FS Support: External Web Issues: Cloudflare

===== External Web Issues: Cloudflare =====

If you are unable to access firestormviewer.org (including jira.firestormviewer.org and wiki.firestormviewer.org)
or if Firestorm's login splash page and internal help browser show 'Blocked by Cloudflare':

Note that none of these issues or causes will prevent logging in to Second Life. They will only affect the viewer's splash/login page, as well as Firestorm web sites.

Possible causes can be grouped into two distinct categories:

1: If the page specifically says "Blocked by Cloudflare", and you have "Ray ID #" at the bottom of the page
  * This indicates you are possibly using some VPN, proxy, or TOR browser, or some network-related software obfuscating your connection.
    - If you use a VPN or proxy, try turning it off. If you use a Tor browser, try a mainstream browser.
    - We also have had to block a few specific web hosts, due to a repeated pattern of malicious action from users on those networks.
    - Cloudflare occasionally blocks some network carriers if there has been malicious activity (such as denial of service attack-- DOS--activity). Those blocks are usually temporary and self-clear after a while.
    - You can provide Firestorm Support with the "Ray ID #", and we can have our network team look up the specific cause that the ID points at. Please note that a response may take some time. We will try to provide a response within 24 hours. Alternatively, you can email [email protected] with the "Ray ID #". Please do not email unless the page says "Blocked by Cloudflare."

2: If the Cloudflare page does not specifically mention "Blocked", but continually refreshes, or gets stuck:
  * Check your system's time and time zone. Even as little as a 2-minute time discrepancy has been seen to cause this problem.
  * Web browser issues and security issues can be a cause:
    - Make sure javascript is enabled in your web browser
    - Try in a different web browser
    - Check your web browser plugins (ad blockers, etc. - try turning those off)
    - Check your web browser's security settings
    - Check your system's security settings
    - Test using your phone if possible. If you can view the web pages via your phone, that narrows things down to an issue on your computer. Also test on your phone carrier's 4G/5G network, instead of your local home wi-fi, to check if the problem is specific to your internet service provider. If you still can't view Firestorm's web pages via your phone, you can try accessing the pages on your phone via a different wi-fi connection (at a free public hotspot, for example).


Firefox users: see:
  * https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1442767
  * https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1666160

We leverage technology provided by Cloudflare to help stop bad bots, scripts, and other malicious traffic. The way this is done is by Cloudflare having the end user's web browser run some Javascript code to help it decide whether the visitor is likely a bot or a human. There are a number of things that can interfere with this javascript being run in the web browser (such as the items suggested above), so checking the items suggested above is a good starting point for trying to troubleshoot the problem.

Other possible causes (much rarer, but have happened):

The Firestorm sites/hosts are all ipv6 enabled - Cloudflare provides this ipv6 connectivity support.

Your operating system may be setting IPv6 networking as priority instead of the traditional ipv4 networking when making a web request. In most cases this is not a problem; however there are cases from time to time where some consumer routers have a buggy ipv6 implementation or the ISP itself does not have a good implementation of ipv6 within its network infrastructure, which can sometimes lead to strange (and sometimes intermittent) connectivity issues such as timeouts, which of course may prevent Cloudflare's Javascript from being able to work correctly. If you are using an internet connection that is IPv6 enabled, and have eliminated all the other more likely sources of problems first, try disabling ipv6 in your network adaptors tcp/ip settings and then test again.

If you are still unable to view the Firestorm web pages, you may need to have a computer shop or network technician diagnose the cause.