Edit 2: STEEMIT ATE THIS POST THE SECOND TIME I TRIED TO SUBMIT IT ALSO:
Hilarious Edit: Steemit DELETED THIS FUCKING POST while trying to submit it:
Part 1: The Submission:
For days Steemit has been borderline unusable for me. It is making tending to my comment feed infuriating and I am about ready to just log out for awhile.
If anyone can fix this problem for me, I will upvote the heck out of you and call in any favors for same.
Steemit is literally eating over 50% of the votes, comments, and posts I attempt to submit. Each meal forces me to wait about 45 seconds until the spinning circle times out.
After checking with others in Discord, it seems that others are seeing the exact same issue. However, perpelexingly, it is NOT universal.
WTF is going on here? Steemit, you need to FIX THIS THIS NOW.
Step 0: My internet checks out fine. I have tried different computers and browsers. I've rebooted. I've logged out and in.
Step 1: I submit a vote. All I get is a spinning wheel, usually for 30-60 seconds. Really fucking annoying:
Step 2: Spinning circle finally stops, there is no vote. Refreshing shows no vote.
Step 3: Comments are being deleted the same way. Both the vote and comment below will be deleted with no draft saved.
I have lost over 26 comments today. I know, because I am pasting each one into a word doc before I submit because MORE THAN HALF require repeated submissions. Today, most of my comments and votes required 2-3 page refreshes and 2-3 submissions to actually happen.
Sometimes, after I refresh a failed vote, the vote button will already be blue (it won't let me vote again), and the vote amount is 0.00. If I try to vote, it asks me to remove my vote, then if I say yes, it fails to remove the vote and gives me an error "Vote Weight Cannot Be 0".
If I refresh the page again, the phantom 0.00 vote is gone.
This is a level of fucking with the interface I am 100% not willing to continue doing to maintain my blog.
Furthermore, for the first time in nearly 5 months here, Steemit is routinely unable to even determine I am logged in. Everytime I refresh, it tries to tell me I'm logged out for almost a full minute before it suddenly realizes it's wrong:
As a former IT professional, I am ruling out user error, internet connection (outside a remote peering issue), and browsers.
What's left, Steemit?
PS - If you are waiting on a reply from me, I'll try to get to it!
If you have any additions or errata for this post, please let me know! I will see that they are voted to the top of the comments, and will make the appropriate edits (if possible).
We also have a Radio Station! (click me)
...and a 4800+ user Discord Chat Server! (click me)
*Sources: *
Copyright: Robocop, Office Space
This has been an intermittent problem for me since I joined Steemit, but it has got much worse lately.
Oddly, I am not experiencing the level of censorship as are you.
Clearly the interface between Steemit and the blockchain is being impacted by some new means of attack. I have read the devs are on it, and, in fact, this may be adding to the interface issues being actuated.
I have been rather otherwise busied of late with work, so the amount of interaction I conduct with the interface has been limited, and this may also partially explain my reduced level of experience of this problem, if the problem is resulting from blockchain issues.
DDoS is bandwidth attacks, and while I have witnessed experiments attempting to deplete blockchain bandwidth attacks on particular users fail, it may be that someone has found better tools to conduct such attacks.
Best info I have atm.
I recall about a month ago there was a problem with many accounts being informed we had too little SP to interact with the blockchain, which was swiftly solved by the devs, IIRC. Perhaps that was a shot across the bow...
"Oddly, I am not experiencing the level of censorship as are you.
Clearly the interface between Steemit and the blockchain is being impacted by some new means of attack."
Goodness, I didn't even think of that. I don't think someone is trying to censor my posts specifically, but someone intercepting packets or drowning them out via the DDoS is a frightening prospect.
I guess if all else fails when trying to censor, you can always attack the underlying server, utlility, or tech.
"I recall about a month ago there was a problem with many accounts being informed we had too little SP to interact with the blockchain, which was swiftly solved by the devs, IIRC. "
I actually thought needing SP to interact with the chain was a decent defense against some types of DDoS...but I'm not an expert on black hat antics.
