Weird message from Geocaching

[+BlueMoth]

I am on a road trip right now, trying to get to Nevada, and stopped for the night in Sacramento. I am going down the 99 and want to detour through Death Valley. The night bere the next leg of the trip I always surf the map for interesting caches along my travel route. And when I find caches I like, I write the info down in my notebook. So tonight I am looking for caches from Sacramento to Mojave and the browser stops me dead and gives me this message:

 

Whoa! Slow Down

 

You've been redirected to this page because the site hamsters noticed you are viewing pages faster than humanly possible. There are several reasons why this may be happening:

 

You may have installed an add-in for your browser that is doing things you don't see.

You are using some automated tools to pull information on the site.

You have super human abilities.

 

What You Can Do

 

Stop! Have a cup of coffee, glass of water or go out geocaching. We'll let you back in shortly.

Disable any add-ons to your browser, like Greasemonkey, that may be hitting the site too fast.

Stop using automated tools to access the site. Like Mos Eisley Cantina, we don't allow droids here.

To the Super Humans

 

We're jealous! Hopefully you are the hero types and not the villains, but we don't judge. Just don't steal geocaches.

 

However, if you could be so kind as to slow down your super surfing, it would help our servers respond to other users that don't have super strength, speed, or tight fitting leotards.

 

WHAAAT? I am such a luddite, I wouldn't know an add on to my browser if it bit me in the face, I don't know what an automated tool is, and I can assure tptb that I don't have super human abilities. So what is up with this nonsense? Browsing too fast? Again, whaaaat???? Right now, this isn't funny. I have to hit the road in the morning and I have exactly 6 caches written down for tomorrow. And please don't jump on me for not doing pqs in advance. Doing a map search lets me filter in the caches I want to find, and the caches I don't.

 

Has this happened to anyone else out there? And the browser won't let me back onto the site. I am Seriously bummed out here.

[+Chrysalides]

http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=245813

 

Apparently it's been happening to a lot of people, and Groundspeak acknowledged that it shouldn't be. Or at least OpinioNate did - the big guy is still being a bit ambiguous about it.

[wildfir399]

I would say it's a hacker on there site. But who knows!! GL!!

[+BlueMoth]

Great. All I can think about is all the caches I won't be getting tomorrow.

 

Seriously, the purpose of this trip is to get into Death Valley for the afternoon of the 5th. There are three of us and we have never been there before. I want to get the Earthcaches there, and I am escorting a tb from England that wants to visit National Parks. So this really, really bums me out.

[+BlueMoth]

Ok, so I just read the other thread, some very unhappy people there.

 

What is "GreaseMonkey?"

 

I told you all I was a luddite.

 

All I can add to this tonight, since it is now 2 am, is; I have six caches to find from Sacramento to Modesto, no hope in a blue moon that I will be able to browse for more, and thanks, somone, for the ruination of my caching trip, which I had to beg and plead the muggles I am traveling with for.

 

If the site kicks me back off when I need to look for the caches in Death Valley, I am really going to be angry.

 

Whatever somone did to make me get this kind of message, needs to fix it, fast.

[+simpjkee]

Greasemonkey is an add-on to the Mozilla Firefox internet browser. If you don't know what it is, I doubt you have it. The only reason I have it is because I searched for it, downloaded it, and installed it after I did the same for Firefox.

 

Either way, if you are using a Firefox browser you can go up to where it says 'Tools" and then if you see Greasemonkey listed, you can disable it.

[+birder428]

I got the same message yesterday (around 10-11am EST) I closed all my windows and tried again, and it still wouldn't let me on, displaying the same weird message. I waited about 15 minutes, and then could get back on the site. It's been fine every time since. I use Firefox.

[+Zogstarlene]

I got the same thing too. I have also been having a lot of problems with the Geocaching site. Very slow response times. Locks up then says server unavailable when trying to look at caches. Takes 2-3mins to paint a map screen. Anyone else getting these problems?

 

I, too, use firefox.

[knowschad]

Disable any add-ons to your browser, like Greasemonkey, that may be hitting the site too fast.

Huh? This is actually in the official message that is presented to the users?

Greasemonkey is nothing more than a script engine that does nothing if no scripts are running. And I know of no Greasemonkey scripts that do anything other than modifying the html (and I believe it is doing that 100% on the client-side, after the page has already been delivered).

