Safari Error 429 - Too many requests

[brianpeart]

I have created a few websites for artists and they make use of the Slideshow widget in one form or another. My hosting providers are seeing the error 429 in Safari on Mac and iOS. They think that a script in the code is going into a loop and crashing the server, which then sends the Error 429 - too many requests. Apparently it only happens in Safari on Mac and iOS, other browsers don't have the problem.

I have updated to the latest release of Muse - Muse CC 2018.1.1, and we have set PHP to v7.3 on the server in case the problem was there, but it is still continuing.

Please can anyone suggest a solution for this problem, because my hosting providers don't like their server crashing when anyone uses one of my sites too much!

Many thanks,

Brian

[fotoroeder]

Could you provide a link to one of these websites with the issue? Is is a 3rd party widget you use for slideshows?

Kind Regards,

Uwe

[brianpeart]

Hi Uwe,

Thanks for your reply! Have a look at www.neildrury.com as an example. This was made entirely in Muse with no 3rd party widgets. The slideshow is simply a Muse widget dragged onto the page and populated with images. I hope you can find a solution!

Best wishes,

Brian

[Nancy OShea]

429 is often an indicator of a DDos attack.  Maybe your site's code was hacked with malicious code without your knowledge. I would take down the site and build a new one as soon as possible.

[brianpeart]

Hi Nancy,

That is a possibility I guess! I'll put it to my web hosts and see what they think. I think it is unlikely because the level of security required to get into their servers is quite impressive. Also I have rebuilt the site yesterday with the latest version of Muse and re-uploaded it. Would that not cure a pre-hacked site? I don't know.

Thanks for your help!

Brian

[fotoroeder]

At first I didn`t get the error 429 either in Chrome  nor in Safari - after using my second machine with Safari and went back to my first machine with Chrome, I got the error on both machines but not with all slideshows and that changes randomly. Chrome has the same error but less often.

Following Nancy it might be the only solution to clear the ftp completely and reload with new credentials.

Let me add that after some minutes your galleries run smothly on Safari as well.

Kind Regards,

Uwe

[brianpeart]

Hi Uwe,

Thank you for looking at that site and confirming that you see the error too. Yes, it now also seems to appear in Chrome on Mac as well. I have had the following message from my web hosts which may shed some light:

"Hi Brian,

I've just run some quick Javascript diagnostics on the page itself, and can confirm that the problems are most definitely coming from the Javascript you have on the page.

Something on the page is going into a loop and making loads of requests to https://neildrury.com/null which doesn't exist and then gets 404 errors (item missing) one after the other in quick succession.

I've also just tried this site in Chrome and this is crashing with an error too, so the problem now looks like it's more than just Safari.

Looks like it's just a bad bit of Javascript, or there is something in the script or settings which hasn't been set which is making it repeatedly look for a non-existed file.  Check all the gallery settings in your software, it's as though something hasn't been set which is generating the /null request."

I use Muse because it doesn't require a knowledge of code, so this info doesn't help me much, but I wonder whether it helps you or others to identify the cause of the problem?

My web hosts also say it definitely isn't a DDoS attack, they have a lot of protection running...

Do you think I should report this as a bug to Adobe? Do you think they would do anything about it since Muse is being left unsupported soon? That's a shame because (apart from this problem) it works verywell.

Best wishes and thanks for your help.

Brian

[fotoroeder]

Well, unfortunately no one from Adobe will ever have a look at it.

That "Null" makes me think about naming of your images -is it possible, that this could generate this issue?

Do you get this error when testing the website in browser as well? Did you check this?

Kind Regards,

Uwe

[brianpeart]

Please can you expand on the naming of my images? They are mixed up, some are short like "Fl01.jpg", others might be longer like "Apples and Pears in a Jug.jpg". What makes you think of this as a cause?

Yes, I check the site before and after upload, but I must admit I don't go beserk clicking everything in mad succession! Also I use Chrome on PCs not Macs, so I haven't seen the fault myself, my web hosts alerted me to it.

Many thanks,

Brian

[fotoroeder]

Well, I can think of to name images in a way like "still-life-01" , "still-life-02" "…" and so on.