I guess if all else fails when trying to censor
@lexiconical! I had this same thought. I don't think it's a personal attack to censor, as much as an attack on the entire Steemit platform.
Let's face it: There are hacker-developers in the competition (i.e. popular social media sites) who are not going to stand idly by and let this decentralized platform gain Steem; and, threaten their standing.
It's clear that the persistent tech-woes is a major dilemma for hopes of growing the site.
I can't help but believe that Steemit might be affecting the downtrend of STEEM.
Of course, I could be wrong.
Btw, I actually went to busy.org to upload comments for a while, as several attempts to get past the looping Loading got a little annoying.
One good thing, is that while extremely slow, it ultimately uploaded the comments.
Thanks for sharing!
Peace.
"I can't help but believe that Steemit might be affecting the downtrend of STEEM."
If so, that might actually be good. I'm confident they can address these issues in the medium to long term. If that is what's holding us back, it's a fixable problem.
Thanks for your optimism @lexiconical. I am truly encouraged.
Now, if I log in tomorrow and the domain is for sale, I won't hold it against you. I see how hard you work; and will know you were as blindsided as I was.
Creating all of those flawless witness posts; AND, replying to comments makes me pray that you're pacing yourself...burnout isn't cool ;+)....
Btw, why don't you set yourself up to become a witness. You've got my vote. In all the research, I haven't been able to find how to un-vote a witness. I know it's possible. Do you have any links?
One last thing, you've had a tough week defending your pal. I've read a few of the comments, even commented on a post with your pic of 'you' as a cat emerging out of the waters.
Again, thanks for the encouragement!
Peace.
"I see how hard you work; and will know you were as blindsided as I was."
Hah, yes, I'm sure this will be a passing problem. I'm certainly not expecting any greater ramifications...
"burnout isn't cool ;+)...."
What's that? Hah...I'm trying to take some time off, but I am eager to remain productive.
"you've had a tough week defending your pal"
I'd defend anyone who was being attacked with misinformation.
"commented on a post with your pic of 'you' as a cat emerging out of the waters."
Wait, is there a post mocking me somewhere with a cat photoshop? I'm going to need a link if so, gotta see this.
"Again, thanks for the encouragement!"
Same to you!
Wait, is there a post mocking me somewhere with a cat photoshop? I'm going to need a link if so, gotta see this. (lol)
Ha! Remember, it’s a new week; but, here it is…
https://steemit.com/witness-category/@therneau/the-show-is-on-jerry-banfield-parry-duck-block
What's that? Hah...I'm trying to take some time off, but I am eager to remain productive.
Yes, when I wrote that I realized that this type of work is fuel for your fire (life). As air to lungs, creative design is steem to your engine.
And on that note, Steem On!
Peace.
I didn't mean to imply that someone was trying to censor you in particular, but that disabling our posts is effectively censorship, and I believe you interact with the blockchain more than I, which then would make you more vulnerable to such effects.
Good points. Sorry for the overly-literal interpretation.
What doesn't kill us makes us stronger. If the devs can solve these ongoing problems, like that new bot looking for and reporting on phishing attacks, maybe Steemit will get more bulletproof. It'd be nice. But then I'm no tech genius and the black hats always seem to come up with new way to give us a wedgie, especially if they're funded from that bottomless fiat well!
Sometimes significant impairment can arise from less than lethal events. =p
Still, I agree with your sentiment, particularly as it regards hardening Steemit against attacks. It may be that ongoing work to harden Steemit is the cause of our present difficulties. Absent timely information from Stinc, it's impossible to say.
There is one attack against which Steemit is defenseless presently, which I hope remains too expensive to undertake for the minor threat Steemit represents. I know that my concerns have been heard at Stinc, and what comes of that is out of my hands.
I lamented the loss of free speech serially on fora and various sites and boards over the last few decades, and will lament losing it here, should that come to pass.
I am confident that there are yet more battles to be won. Until we are lost, or prevail, there always will be.
What are the censorship and "loss of free speech" in Steemit/Stinc you referred to in your replies to lexiconical and citizenzero respectively?