[ad5smith]

to the OP, you might consider downloading another web browser and try to access GC.com with it

 

ie. Mozilla has several, there's Google Chrome, and the ever basic Internet Explorer

Edited April 4, 2010 by ad5smith

[knowschad]

to the OP, you might consider downloading another web browser and try to access GC.com with it

Not according to what has been reported in the other thread. Your choice of browser has nothing to do with this message.

[ad5smith]

to the OP, you might consider downloading another web browser and try to access GC.com with it

Not according to what has been reported in the other thread. Your choice of browser has nothing to do with this message.

hmm, interesting, well, i use my phone so i've not had any problems

[ad5smith]

to the OP, you might consider downloading another web browser and try to access GC.com with it

Not according to what has been reported in the other thread. Your choice of browser has nothing to do with this message.

hmm, interesting, well, i use my phone so i've not had any problems

[+cerberus1]

Disable any add-ons to your browser, like Greasemonkey, that may be hitting the site too fast.

Huh? This is actually in the official message that is presented to the users?

Greasemonkey is nothing more than a script engine that does nothing if no scripts are running. And I know of no Greasemonkey scripts that do anything other than modifying the html (and I believe it is doing that 100% on the client-side, after the page has already been delivered).

 

The messages BlueMoth got was the same for me word-for-word.

I had to look up most of what the "big boys" where talking about, having no knowledge of any of it.

Most of the replies seemed a bit arrogant, like some were BSing them, on what was a simple way for me (and apparently quite a few others) to log caches to the GPSr.

Was questioned myself on what is probably the most basic way to load caches. So I guess some "above" are so tech, they're not capable of understanding us simple folk who're not so tech friendly.

By posts on both threads it seems that if like me, you want to click on each cache individually, only going to those you'd like to do, this problem comes up.

So far, nobody seems to have problems with PQs though. Maybe the problem is tied in with the Geomate Jr concept of "Gotta Get 'em All" - Put a zillion caches into your GPSr, whether you'll hit them or not.

Edited April 4, 2010 by cerberus1

[+BlueMoth]

[

By posts on both threads it seems that if like me, you want to click on each cache individually, only going to those you'd like to do, this problem comes up.

So far, nobody seems to have problems with PQs though. Maybe the problem is tied in with the Geomate Jr concept of "Gotta Get 'em All" - Put a zillion caches into your GPSr, whether you'll hit them or not.

 

I think this is exactly the problem. If you want to browse, forget it. Looks like whoever wants us looking for caches, wants us to download them via pq. Gee, sorry if I just like to scroll my way along and take a look see before I take off after a cache.

 

I finally got back on the website last night and stayed up until after 3 am looking for caches. Haven't hit the road yet for making Mojave or Tehachapi, but at least I have the caches for the day.

 

Thanks to all for explaining Greasemonkey and letting me know I wasn't alone here. No my browser is either Google Chrome or IE. Never had firefox or anything else. Sounds like that isn't the problem anyway.

 

Not so angry this morning, but I probably will be if this happens again tonight.

[+bittsen]

If I were to guess, I would think that GS has recently implimented a new set of filters to prevent "scrapers" from accessing the site. The snarky message was never intended to be seen by a human being who was accessing the site under normal circumstances but the timeframe for determining scraping is set a little short.

 

The same thing goes for forum posting. If you post too quickly it will tell you that you have to wait 15 seconds before you can post again. It would seem that the programmers were a tad more aggressive in the anti-scraping part of the programming and determined that a lockout was the best method of stopping it. Unfortunately, the more they try to control the offensive activity, the more the risk infringing on valid members activities.

 

It's just business...

[+EscapeFromFlatland]

BlueMoth does indeed have superpowers. She read my mind about where I wanted a geocache when I was home on leave. The next day when I woke up there was a shiny new geocache for me to go be FTF.

[knowschad]

From the other thread in the website forum:

 

Drewburlingame said:

We found a culprit. The time sync for one of our servers had failed and it was two minutes faster than the others. This could have caused our algorithm to think some users were accessing the site at a higher rate than they were. We got the time synced and saw the rate of suspensions drop. We're not convinced this was the only culprit and will continue to investigate for other causes.

[+Zogstarlene]

Ok - so some server was faster than another. That could explain the 'superhuman' message. That does not explain why you can't click on some caches and get the forever 'loading' message. I did 25 caches yesterday - after 2 hours I'm still trying to log them via the web site.

 

This is a big issue IMHO. I do NOT work solely from PQ's.

