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marnix84

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Hello,
Small update:
  • The `www simpcity.su` location now redirects to `` (we postponed this issue for quite a while, it caused login issues and etc.)
  • The IP ranges of a small dutch datacenter have been banned from accessing our services.
  • Few tweaks to jpg church :sus:
We're having database slowdown issues due to the massive amount of traffic these days, so expect some stuff like `thread read` indicators and alerts to be wiped once a week or so.
We're also in the works of releasing a new website that will make the exploring of content from SimpCity a lot easier (more image based) , so stay tuned!
Regards,
SimpCity Staff
 
In addition to this:
  • We've blacklisted 4 more ASNs of hosting providers in Europe and 1 ASN in South Korea.
  • Added a full ban from our services for a specific time, if our system finds enough malicious requests
This may affect some VPN providers that use those ASNs - locations are mainly in France, Germany, Netherlands and Italy, so just use something else as your VPN location.
 
Update:
Unfortunately, we had to wipe out all the alerts and the `thread read` status from all accounts again, due to the database cluster getting clogged.
Regards,
SimpCity Staff
 
Update:
Sorry for the long maintenance simps :pepoLove:
We had internal issues, which caused slowdowns on our whole network.
Every image and video that was uploaded directly to the forum will be transferred over to our other cdn, so we offload it from the current network.
In the time being, all images and videos that were uploaded directly to simpcity are temporarily unavailable. Those were uploaded in the early days of simpcity anyways, so you should only see them in pages 1-5 or something like that.
We have also made the rate limits more aggressive (temporarily).
(This is unrelated to the 502 errors, we'll work on those in the upcoming days)
Regards,
SimpCity Staff
 
Update:
  • Direct forum attachments have been somewhat fixed (one of the frontend nodes has issues with rendering some attachments, but it will probably be fixed tomorrow)
  • Rate limits and captcha triggers are very strict currently, we're under a ddos attack (and for some reason tiktok crawlers are crawling on a rate of a small ddos, no clue what they're doing). An automatic trigger will be added in the upcoming weeks, so it makes the limits more strict and then more loose when traffic is stabilized.
  • An issue with our caching has been fixed, which made us more prone to suffer from ddos attacks
Side note: since a lot of you are getting 502 errors, those either mean that the current node that you're connected to can't handle the request (due to load) or we're restarting something.
Side note 2: rate limits will be back to normal after ~12 hours
Regards,
SimpCity Staff
 
Update:
We had to reinstall our database cluster and in result we also had to clear all of our cache, which would result in the forum being a lot slower in the next 24 hours or so.
Sorry for the inconvenience, it will get better the next few days :pepoLove:
 
Update:
We'll have a maintenance tomorrow, which will hopefully resolve the recent slowdowns and also improve the search engine. Sorry about the delay on that one. :pepoLove:
It should be ~1-2 hours of downtime at most.
 
Update:
We have temporarily changed the main domain to the .cr tld. In the next week or so we expect to push our proxies update, which will feature multiple domains. This is due to some ISPs restricting access to simpcity, which leaves a lot simps unable to access the site without a VPN.
We'll also release an official proxy list, which you can bookmark, so stay tuned. :pepoLove:
 
Update:
All passkeys have been wiped on our end, if you had the passkey issue - it should be fixed for you. You can still use a passkey, but you would have to always visit simpcity through the exact domain or the passkey issue will reappear for you.
All google-connected accounts have been disassociated with their emails, so you should be able to go to "Forgotten password" and receive a password recovery email (they take a few minutes to arrive, few hours if there's a congestion), then you'll be able to login as usual through the login page. Google has also been removed as an authentication provider.
If you still have issues, you can post here: Login issues thread
About the proxy list:
We're waiting on all the domains to propagate and we'll post the update here. :pepoLove:
 
Update:
1. We're aware of the issues with saint videos not loading. We're working on a solution to this and also working on connecting the site with a CSAM scanner, which will instantly block the uploads of illicit content.
2. Simpcity is not accessible by everyone (some ISPs have placed restrictions) - we have prepared a few more domains that will be public in ~1 week.
 
Update:
You can now bookmark our proxy list, which also shows the current main website:
SimpCity - Domain Information
Notes:
  • There are some caching issues with certain domains, you can ignore the ones that don't work and just use some of the others. Most of the issues should be fixed soon.
  • Clicking on links, which are with a different TLD (".cr", ".ax", etc) than yours will log you out. This will be patched in 1-2 weeks and the links that you see will get transformed into the domain that you're currently using.
  • Logging-in on a different TLD will most likely log you out off the other TLDs.
On a different topic:
  • Saint2 got an update: we can now track and stop the uploads of forbidden material. We're looking into ways of making this into a global database and apply the changes to our image host (will probably happen in the next few weeks). We're also looking into the possibility of requesting a few databases with file hashes from some CSAM organizations.
  • Once we get ~2-3.000 of our own file hashes and file metadata, we'll release the info to the public via an API.
  • Due to the insane amount of spam and abuse that we're receiving, we're closing down the creation of new accounts on SimpCity until further notice.
  • SimpCity emails should be fixed in ~1 week.
 
Update:
  • Registrations are opened again for a limited time.
  • Traffic from India has been redirected out of the forums, since we have massive spam attacks coming out from there.
 
