Subtopic	Posts		Updated
	Archive through June 26, 2021	25		06/26 11:48am

EVERYONE: I ask everyone who has a few spare seconds to click the "order products" link at left and tell us if you get to the cart or not.

By Zac Belado (Pixelgeek) on Saturday, June 26, 2021 - 11:24 am: Edit

The DNS issues might be the source of the problem

By Zac Belado (Pixelgeek) on Saturday, June 26, 2021 - 11:26 am: Edit

Have you been the target of serious DDOS attacks in the past? Your site is the only one I have ever seen with this level of protection. Or at least this level of constant checking

By Mike Erickson (Mike_Erickson) on Saturday, June 26, 2021 - 11:48 am: Edit

I can get to the cart and put products in it. Seems to be working fine for me. The behavior of www.starfleetstore.com is the same as it has been for me all year.

I'm connecting via Verizon FIOS from Massachusetts.

--Mike

By Jeff Anderson (Jga) on Saturday, June 26, 2021 - 11:48 am: Edit

Went to the "Order Products" page. It took about thirty seconds to establish the link, but that was actually pretty quick. Normally it's been taking around five minutes for me to establish the link.

By Zac Belado (Pixelgeek) on Saturday, June 26, 2021 - 11:53 am: Edit

That shouldn't be happening at all Jeff. Are you in the US or outside?

By Jean Sexton Beddow (Jsexton) on Saturday, June 26, 2021 - 12:08 pm: Edit

Zac, we were required to add Cloudflare BECAUSE of the DDOS attacks on our cart. They were knocking everyone on the server off as well.

By Mike Erickson (Mike_Erickson) on Saturday, June 26, 2021 - 12:54 pm: Edit

The DNSSEC items on the Cloudflare report are just making the observation that DNSSEC is not in use for that particular domain. DNSSEC is not functionally necessary and not using it does not prevent access to a web site. It's just an additional level of security that is currently not in use.

Since starfleetstore.com uses HTTPS and a properly signed certificate, adding DNSSEC would enhance security only minimally.

--Mike

By Jean Sexton Beddow (Jsexton) on Saturday, June 26, 2021 - 01:21 pm: Edit

Zac, first, you may want to see if your IP address is blacklisted by any sites. Apparently, Cloudflare may also block you if it detects malware on your device. That may be something for you to check.

By Zac Belado (Pixelgeek) on Saturday, June 26, 2021 - 01:39 pm: Edit

I am not blacklisted Jean. I can access the store from another device that is using the same internet access.

Also, Jeff is experiencing the same issue. He actually waits for five minutes to see if the store loads.

When I do a traceroute to the site it access can quickly access the site but it also reports that http://www.starfleetstore.com is using multiple IP address. traceroute uses 104.26.13.89 and can get through to that with no issues.

By Zac Belado (Pixelgeek) on Saturday, June 26, 2021 - 01:43 pm: Edit

When I use some visual tools online I also get the store as being available through 172.67.72.105

Also the DNS records for the site appear to be incorrect. When I test them I get the following errors

DNS starfleetstore.com SOA Expire Value is out of recommended range.

DNS starfleetstore.com SOA Serial Number Format is Invalid.

By Zac Belado (Pixelgeek) on Saturday, June 26, 2021 - 01:44 pm: Edit

There also don't appear to be any NS records for the server.

I assume that the DNS is being hosted by Cloudflare?

By Zac Belado (Pixelgeek) on Saturday, June 26, 2021 - 01:50 pm: Edit

Think I found the problem

Your server (or Cloudflare most likely) doesn't automatically redirect http requests to the https protocol.

If I use http://www.starfleetstore.com/ then I get stuck.

If I use https://www.starfleetstore.com then I access almost immediately.

Now why it locks up on my Mac but doesn't on my tablet is another issue but not really important.

Jeff, are you using http or https to access the site?

I think that if the server is set to redirect http traffic then the issue should be solved.

By Mike Erickson (Mike_Erickson) on Saturday, June 26, 2021 - 02:06 pm: Edit

Cloudflare hosts DNS for their clients, and manipulates the results in order to implement their DDOS and other security protections, as well as cache content.

If you think the DNS results may be the source of your access difficulties, why not reboot your local machine to clear out any DNS caching, and also reboot any intermediate DNS caching entities (like a local cable modem or router) and see if that clears up the problem.

I definitely feel your frustration. It's tough to just want to login to the store and buy some stuff, and a technical problem materializes in your path that you need to fix before you can go do what you really want to do.

--Mike

By Zac Belado (Pixelgeek) on Sunday, June 27, 2021 - 02:01 pm: Edit

The https protocol solved the problem in its entirety Mike. I was only bringing up the DNS issues because Cloudflare was reporting those.

I've actually bookmarked the secure URL so that Safari will use that.

What I find odd is that the Mac and the iPad were both using the insecure URL but the problem only showed up on my Mac.

Jeff try using the secure URL (https) and see if that also solves the problem for you

By Jeff Anderson (Jga) on Sunday, June 27, 2021 - 06:11 pm: Edit

Appreciate the advice, Zac, but I suspect the problem is probably with my computer. It's old and, by nowaday standards, pretty anemic, but I have no complaints about it.

I think of it in reference to a few friends of mine. They have top-of-the-line computers that get replaced every year or two while I use this borderline obsolete paperweight.

Even though they make a LOT more money than I do, because of how they spend (and spend and spend), they're broke, I'm not. On the obscenely rare occasions when I drop money on anything, especially sight-unseen, I make BIG TIME sure I'll get my money worth...

(... Which is why I have spent ten times as much buying from our Hosts in Amarillo as EVERYplace else combined*)

(*Yet another brown-nosing, shameless plug )

By Zac Belado (Pixelgeek) on Sunday, June 27, 2021 - 06:13 pm: Edit

My computer is nine years old at this point. It shouldn't be taking that long to go through that DDOS