[+t4e]

Ok - so some server was faster than another. That could explain the 'superhuman' message. That does not explain why you can't click on some caches and get the forever 'loading' message. I did 25 caches yesterday - after 2 hours I'm still trying to log them via the web site.

 

This is a big issue IMHO. I do NOT work solely from PQ's.

 

weekends are notorious for the site being slow, way too busy with everyone logging their finds

[+hukilaulau]

I thought I was the only one who actually read every cache page anymore. In 5 years and 2000+ caches, I've run a blind PQ exactly once. And then I didn't use it. I preview cache pages and if I like them I put them in a bookmark list. THEN I PQ the bookmark.

Just today I did that for about 25 caches in an area I want to go to tomorrow, sometimes passing fairly quickly from one cache page to another. I would have been pretty cranky if I'd experienced what you describe, but fortunately everthing worked fine.

Sounds like the tekkies are not really trying to push us Luddites out after all, though...

[tttedzeins]

Do any of you use AVG Anyi virus with the link scanner turned on ? That might be a problem.

[knowschad]

Do any of you use AVG Anyi virus with the link scanner turned on ? That might be a problem.

It was only a problem after this last update, as far as we know. Good thought, but I doubt it.

[+BlueMoth]

I am sitting here in a hotel in Tehachapi, and gc.com made me go and sit in the corner again. Great, just great. I was almost to edge of Death Valley on the maps, and got booted off. Its been half an hour and I still can't access the site. I am seriously you know what.

 

I thought this was supposed to get fixed.

 

On a lighter note to bramsoleiowa, look for Vertical View when you get home. You should have an idea where it will be. I don't think it will be hard to find unless you try to look for the listing scrolling through the Portland map.

[+sbell111]

Once again, the answer to most every forum issue is 'pocket queries'.

Edited April 5, 2010 by sbell111

[+mountainman38]

I am sitting here in a hotel in Tehachapi, and gc.com made me go and sit in the corner again. Great, just great. I was almost to edge of Death Valley on the maps, and got booted off. Its been half an hour and I still can't access the site. I am seriously you know what.

 

I thought this was supposed to get fixed.

 

On a lighter note to bramsoleiowa, look for Vertical View when you get home. You should have an idea where it will be. I don't think it will be hard to find unless you try to look for the listing scrolling through the Portland map.

 

Bluemoth,

 

If you've got the time, I recommend going for some caches in Panamint Valley, on your way into Death Valley. It's a less visited part of the monument, but there is some really nice country out there.

 

I've been going there with my family since about 1970, so it's got a lot of fond memories for me. Someday I hope to go back and do some caching there.

[+BlueMoth]

To mountainman38, thanks for the tip. I finally got back on the site after an hour. I got enough caches for the day, going up the 14 and 395 and on into the valley. I go to Vegas a lot, so will have to come back sometime from Pahrump.

 

And why SHOULD I have to do a pq? I am paying for access to this website, and if there is a feature that lets me scroll through maps, that feature should work and not boot me off.

 

Last thing...it is snowing here in Tehachapi. How cool is that?

[Clan Riffster]

Once again, the answer to most every forum issue is 'pocket queries'.

Some people's radio only gets one channel.

[+bittsen]

For some reason I can just imagine Blue Moth reacting to getting the electronic boot.

 

I wouldn't want to be in the same room.

 

[+brslk]

Once again, the answer to most every forum issue is 'pocket queries'.

Some people's radio only gets one channel.

 

You've been waiting for just the right time to say that haven't you?

lol...

Edited April 6, 2010 by brslk

[+nericksx]

Hi Blue Moth!

 

I got the error on Saturday night too. I was looking for more caches to add to my world wide wish list, and that error came up somewhere around the Northern Territory. Since I wasn't doing anything naughty, I just reveled in my super-human-ness and copied the message down for my husband since he thought it was terribly cute.

[+sbell111]

To mountainman38, thanks for the tip. I finally got back on the site after an hour. I got enough caches for the day, going up the 14 and 395 and on into the valley. I go to Vegas a lot, so will have to come back sometime from Pahrump.

 

And why SHOULD I have to do a pq? I am paying for access to this website, and if there is a feature that lets me scroll through maps, that feature should work and not boot me off.

 

Last thing...it is snowing here in Tehachapi. How cool is that?

You shouldn't HAVE to do a PQ and I didn't suggest that you did. However, pocket queries make for great backup plans when there is a problem with the site. Given that historically the main site has become inaccessible at times when people really want to be out geocaching, a PQ is good insurance.