Reddit is becoming unreliable

I suppose I am starting to lose my patience due to the increasingly frequent periods of slow performance or total outages on Reddit; though I am perhaps even more frustrated by the persistent lack of information regarding why the site is behaving so unreliably, and the complete absence of any communication about the steps being taken—or planned—to prevent this from happening again.

I have been coming here for over ten years—likely since the very beginning; I remember much earlier, far more primitive versions of Reddit, but it never happened quite like this during the last five or six months where the site has been continuously unreliable. Yesterday, it was completely unavailable from the evening until late at night, and for several days now, loading has been sluggish—the whole summer Reddit has been "stuttering," and there were a few total crashes last spring as well.

And all this time, Anderson and the other Administrators have remained silent, almost as if their mouths were filled with lead.

I feel it might be time for you to speak up: What is going on and why is it happening—and why hasn't the situation improved? Is someone withholding the funds needed to invest in technology that would protect against cyber attacks—or is it something else entirely? Since we are on a medium where everything and anything is commented on and discussed, it seems only ethical that the people in charge of this media speak up about themselves and their own struggles—perhaps showing at least a small amount of respect toward your users and visitors.

The online market today isn't what it used to be back in 1998... There are many more high-quality, technically functional forums in the American language than there used to be. Is it possible that the competition is intentionally "attacking" you to steal your visitors? ... and if so, who do you suspect? ... we have a million questions and very few answers—please, pull yourselves together and start communicating—or if you choose to remain silent, then stay silent, but please fix the problems and ensure the technical functionality works as it should.

In the absence of both transparency and stability, people will eventually begin to leave... one would need nerves of steel to stay on a forum where discussions are interrupted almost daily by 503 and 504 errors.

Please, reach out and say something!

slybison8 said:I’ve been hanging around here for over a decade—pretty much since the jump, actually. I still remember those early, way more primitive versions of Reddit, but it’s never been like this; never have we had these last five or six months where the site has been constantly unreliable and glitchy.

🤔

🙂

😂 🤣 😂 🤣 😂 🤣

Your memory is clearly playing tricks on you. 😉

Speak up, people! Say something!

Are you seriously one of those people who still believes in the Tooth Fairy, honest politicians, and other fairy tales? 😬

By November 2009, it will be exactly ten years since the first version of this Reddit community launched, so you definitely haven't been around here for more than a decade 😉

I have been coming back for about eight years now. It’s always been a thing where the site goes down temporarily. Ever since this place started, we've dealt with "database errors," and 503 or 504 errors are just newer versions of the same old story. They happen, sometimes more often, sometimes less...

Have they been happening more lately? Not really. If anything, things were much worse about two or three years ago. Right now, everything seems fine. All of us regulars—including you, me, and even feraltrucker5 😁—should be used to the site going dark for a bit every now and then. There are a million reasons why, mostly hardware issues. Every server hits a snag eventually. The one running the site right now occasionally hiccups because there are too many users, too many searches being run, or maybe the mods are being a bit overzealous... An outage happens, people react, it gets fixed, and by the next day everyone has forgotten it ever went down 😉

Just for context, I'm going to copy a post that 2006 Quote : Anderson left on the moderator sub-forum on April 4th 2006

2006 Quote : Anderson said:Users online at 15:22: 967 (members: 245, guests: 722)
If you see a higher number, please let us know.

So, three years ago, there were suddenly about 1,000 members on the site. Now there are 4,000. And I'll repeat that record number listed under "Peak membership was 14,650 on 09.07.2009 at 19:13" just once more: 14,650 users 🙂

In just three years, our traffic has increased tenfold 🙂 And, well, the side effect is that the site is occasionally unstable, crashes sometimes, or requires hitting F5 a few times to load...

The site administration sincerely apologizes to all users for any inconvenience caused by server downtime 🙂

Thank you, Lisa Martinez82 — I really appreciate the response!

I'm also a bit confused—what on earth was I even doing back in 1998, considering Reddit didn't even exist back then? 😁

Once again, thank you for getting back to me!

slybison8

Lisa Martinez82 said:The Reddit admins want to sincerely apologize to everyone for any headaches caused by the server being down. 🙂

Great. And I’d like to offer my sincere apologies to the entire Reddit leadership team for all the inconvenience my trolling has caused.

