it be that you rage out into the totally wrong direction?
Click to expand...

It is possible, but from all my research it's really an issue with Xenforo. Since many sites rely on HTTP3/QUIC and I've only seen this error with Xenforo, I think that's safe to say.

Claude and Codex agree with me.

If adding a javascript refresh to that error page fixes the issue, that's another sign it's a Xenforo issue.
 
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ekool said:
It is possible, but from all my research it's really an issue with Xenforo. Since many sites rely on HTTP3/QUIC and I've only seen this error with Xenforo, I think that's safe to say.

Claude and Codex agree with me.
Click to expand...
Everything I've seen so far points to a configuration issue with CF or the server where your site is.
In your original post of this thread, you're posting a screenshot of a default error page stored by Xenforo (locally to you) that appears when the browser cannot connect to your server/xf site. Since the the browser cannot even connect to your server, that's not an XF issue.

@eva2000 Do you have any insight on this since this particular case involves Centminmod and CF together?
 
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