I saw lexiconical replied to you with some reservation about the idea of censorship personally against himself, if I got to what he meant.
If DDoS and such attacks on the platform are intended to disrupt posting, this is censorship of all the posters, and not just @lexiconical, but everyone on the platform.
This is closer to how I see it.
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I suppose if these problems are caused internally by attempts to bolster Steemit itself, they aren't going to warn us users for the same reasons that a release of nuclear fallout is never mentioned in the media: People would change their behavior to compensate for the danger and that cannot be tolerated. Though technology continues to advance, some things never change.
Update: got this response from @apsu on Steemit chat:
Just another opinion?
It's certainly a plausible explanation for such problems, however, in the wake of the DDoS, and given the extent of the problem, there may be other factors involved.
It may be instructive to have a look at any recent problems witnesses have encountered, or whether there have been disruptions in the complement of witnesses of late. I doubt the community has responded to the DDoS by doing nothing, and it is probable coders are busy breaking things and putting them back together - too busy to do any hand-holding.
I hope you're right. I'm really out of my league when it comes to hacking, but the conspiracy theorist (and writer) in me keeps having visions of that DDoS attack as a diversionary tactic allowing an "insider" to slip in some malware that causes just enough problems and doubt in the bloggers to drive them away and thus quash Steemit's advance. Who needs Jamie Damon? He's now shut his mouth.
But you've said it's been happening since you started so I'm probably full of...uh, Steem. (I wish)
It's easy to imagine the worst. One of the issues, the cause of @lexiconical's post, is lack of specific knowledge. The coders are in action, and no one's (apparently) assigned to tell us what's actually going on.
Maybe the community liaison, @andrarchy, has more information. I'm certain he has better understanding than I!
What is the name of that bot looking for and reporting on phishing attacks?
It seems interesting because I have no idea about how does such a thing work.
I also read about it for the first time in this comment of yours.
Gosh. I read about it in Steemit chat, I think. I've actually seen some warnings in other people's wallets. Before that post about @samstonehill getting his account stolen, I saw that same "account has been frozen..." message in the @curie wallet and wondered what was going on. The warning I saw today was about a request for .001 SD to be sent to somebody for something and right after it a warning that this was a phishing attack and not to answer. Sorry I can't be more specific. If I find out more tomorrow I'll let you know.
I see your @valued-customer handle in Steem chat. If you have notification set up I'll contact you that way if that works for you.
I think I read about this phishing attempt against the established players here too.
When you wrote about valued-customer handle in Steem chat you probably confused him with me. He might miss this reply of yours because of this confusion, since you posted it in a reply to me, and not to him.
Sorry. I was tired last night and not paying close attention. If you have a presence on Steemin Chat, I will get back to you with that info if I find it. Or I can just post it here. Thanks
I still do not have a presence on Steemin/t chat.
Would appreciate if you will post it here.
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It has been no fun for me for about a week. Started posting again yesterday; it hasn't eaten one of my posts yet, but I use a "work log" (a LibreOffice document) to compose in, as a general rule.
It is constantly spinning while trying to upvote.
I think I found something:
It seems that the spinning behavior is worse when you're looking at a feed and left-click a link, which causes it to appear "above" the feed, and you can click outside of the white background to dismiss it and go back to the feed.
When I had done that, I upvoted two people who I see regularly, as well as your post, and it kept showing the "can only upvote every 3 seconds" (which was behind the post, grayed out in bottom left -- another UI issue). I clicked outside the white to go back to the feed, then I did a middle-click of your post to open it in a new tab.
Then I switched to the tab and saw that two of those upvotes had been recorded. I made the third, and then started writing this comment. Which I'll Ctrl+A Ctrl+C before I hit Tab Space, just in case.
I agree with you, having to take so many extra steps is madness. And is causing me to walk away -- just as I made a significant investment! :(
Good news though is I learned more about MinnowBooster delegating in the meantime.
https://steemit.com/life/@libertyteeth/really-fucking-discouraged-right-now-just-put-another-btc-into-steem-power-and-can-t-fucking-upvote-anyone
https://steemit.com/steemit/@libertyteeth/just-delegated-almost-everything-to-minnowbooster-for-now-my-100-upvote-at-100-voting-power-is-only-worth-usd0-07-now-so-i-guess
https://steemit.com/life/@libertyteeth/minnowbooster-is-a-great-investment-16-5-annually-that-s-after-a-month-of-daily-data-points
"but I use a "work log" (a LibreOffice document) to compose in, as a general rule."