Maybe one day we’ll all just grow up at the same time, right? 😁

Lisa Martinez82 said:Look, three years ago, this Reddit thread suddenly spiked to about 1,000 members. Now we're sitting at 4,000, but if you look at the stats saying "Peak users reached 14,650 on September 7, 2009, at 7:13 PM," I'm telling you right now: that number was 14,650 users. 🙂

What happened on September 7th?😁 England was basically out of commission until the 9th, and I think we didn't even find out about the unblocking until the 11th.
Was it the start of the school year?😬

boldhound8 said:What happened on July 9th?😁 England was basically at 9/9, and I think we didn't even hear about the unblocking until the 11th.
Back to school or something?😬

I'm the one who dropped the ban

So, what happened, boldhound8?

Well, naturally, it was the final day of the Renaissance Festival 😛

Renaissance Festival, September 5th–7th, 2009.

Lisa Martinez82 said:Honestly, all of us hanging out here are basically just part of the inventory—and that includes you, me, and even feraltrucker5. 😁 )

Honestly, I’ve been sitting here spiraling lately, just wrestling with this one existential question: am I actually a functional part of the inventory, or am I just some decorative piece taking up space? You know what I mean—like, am I the heavy-duty power tool you grab when there's actual work to be done, or am I more like that overpriced, trendy lamp someone bought just because it looks cool on a Pinterest board? One minute I feel like I'm pulling my weight, being useful and essential, and the next, I'm pretty sure I'm just ornamental clutter. It's a weird headspace to be in, really. 🤔 😁

slybison8 said:Thanks, Lisa Martinez82—honestly, that was exactly the kind of answer I was looking for!

I am not. 😂 Honestly, though, that’s pretty much the best answer anyone could realistically give, and since Lisa Martinez82 phrased it so perfectly, there’s really no point in even trying to argue with it. 🙂

boldhound8 said:What actually went down back on September 7th?😁 England was sitting at a 9.9, and I don't think anyone even heard a peep about the unlocking until around the 11th.
So, back to the grind again—is it actually time for school to start already? Honestly, the whole vibe of late August turning into September always feels like that weird, sudden shift when you realize summer didn't just slip away, it basically sprinted out the door while you weren't looking. It’s like that moment when you’re halfway through a massive burger at Shake Shack and suddenly realize you have to be back at your desk by Monday morning; there's this brief, frantic panic before you just accept your fate. I don't know about you guys, but the transition from "total freedom" to "strict schedules and early alarms" always hits me like a ton of bricks. Are we actually ready for this, or are we all just collectively pretending we haven't spent the last two months in a total state of academic hibernation?😬

So, I just saw the news that the Taiwanese Prime Minister has officially stepped down. It’s one of those things where you read the headline and think, "Okay, big move," but then you start thinking about the sheer chaos of political shifts like this. It’s kind of like when a CEO suddenly bails on a massive corporation in the middle of a quarterly earnings call—everything gets shaky, everyone starts looking over their shoulder, and you realize how much of our stability actually rests on the whims of a few people in suits. You'd think these transitions would be handled with more grace, but honestly, it usually just feels like someone pulled the rug out from under the whole operation. I mean, seriously, how does a literal billion Chinese people end up piling into a single Reddit thread like this? It’s honestly wild. 😁

Lisa Martinez82 said:So, looking back three years ago, this Reddit community had about 1,000 members. Now we're sitting at 4,000—though if you look at the stat saying "Peak users: 14,650 on 09/07/2009 at 7:13 PM," I'll just say it again: 14,650 users. 🙂

Basically, the traffic here has spiked tenfold in just three years. 🙂 And, well, the fallout is that the site gets unstable sometimes, crashes occasionally, or requires you to mash the F5 key a few times just to get a page to load.

Right. So, when everything runs smoothly for weeks and then suddenly we're getting slammed with 503 errors, that’s totally not a DDoS attack—it’s just completely normal behavior. 🙂

Matija Babić and the owner of Smokve handled that pretty effectively; maybe Anderson should take some notes from them. 🤷

Let's shake things up a bit: 😁

Lisa Martinez82 said:Over the last three years, traffic on this site has basically increased tenfold. 🙂 Naturally, that means the server struggles sometimes—it crashes, or you find yourself spamming F5 just to get a page to load.
(...)
Are the outages happening more often lately? Not really. If anything, things were much worse two or three years ago. Right now, it’s holding up fine.

So, we have way more people hitting the site, yet the crash rate stays the same. And apparently, that counts as "stable" enough. 😁😁 :jea: :jes:

Lisa Martinez82 said:By November 2009, it’ll be exactly ten years since this Reddit thread first popped up—so you definitely haven't been hanging around here for more than a decade. 😉

I've been around for about eight years—and the site going down has always been part of the deal. Ever since this place launched, we've dealt with "database errors"—the 503 and 504 errors are just newer versions of the same old headache, happening more or less frequently depending on the day.

