Example gives Error 503 first byte timeout

[jimav]

At https://metacpan.org/about/missing_modules it says that pod-only modules must contain a package and that one should look at https://metacpan.org/pod/Catalyst::Manual as an example of how to do that.

But clicking the link given (to Catalyst::Manual) leads to

Error 503 first byte timeout

first byte timeout
Error 54113

Details: cache-pao-kpao1770060-PAO 1727653822 3571052049

Varnish cache server

Many similar links found by web searches lead the the same error. Try searching for "perl Catalyst::Manual" with DuckDuckGo and click the top few links (all end with this error)

Steps to reproduce

1. Visit https://metacpan.org/about/missing_modules
2. Click the link to Catalyst::Manual in the "Is the distribution POD only" paragraph

Desktop

Ubuntu 24.04 Firefox 129.0.2 (64 bit)

Additional context

My real goal is to find out why https://metacpan.org/pod/ODF::lpOD_Helper::Unicode gives the same error. ODF::lpOD_Helper::Unicode is just a Unicode.pod file, distributed as part of the ODF::lpOD_Helper distribution (which is a normal full-of-code package)

[oalders]

I think this is a general issue. Probably due to caching it's not happening everywhere.

[ernstki]

Related:

• #3059
• #2994

In the meantime, you can use a Wayback Machine archive of a page, e.g., https://web.archive.org/web/20240917125120/https://metacpan.org/pod/HTTP::Cookies.

Since search isn't working either, try site:metacpan.org search terms in your favorite search engine, e.g, https://duckduckgo.com/?q=site%3Ametacpan.org+html+parser, then prepend

https://web.archive.org/web/*/

to the URL that best matches your query. This yields a list of snapshots for that page in Wayback Machine. A browser extension like Resurrect Pages simplifies this process somewhat.

[tobyink]

Yes, I've been having issues accessing metacpan all weekend.

[ranguard]

We've got better monitoring in now so we are aware when it happens and this doesn't happen as often as it used to so closing.

That's not to say it's fully solved, but it is better and we have visability

[ernstki]

For what it's worth, I'm seeing this again. I'm not using MetaCPAN regularly, so it's hard for me to say if it's just intermittent, or persistent.

https://metacpan.org/search?q=Cwd

cf. https://duckduckgo.com/?q=site:metacpan.org+cwd

[openstrike]

And again today (in the last 10 minutes, anyway).

TBF, the site has generally been more available over the past 8 or 9 months but this is still an unsolved problem.

[ranguard]

We have a 3rd party setting up AI Bot blocking (we think causing outages) but will take a few days.

We are also setting up more logging (service donated by DataDog) to help identify root cause better.

[ajmetz]

Whatever the problem is, it has been occurring on and off both yesterday and today. Typically, I wait a minute or two, and things are working again. But it's increasingly frustrating.

[guest20]

@ranguard does the bot blocking use AI, or is it blocking bots that are for AI?

[ranguard]

It will be able to block AI bots - that said I did more digging today, found a few bad scrapers and blocked those, found one server was in swap (but with 28G free!) so cleared that down

I also setup to have all logs from our CDN (not just errors) going to DataDog - but having to learn how to use that to find patterns and nothing so far

We have identified it is the api (not web front end) where the issue is originating which rules out a load of stuff

But we are still getting these, will be looking more when we have time

[ernstki]

@ranguard It's appreciated. Thanks to all for your efforts.

[ranguard]

@ernstki cheers - we are still trying - hope to get somewhere next week