That's a good rule to follow.
"It seems that the spinning behavior is worse when you're looking at a feed and left-click a link, which causes it to appear "above" the feed"
I have noticed this as well. I've been opening comments into their own individual windows, but that is labor-intensive.
"Then I switched to the tab and saw that two of those upvotes had been recorded. I made the third, and then started writing this comment. "
Everything you describe here I've seen as well.
Agreed! "Labor-intensive" is what computers were fucking (sorry) created to solve!!1!eleven!1!!
I made a #steemgigs post about my thoughts to resolve this, earlier today:
https://steemit.com/steemgigs/@libertyteeth/steemgigs-idea-steemit-agent
"is what computers were fucking (sorry) created to solve!!1!eleven!1!!"
Haha, that's why I added the foul-language warning to the title! This type of stuff really sets me off...
Hey I found a solution to this crap today!
https://steemitstage.com/steemit/@libertyteeth/4oiiz7
Which I originally found here: https://steemitstage.com/steemitstage/@surpassinggoogle/let-s-help-steemit-devs-test-https-steemitstage-com
Any portal you use to the Steem block-chain would "fix" this issue, since the DDoS attacks target specific domains (www.steemit.com, etc.)
I'm having similar problems as well, plus a few others. I posted early this morning and while it didn't show up on the "new" window, it did show up on my blog. I got a reply from one of my followers and so I know it went out, but when she tried to resteem it, the little icon turned blue but the resteem didn't show up in her blog or mine.
Also, I checked my "feed" early this morning, read all the interesting posts, came back an hour later and there were several posts from people I'm following that were up to 6 hours old. I know they weren't there before since I'm not following that many people and these were bloggers I always read. If this is just a software glitch, it's a pretty selective and sophisticated one.
That first paragraph of issues you described are unlike anything I've seen so far. Very odd.
"came back an hour later and there were several posts from people I'm following that were up to 6 hours old."
That's also very odd. Perhaps they were entered to the blockchain 6 hours ago, but Steemit was unable to access them until you came back later because of Steemit-related issues.
I turned off all chrome extensions and it seems to be running much smoother , knowing you, you probably already tried that but I thought I would throw it out there!
Hah, I did eventually figure this out too (particularly, the Steemit More Info mod). I wish I had seen your comment just a bit sooner, however! Instead, I was running traceroutes, experimenting, and posting about it.
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Just experienced the lost post for the first time switched browsers went thru fine thought that was prob the problem now see it wasn't.. tnx for letting us know we're no the only ones..
"tnx for letting us know we're no the only ones.."
And same to you...I was worried when some people in chat said they weren't having this issue.
I feel your pain, I don't know if its DDOS or a bug but i believe using busy.org may be your best bet at the moment...once you are using steemit.com its imperative to save a draft...you probably need to save a draft of your work, refresh it and paste again, hopefully that works...
Yep, that's what I've been doing. Haven't posted with Busy before though.
you can try busy, its not that bad, i have been using it, its comparable to steemit.com
It's true, it's not that bad. I am just (overly) resistant to change in my workflow.
Plus, I figure if Steemit is down, it's probably not the best time to be posting anyways...
Yep, makes a lot of sense, I am still having some issues with voting and quite a few of my responses are eaten up, in fact, on some of your post I gave up because when I click submit that thing just keep loading nonstop...i do hope that they get it under control
Yep, best to just step back when this happens, or use one of the other portals (although they hit Busy.org the other day, too!)
guess so...
I experienced the same... I noticed a good trick to copy paste a long comment if it is in infinite loop:
Instead of going over with my mouse I press ctrl + a then ctrl + c
I am annoyed by this too, hope steemit has a good explaination for this!!