Same with "flowers-01" …, maybe there´s some misspelling-starnge characters or whatever to maybe have the same name twice, and so on. Just to be sure to exclude this as the source for your issue. That "Null" seems not to be any codestuff or java but I might be wrong.

If you have all the images in LR or Capture1, On1 or even Bridge, renaming should be pretty easy

but of course, if you have this issue on many websites, 😞

Kind Regards,

Uwe

[brianpeart]

I do have the issue with many websites, so renaming the files would be a major project... In future I will make sure to keep the file names short!

I have fixed the problem on that site by creating a /null folder with an empty index.html file in it. My web hosts have tried it and cannot make it fail now, perhaps you could have a look too? I feel it's not a real solution, more a 'fix'; rather like you go to see the doctor who gives you pain killers, but doesn't cure whatever is hurting you in the first place!

Doing it this way will impact the web stats of course, and I do have a couple of clients who actually look at the stats...

Best wishes,

Brian

[Nancy OShea]

1) Muse developers left the building over 2 years ago when Adobe first announced the end of Muse.  Muse is discontinued now and Adobe will not fix anything.  

2) The scripts in Muse sites are beginning to fail, some worse than others. 

3) Use Muse at your own risk.

I stick by my earlier advice.  Build a new site with a modern web authoring tool as soon as possible. 

OPTION 1:

If your client has a Creative Cloud Plan, you could have this site rebuilt in a few hours on Adobe's  hosting & Portfolio platform. But you would need to remap the domain name to Adobe Portfolio's servers.   Portfolio won't work with other servers.

https://portfolio.adobe.com/

https://help.myportfolio.com/hc/en-us/articles/216489627-Manually-configuring-a-custom-domain

OPTION 2:

Use Dreamweaver and a Bootstrap Template to rebuild the site.  Upload it from Dreamweaver to your current hosting server.

OPTION 3:

Build an e-Commerce site with WordPress and the WooCommerce plugin.

[brianpeart]

Hi Nancy,

Thanks for your reply. It seems I have to learn another website building tool! I started out with Adobe GoLive, that was discontinued, then Flash, that was discontinued, now Muse... I shall have a look around and see what I can find. I'm too old to learn Dreamweaver I think, I won't use it often enough to keep it in my memory.

Re Option 1 - none of my clients have their own Adobe CC plans.

Re Option 2 - Hmm - I think Dreamweaver is too complex for me

Re Option 3 - I have been told to avoid Wordpress as it is too easily hacked by nasty people??

Many thanks for your help, I see I have some homework to do!

Brian

[Nancy OShea]

WordPress is no more or less secure than other open source platforms.  Everything can be hacked.  Security starts at the hosting level and moves down the chain.  Most problems start with a dirty computer and a user who unknowingly FTPs infected files to the server.  

Responsible developers use plugins and other strategies to help ensure their sites remain secure. For anyone who is interested, there's plenty of security info online, not just for WordPress users.

https://www.wpbeginner.com/wordpress-security/

[fotoroeder]

So far I saw only one website - if this is your case fpr other websites, too then either nicepage.com might be a good way (no code, no subscription, quite affordable), mac only - sparkleapp - same same but diffferent. Before DW try Pinegrow, but quite a learning curve and could be done with some code but also with almost no code by using one of their frameworks like bootstrap, Foundation and also WP if and only if CMS is necessary. PG also offers a simple CMS - for most sites, in my opinion, WP is toooo heavy - like shooting with a cannonball and try to get the fly, if you know what I mean.

But still I feel some naming issues - now that the "Null" is clear to me, I also see it as a workaround rather than a fix - why not try it with one of the other issue-sites, clear the names of files and see what happens? But I must admit that, before doing all this you could easily move then the site and redo it with one of the apps mentioned above - for me nicepage looks pretty easy and maybe better then muse in  its ease? Just test it. I tried so far PG, will try sparkleapp (Mac) and would be delighted to get a report from nicepage - one of muse users recently brought up nicepage and was very very satisfied. But naming may still lead to issues, I would always do that first (I did).

Kind Regards,

Uwe