Has it been happening more lately? Not really—I wouldn't say so. If anything, things were at their worst maybe two or three years ago; right now, it's pretty standard. All of us who are basically part of the furniture here—including you, me, and even feraltrucker5 😁—should be used to the site dropping out occasionally. There are a million reasons for it, mostly hardware issues—every server hits a snag eventually. This one, the one hosting the site right now, glitches when traffic spikes, searches get too heavy, or the mods get overzealous... It happens, they fix it, and by tomorrow everyone has forgotten the site was ever down. 😉

Just for context, I'm going to paste a post from the 2006 Quote : Anderson moderator sub-forum from April 4, 2006.

So, three years ago, there were suddenly about 1,000 members. Now we're at 4,000, and looking at the stat "Peak users: 14,650 on 09.07.2009 at 7:13 PM"—let me repeat that: 14,650 users. 🙂

In just three years, the user base has grown tenfold. 🙂 And, naturally, the fallout is an unstable site that crashes or requires hitting F5 a few times to load.

The site admins sincerely apologize to all users for any inconvenience caused by these server outages. 🙂

I always assumed you were a guy. 🤣

🤦

😁

14,650 users online at once? As soon as I saw that number, my gut told me something was off. It feels like some kind of glitch or a total hoax. I mean, how does a site that usually sees maybe 3,000 or 4,000 people in a single day suddenly spike to over 14,000 out of nowhere? It just doesn't add up... it's impossible...

Nobody sent out a mass alert telling everyone to log on at the exact same time just to pad the traffic stats... so, yeah, I’m leaning towards some kind of technical error. Probably a server hiccup somewhere along the line where it accidentally added an extra zero to the count...

Michelle Wright79 said:I'm dropping the ban

Yeah, me too...🙂

Anthony Jackson2 said:I always thought you were a guy🤣

Well, look at that. Always learning something new... I guess there's actually some use for this thread after all...😁

Lisa Martinez82 said:So look, three years ago, this Reddit community suddenly jumped to about 1,000 members. Now we're sitting at 4,000. And just so I can repeat that number one more time from the stats—which say the peak was 14,650 users back on September 7, 2009, at 7:13 PM—yeah, 14,650 users. 🙂

Basically, in three years, the traffic here has spiked tenfold 🙂 And, well, the fallout is that the site gets shaky sometimes, crashes occasionally, or makes you smash F5 a few times just to get a page to load.

And the tech side of things? The servers or whatever? Forgive me, I don't know much about this stuff, but is this seriously running on hardware from 1989? What? I don't get it. 🤷

Oh, and by the way, the old boss is dead. In case you hadn't heard. 😁

boldhound8 said:What actually happened on September 7th?😁 England was at 9/9, and I think we didn't even hear about the unblocking until the 11th.
Was it the start of the school year?😬

🤣😁

By the way, ever since I first saw this comment, every single time I've tried to type out this little reply last night or early this morning, the server has been acting up and coughing 🙄🤷

So, I honestly feel like we should just rename this thread to "Reddit (mobile) remains unreliable," regardless of how much everyone stays quiet about it... and once that's done, we can finally help Lisa Martinez82 brag about those traffic numbers😛 (assuming the server decides to cooperate with us, of course)🥳

rapidrider3 said:Seeing 14,650 users online at once—that immediately felt off to me. I suspect some kind of glitch, because you can't just jump from maybe 3,000 or 4,000 daily active users straight up to over 14,000 out of nowhere... it's just impossible.

There wasn't any coordinated effort or call for everyone to log in at a specific time just to inflate the traffic numbers... so I'm leaning toward a technical error here. It seems like a server error might have tripped it up, perhaps by miscounting an extra zero somewhere.