" press ctrl + a then ctrl + c"
Yep, that's how I do it too. The submission box has to be the active tool, however, or ctrl+a will do the whole page. So, if you've already hit submit, you may need to click first.
I actually detailed this in a previous post since this was also an issue last week...
i'm assuming this is still all residual from the ddos attacks??
I don't know what else it could be, but then why isn't it universal? I know some people aren't seeing this issue, but for me, it's EVERY SINGLE BLOCKCHAIN interaction (almost).
about 1/3 ( although the frequency on voting/commenting seems to be affected the most, and varies for 1/4 to 1/2)
That's what I've been thinking. It's not only here that is glitchy for me. I think it's the freedoms on this platform that are a draw for attempted shutdown.
So many of my fb friends have had posts rejected and also yt troubles for a number of them. All this week since they botched that vegas thing and now all the pedo stuff bubbles to the surface. Plus btc going to the moon. Rats are scurrying.
"I think it's the freedoms on this platform that are a draw for attempted shutdown."
That was a huge selling point for me early on (almost as much as the rewards, honestly.)
Maybe someone else is finally noticing that "feature".
We come up in search results for hot topics thanks to alexa/moz.
Nice!
I've now actually seen Steemit eat a comment in real time. It's like going backward in time.
I knew I better screenshot each step of the process, because seeing truly is believing.
As a current IT professional...it ain't you, it's the site.
STOP EATING MY POSTS STEEMIT!!
@lexiconical Damn! Unlucky Haha! sometimes it does here also that's why I always copy markdown before clicking submit. :)
" I always copy markdown before clicking submit."
A good best practice. You can even catch it after, before it times out.
Your cache...I have no idea. It has been acting slow for me as well.
I'm seeing enough confirmations of issues in the comments to rule out it being an issues just on my end...thankfully?
Yeah. Yup. I know it's a steemit issue. Sucks, hopefully it get's resolved...
I'm still investigating, I may have discovered what the issue is...
Steemit MoreInfo, I'm looking at you.
Yes I have also been experiencing this problem where the post does not submit and deletes itself!
It's quite a frustrating phenomenon.
Steemit.com is crap, for more reasons than post and comment elimination.
It stole an entire post by me earlier today, and votes too.
Does the same happen on busy.org ?
I couldn't say for sure, I haven't tried posting via Busy.org.
Presumably, no, that would be a totally different front-end. It worked fine during the DDoS, for example.
I believe I once read how to find my posting key but forgot how.
Do you know where do I find it?
And why is it so much safer to use than the master key?
I also wonder if busy.org has the same automatic prevention of sharing a master password in a memo.
This is probably the one thing steemit.com developers did well.
What can I do with a master key which I can not do with a posting key?
When I tried to sign in to busy.org it tried to connect to steemit.com which was under DDOS attack, and hence I was prevented from accessing it as well.
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Hmmm perhaps it is the time frame of how the blockchain captures it... Yes I realize most are done in nano seconds but it is what I am thinking..
It's possible...or spam/ddos could be drowning out entries to the chain / packets.
@originalworks
I wanted to know more about (at)originalworks. Would you be kind enough to DM me on PAL, or steemit.chat?
Thanks!
Sure, I can send you a link with some info actually.
Edit: Here's my article on it: https://steemit.com/steemit/@lexiconical/meet-the-original-works-bot-the-free-upvote-bot-i-call-the-cheetah-repeller-i-bet-you-ll-like-him-even-if-you-hate-bots
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To call @OriginalWorks, simply reply to any post with @originalworks or !originalworks in your message!
To enter this post into the daily RESTEEM contest, upvote this comment! The user with the most upvotes on their @OriginalWorks comment will win!
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Sad to say but I'm slowly coming to the realization (decision) that nobody at Steemit can be bothered to make any changes anymore.
I'll probably be labeled as some kind of heretic for this next statement but with Bitcoin over $5k again and Ethereum at just shy of $350, Steem Dollars and Steem hover at right around $1.00.
I know one of those is supposed to be pegged right around 1 USD (frankly I don't give a shit which one anymore) but it looks stagnant to me.