It’s currently mid-August 2026 and the HarnForum has been experiencing real problems. The issue is not the software, or the database, or the web hosting. It is bad internet actors. At one point, we had over 900 “guests” accessing the forum. I have no idea what they are doing or why, but they are obviously exploiting some element of the forum software that gives them some kind of advantage.

Whatever it is they are doing doesn’t show up in the resource monitors of the web hoster but it does affect us; the real users of the forum. It prevents us from logging on and moving through the topics and posts. They are consuming all the resources, even if that usage doesn’t show up for some reason. (Yes, it sounds like a contradiction but it’s really a thing; I was in cyber security for over 20 years and the stuff hackers can do is frankly mind-bending.)

The only solution is to ban the IP addresses that they are using. I have a technique for generating a list of these “guests” and then adding them to the ban list but as evidenced this morning, I can accidentally catch a legitimate user and ban them. Poor old Krazma…20+ years a member and suddenly he got perma-banned!  Fortunatley, he knows my contact details and sent me an email straight away. I got him to provide me with the IP address he was coming from, and removed it and now all is good. If YOU find yourself permanently banned, send me an email (just mouseover to see the address) with your username and the IP address you are trying to access the HarnForum from, and I’ll be able to correct the mistake.