August 19/20 2026 bot attacks

We are currently under attack by bots. The attacks are intermittent and last from minutes to hours. Response times may be poor until they are over. 

2026-02-12 downtime

The ISFDB Web site came under a concentrated bot attack on Thursday, February 12, 2026 around 6am server (EST) time. We began deploying countermeasures in the afternoon. It may take another 24 hours or so for the new settings to be set up and propagated across the internet. Sorry about the interruption!

 

2026-02-13 9:05am EST update: The countermeasures have been deployed and the site is back up. 

2025-08-26 - Unscheduled downtime

3pm:

 

The ISFDB server is experiencing difficulties due to very high loads. Some Web pages may not load properly. There is no ETA at this time.

3:12pm:

Performance should be back to normal. 

2025-06-17 - Workaround for network connectivity problems

If you are running into timeout and "server not found" errors while trying to access the ISFDB server, the following steps should be able to help if you are running Windows:

1. Press and hold the Windows key + R to open the "Run" dialog box
2. Type ipconfig /flushdns into the text field and click OK

This command tells your PC's Windows to get the latest internet address for the ISFDB server, which should fix the immediate problem. Whatever issues the ISFDB server is currently experiencing may still result in occasional "timeout" and "server not found" errors, but they seem to be relatively rare. All you have to do is reload the displayed page (press F5) to get past them.

 

It's possible that the hosting company may change its configuration settings yet again, in which case you will need to re-do the steps listed above, but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it. 

2025-06-16 - Unscheduled ISFDB downtime

The ISFDB server is effectively down due to network problems. This announcement will be updated once the problems have been resolved. There is no ETA at this time.

 

2025-06-17 update: Things were mostly OK this morning, but then, at 11:53am server time (EDT), the server went back to the pattern that we saw yesterday: up for 5-10 seconds, then down for 1-2 minutes, then up again for 5-10 seconds, down for 1-2 minutes, etc. There is no ETA at this time.

2025-02-23: Continuous performance issues due to bot attacks

As of 2025-03-23, the ISFDB server continues to experience major performance issues due to continuous bot attacks. We are working on mitigating them, but it's still very much a work in progress. We'll post another update when we know more.

 

2025-03-24 edit: Disabling anonymous access to the ISFDB Wiki seems to have stopped the bad bots, at least for now. We will continue monitoring the situation.

ISFDB server maintenance 2025-03-19 at noon EDT

The ISFDB server will be taken down for maintenance at noon EDT. It may be down for up to an hour while the database is being optimized.

 

12:30pm edit: The server is back up as of 12:30pm.

2025-03-12 ISFDB server problems

As of 11am EDT 2025-03-13, the ISFDB Wiki is effectively unavailable due to a bot attack. Regular database pages can be accessed, but take up to half a minute to load.

 

2:15pm edit:  Performance is still spotty due to ongoing bot issues, but the Wiki should be accessible.

2023-09-12/13: ISFDB server problems

 The ISFDB server has been experiencing server problems since 2023-09-12. We are currently investigating the issue.

2023-09-14 update: As of 5am, the server is back to normal. The underlying problem hasn't been addressed, so it's possible that the issue will return later. We are still looking into it.

ISFDB server downtime 2023-08-22 11am to 11:15am

 The ISFDB server will be down for maintenance between 11am and approximately 11:15am.

11:15am: The server is back up. The Wiki's search functionality has been restored.

ISFDB server downtime 2023-08-12 6pm

The ISFDB server will be briefly unavailable due to maintenance starting at 6pm server (Eastern Daylight) time. It should be back up after 5-10 minutes.

 

Edit: The server is back up as of 6:12pm.

The ISFDB is currently down due to a recurring server issues. There is no ETA at this time, but we hope to be back up within hours.

8:48pm update: The server is back up.

 The ISFDB server is currently down. There is no ETA at this time.

6am update: We are back up, hopefully for good.

The ISFDB server is currently down. We have filed a ticket with the hosting company and are awaiting their response.

10:10am update. The hosting company has resolved the issue. Everything should be back up.

 The ISFDB database and the supporting Wiki are down as of 9:25am EDT April 24, 2022. We are investigating disk space issues. There is no ETA at this time.

2:10pm update: The hosting company has apparently resolved the underlying server issue. We are currently waiting for a confirmation that it's safe to bring the site back up.

4:05pm update: The hosting company has resolved the issue and the server is now back up. Sorry about the inconvenience!

2016-05-05: Connectivity problems

As of noon server (US Eastern Daylight) time, some users are experiencing connectivity problems.

New IP address

Please note that the IP address used by the ISFDB server has changed. If (and only if) you used the hack posted by Marc Kupper when we had the last round of connectivity issues, you will need to undo it.

2016-03-13 downtime

As of 5pm Eastern (US) Savings Time, the server is down.

Update 1: The server is still down as of 7:25pm.

Update 2: The server is still down as of 9:15pm. Al has been notified.

Update 3: It turns out that the server is down for extended maintenance. There is no ETA at this time.

Update 4: The server was brought back up around 4am and everything appears to be back to normal.

2015-02-08 downtime

As of 12:50am server (US Central) time, the server that hosts ISFDB is down.

10:40am edit: The ISFDB is back up.

ISFDB began experiencing intermittent DNS problems on January 1, 2015. Some users have been unaffected, some have experienced sporadic outages and some have been unable to connect at all. We are currently looking into the problem and hope to have it resolved ASAP. Sorry about the inconvenience!