Bookmarks update
The forum was really slow this evening and the server error logs were filled with errors caused by bookmarks.
Disabled bookmarks again, forum sped up and the errors stopped.
The hotfix applied didnt work so the issue will need to be investigated again if they're to be brought back.
TLDR:
Bookmarks disabled again, No ETA on the fix.
 
Gofile
Because of recent spam attacks using gofile we have temporarily blacklisted gofile.
This means you will not be able to make new posts with gofile links, including in quotes, and you will not be able to edit old posts with gofile links without removing those gofile links.
If you are mirroring an old post that has a gofile link then please edit out the gofile link from the quote, you can leave the last bit after /d/ to allow the quote to have something.
We do hope to remove the blacklist in future.
Update March 3: Gofile is no longer blacklisted
 
Update:
  • You'll now get to a redirect warning page when clicking on untrusted links.
  • Posts containing suspicious files on third-party websites will be automatically deleted by the system and the user will be reported to the staff, which may lead to a suspension.
About the bookmarks, we'll probably delete all bookmarks of inactive accounts (last visit >6 months) and this should somewhat fix the situation.
An important side note:
  • SimpCity doesn't have a public API, meaning that 3rd party websites (except turbo.cr/saint2.su and simptown) can't require you to enter your username and password, they're simply stealing your account.
 
Update:
  • Traffic from India is unbanned. Don't be naughty or we might have to block it again. "Watched Threads" redirect to SimpTown will be fixed in the next ~12 hours.
  • Bookmarks are enabled and fixed.
  • Performance issues on the forum have been fixed, you shouldn't be having any slowdowns even during peak traffic. This does not include connectivity issues that are out of our reach, such as: ISP blocks (bypassed via VPNs), VPN blocks, bad routing from your location, etc.
  • "403 Forbidden" routing has been fixed, it was shown for deleted and moved threads, which made users think they're banned from the site.
  • We have temporarily suspended the automatic updates on SimpTown (this fix will take 1-2 weeks).
  • We have temporarily disabled all proxy TLDs of simpcity, they will be back in the next week or so.
  • The simp.city info site will be restored in the next few days (hopefully), it's down due to us reorganizing servers.
  • Lots of internal issues were fixed in the last few weeks.
  • We are aware that there are issues with the image uploads. We are working on a completely new version of our image hosting (release date is unknown, but it will probably be in the next few weeks).
  • Unfurls will be fixed in the next few days (the preview of the links not loading, for the non-technical fellas)
  • YouTube embeds (and other embed types) should be fixed either today or tomorrow.
Upcoming:
  • New image hosting site, expected in a few weeks
  • Animated avatar borders - we noticed that the "grinders" are getting bored, so we're going to introduce a new cool feature. It consists of variety of avatar border animations (very similar to the ones used in discord), with each one of them having different requirements: reaction score, post count, trophies score, user groups, etc.
  • Due to us having issues with email deliveries, we are forced to think out of the box for the method of password recoveries. We're probably going to implement a recovery words system, similar to the ones used in crypto wallets. Once the system is active, you would get your recovery words shown ONCE on initial login and never again. This is still only an idea and prototyping will start in the next week or so.
  • Our CSAM API service should be released few weeks after the release of our new image hosting - it will contain combined data from a lot of sites that are related to simpcity in one way or another. If the project has a lot of interest, we'll also deploy an AI recognition model alongside it. Interesting info about this is that we have more than 1 million file hashes from removals requested by government organizations, RP/UA victims, etc.
Side note about the external link redirects: we are fully aware that the redirect confirmation page is sometimes annoying, but we were left no choice - people were willingly pasting their passwords in random phishing pages on the internet and then the attackers would log into their accounts and post spam everywhere on the forum (spreading malware). We have whitelisted only the sites with very good reputation, where we think that you wont get a malware or something similar. As you may know, we have also deployed a bot that scans every link posted on the forums for malware, removes it and then the account gets banned by the moderators.
Side note 2: please report the URLs (the URL before the redirect) of pop ads spreading malware or phishing pages via a ticket. We show only 1 pop ad per 10 minutes or so, clicking on videos and getting a pop ad is coming from the video host - not us.
If you have any ideas or suggestions on what could make your experience better, let us know in the suggestions thread.
 
Update:
  • Animated avatar borders released - You can choose what border you would like or disable the appearance of them here
  • Custom Spam Filter introduced - New experimental approach to reducing non-content posts in content threads while freeing up your ability to discuss in discussion threads without being limited by the spam filter. If you encounter any issues please let us know here and include a screenshot of what you are trying to post so that we can investigate and tweak things as necessary.
 
Update:
  • We have updated to the latest version of xenforo (forum software), updated all addons and other backend services. As with any downtime the first few days back are always slower because everyone, scraper and bot comes back at the same time and nothing is cached.
  • We have a new 12 word password recovery system which you can find more information about here.
  • While the forum is slow the search button and sort by reaction score feature are temporarily disabled. These will be re-enabled in the coming days.
 
Update:
  • Registrations are once again opened
  • Slowdown on one of our web nodes is being investigated and a patch should be applied within a week
  • Some users were complaining about their IPs being blocked, this issue should be resolved now
  • SimpTown is discontinued due to lack of enough community interest and will not return
  • Our new and modernized image hosting is almost ready and is scheduled to be live within a week
edit: the slow web node was removed from our cluster for now
 
there's a bug with the registration form wanting an email, will be fixed in an hour or so
you can still create accounts with random emails - they'll not be used.
 
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