Lazarus forum incompatible with Firefox now, but works for me, with Chrome only.

[Martin_fr]

I can confirm the following (and I don't know if that is specific to any Browser, but I tested with Firefox).

- If you start your browser, and have NO existing cookies.
- browse to https://forum.lazarus.freepascal.org/  (not tested, but possible also other pages of the forum)
- click a link
=> then you get the error.

Because when you loaded that very first page, you did not yet have cookies => they got set then, but they hadn't been there, and hence all links had the session id added into the link.

So hat will happen when you restart your browser, and have the cookies policy to clear all when restarting the browser.


As a workaround:
- when you loaded the first page
- do not click any link
- reload the page you are on.

For the reload cookies are set => and then it works.


@Marc: Any idea?

[simone]

I think it's the same problem that appeared and was solved some time ago. For me it happens with Chrome and Edge, as in the past.

[fcs]

Hello,

I confirm this problem.

Today whole site works bad.

The cookie problem occur randomly. I don't see their rules.

In my case, problem usually solves clicking by options in Main Menu (on top right) of Lazarus main page.

Cleaning cookies for Lazarus website, does not work.

Regards
ML
 

[Ten_Mile_Hike]

I haven't been able to use this site for 2 days despite trying both Firefox and Brave, BOTH without any extensions or blocks of any kind active. Suddenly; just now- its working again.

[Handoko]

It haven't fully working. It seems better today but some links still show the error.

I am not  sure but this seems to solve the problem:
1. Go to the front page: https://forum.lazarus.freepascal.org
2. Click the home or do reload the page using shortcut
3. No more cookie error

Please test my workaround and report back.

----
Oops, I just saw the similar workaround posted by Martin_fr:
https://forum.lazarus.freepascal.org/index.php/topic,73927.msg581458.html#msg581458

[Jonax]

I too had some troubles with this. The reload fix seem to do the trick for me on the Brave browser.

 

[Datalore]

While in general i don't really mind jumping through a hoop now and then.....

the only logic i read so far is bots scraping the forum, followed by the logic that bots don't use cookies so you enforce them. all well-meaning intended.

problem is:
about every scraper knows about cookies and bypasses, and the only thing you realise is cookie messages for end users for whichever reason.

question is:
are cookies really the solution for your scraping problem? or merely a case of "This works because everybody uses them so they must work".
i highly doubt cookies are the thing needed to survive, they are part of the problem.

[Marc]

question is:
are cookies really the solution for your scraping problem? or merely a case of "This works because everybody uses them so they must work".
i highly doubt cookies are the thing needed to survive, they are part of the problem.

They are not the solution in the end, but works for the most of us now

[bobihot]

Today I can to enter. When I do not enter here in the forum, I can`t to wote, where I can`t to enter here in the forum.

[Marc]

Yesterday I enabled a second php pool to process cookie-less requests. Unfortunately the rate requests come in is way larger than the time it takes to process a request. As a result filling up the server queue. I've disabled the option again.

[Handoko]

I am sure, but maybe we can study how this WordPress plugin blocks AI crawlers using robots.txt :
https://wordpress.org/plugins/block-ai-crawlers/

And this one, which detects and blocks using the visitors' user agent:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/bot-traffic-shield/

[Joanna]

Don’t they ignore robots.txt?
I saw something interesting recently on a government website that was dragging a picture to the outline shape that matches.

[Handoko]

Don’t they ignore robots.txt?

Crawlers from reputable big company should follow the rules in robots.txt.

The first plugin has good rating, which means users were satisfied with the result.

[Thaddy]

robots.txt is present on the server.
It is ignored by all reputable A.I. providers/harvesters so in this case useless.

[Boleeman]

I was also having that same cookies problem using Firefox and finally worked out that using a link like this:

https://forum.lazarus.freepascal.org/index.php/board,46.0.html

Then all other links worked. I configured Firefox to accept cookies but loading a single board link seemed to refresh the cookies.