I find myself agreeing with that assessment as well.🙂

Well, I suppose I've learned something new today. There is certainly some value in this discussion.😁

The server isn't responsible for counting the visits shown in the table below; that's handled by the vBulletin software, which is functioning correctly. These errors stem from the server rather than the software itself, so I don't think your theory holds much water. Why would there even be a reason to fake it? This is the largest forum in America, and our traffic continues to grow day by day.
🤷

What was that situation again where the mods staged a revolt against the administration and moved over to the dissidents? 🍿It wasn't just the mods, though; the whole Reddit community joined in. 🙂

silentsailor5 said:The server isn't actually counting the visits shown in the table below. That's just the vBulletin software doing its own thing. It's all automated. Which one is actually right? Look, the reason these errors are popping up is the server, not the software, so your theory just doesn't hold water. I mean, why would there even be calls being made in the first place? This is the biggest forum in America, period. The traffic alone is insane. It’s growing out of... what, exactly? Honestly, I can't even tell anymore. Everything just seems to be expanding at this point, doesn't it? One minute you think you have a handle on things, and the next, the scale of it all just starts creeping up on you. It's constant. Always more. Does anyone else feel like we're just watching everything inflate indefinitely? Just my cynical take, I guess. Day after day. Just one thing after another. 🤷

😂🤣
Don't make me laugh... seriously. How can anyone claim this thing is working properly when the server spends half the day completely fried?
So, who exactly is he reading then? If nobody can even log in... what's the point?

Look, if that number was actually around 6,000 people online, then we’re talking about a crowd of maybe 14,000 or something... but there's just no way. If that were true, wouldn't the numbers stay hovering around that record for the second day, the third day, and so on? Instead, look at the reality. It’s bouncing between 1,000 and 4,000. And let's be honest—most of those are just random guests, not even registered users. Does that sound like a massive turnout to you? No. It doesn't.

And this too... sure, it’s growing, but you have to look at the math. How many people are getting banned from here every single day? How many people just walk away because they're fed up with the nonsense and decide they aren't coming back? Just think about that.

There was this massive influx of new books for a while... but honestly, they only cleared out the shelves because people were actually buying them. Just look at how little is left now. Seriously, take a peek.

It’s always the same crowd on Reddit, isn't it? Just a handful of regulars circling the drain every single day. Then you've got the randoms who drift in, drop some absolute nonsense just to stir the pot, grab their karma, and vanish. So, what are we actually left with? If you look at the math, we're barely hitting maybe a thousand or two registered users a day. Is that really it? That's the whole show?

Honestly, I can't believe how many of them are gone. And the ones who actually stick around? They barely post anything anymore. It’s just... quiet. What happened to all that daily energy?
Being a regular on Reddit isn't just about lurking in the shadows or scrolling through feeds all day. You can be online twenty-four-seven, staring at the screen until your eyes bleed, but that doesn't make you a "user." A real user actually writes stuff. They jump into the fray, they pick fights, they contribute to the chaos. If you aren't posting, are you even really there? Or are you just another ghost haunting the threads?

You know, I’ve noticed some people just cling to a single thread like it’s their lifeline. They won't move on, won't branch out, won't even look at anything else on all of Reddit. It’s like that’s the only topic that exists in the entire universe. Honestly? It feels intentional. Like they have one singular goal in mind and one specific thing they're obsessed with... and nothing else matters.

I mean, personally? I just wander around. There are certain threads that don't interest me, sure, but there’s plenty of stuff out there that does, and I write. You don't find people like me every day—there aren't even 2,000 of us floating around daily, let alone 14,000 or whatever those numbers are supposed to be...

Another day, another server error. Honestly, it’s becoming a daily ritual at this point. At least there’s still plenty of junk on the internet worth watching to kill the time, right? 😁 😛..

I have already stated that the software itself is functioning correctly, and the vBulletin installation is fine. The server is also performing as intended. These errors are simply a result of server overload. Given my professional experience managing servers, websites, and general network infrastructure, please allow me to provide a breakdown of these server errors for your reference:

400(Bad request)
401(Authorization required)
402(Payment required)
403(Forbidden)
404(Not found)
405(Method not allowed)
406(Not acceptable)
407(Proxy authentication required)
408(Request timeout)
409(Conflict)
410(Gone)
411(Length required)
412(Precondition failed)
413(Request entity too large)
414(Request URI too large)
415(Unsupported media type)
416(Request range not satisfiable)
417(Expectation failed)
422(Unprocessable entity)
423(Locked)
424(Failed dependency)
500(Internal server error)
501(Not Implemented)
502(Bad gateway)
503(Service unavailable)
504(Gateway timeout)
505(HTTP version not supported)
506(Variant also negotiates)
507(Insufficient storage)
510(Not extended)

It would be best not to speculate on matters outside your expertise. The reality is that our traffic is increasing. I personally know several individuals who regularly read this Reddit community; they are active visitors, even if they aren't registered users. I am quite unsure why you are inventing statistics when you cannot verify their accuracy. 🤷