CloudFlare is blocking traffic to Discord(discord.com)
discord.com
CloudFlare is blocking traffic to Discord
https://discord.com/
598 comments
Bunch of newly created accounts in the replies
It's because HN is the first result when searching up "discord cloudflare blocked", there's a lot of people looking for help for this one it seems.
lot of new accounts not even reading the thread and asking why they've been blocked.
"Will I be able to make my dnd session?!" Kinda cute, maybe we'll find a new generation of HN members!
I used to lurk here all the time, and now this thread pushed me to finally create an account and comment :)
I'm part of Gen Z, so I guess you can count me in? Haha
I'm part of Gen Z, so I guess you can count me in? Haha
and simply "discord cloudflare"
looks like Discord users searching for the block found this thread and signed up to comment.
the block is real tho. I can't login through my desktop client. Using the browser app works though. Maybe they disabled the Cloudflare CDN on their website as an emergency fix but couldn't easily do it for the desktop (i assume electron?) app?
the block is real tho. I can't login through my desktop client. Using the browser app works though. Maybe they disabled the Cloudflare CDN on their website as an emergency fix but couldn't easily do it for the desktop (i assume electron?) app?
I wonder where they are coming from. Has hackernews become a site status checker, and because there's no good direct link, people are linking to HN? (tbh they also do that if there's a good direct link)
asidoanspo(1)
When a single entity controls a significant share of internet traffic, it opens the door to various issues. Cloudflare, for instance, has the capacity to unilaterally determine who can or cannot access the internet, effectively setting the rules. While these powers often originate from well-intentioned goals, such as blocking malicious actors, they can eventually be applied in more arbitrary ways. Arguments for privacy often fall flat in this context, as robust privacy measures could inadvertently protect malicious users. The average internet user generally lacks the understanding to grasp these complexities. Even unintentional errors, like merging a flawed code update, can result in widespread internet outages, as has happened with Cloudflare in the past.
This concentration of power in the hands of a few companies, like Cloudflare, Google, and Meta, is precisely why anti-trust laws were established. Unfortunately, there seems to be a lack of political will to enforce these laws effectively. As a result, the future landscape of the internet is likely to differ radically from what we are familiar with, and not for the better.
This concentration of power in the hands of a few companies, like Cloudflare, Google, and Meta, is precisely why anti-trust laws were established. Unfortunately, there seems to be a lack of political will to enforce these laws effectively. As a result, the future landscape of the internet is likely to differ radically from what we are familiar with, and not for the better.
"Anti-trust" is not "anti-monopoly". Monopolys aren't illegal. Maintaining a monopoly by preventing others from competing is the thing that tends to be illegal.
I hate big tech as much as the next guy but what is Clownflare doing to prevent you from using competitors?
Yeah, this has nothing to do with antitrust.
Just because a company is offering services enough that a plurality of users accept, doesn't warrant government interception or action.
Just because a company is offering services enough that a plurality of users accept, doesn't warrant government interception or action.
If a company has complete control of a market, the market will require regulation to ensure it's possible for new entrants to stand a chance.
You are incorrect.
You are incorrect.
"Control" has to be properly contextualized. Just because one company is the only available option for a service or product doesn't mean that business "controls" the industry.
Natural monopolies occur and get displaced by innovation all the time without any regulatory involvement.
Natural monopolies occur and get displaced by innovation all the time without any regulatory involvement.
And to be clear - CloudFlare is hardly the only available option. Akamai has existed for significantly longer, and there's plenty of competitors. Cloudflare did not invent the CDN.
You're splitting hairs to justify a political stance.
Capitalism is dangerously flawed without carefully considered regulation.
Capitalism is dangerously flawed without carefully considered regulation.
You're making an unsubstantiated claim that's irrelevant to the discussion at hand.
You're also making assumptions about the motive behind my statements of fact to convince yourself or others that I'm wrong without disputing the relevant details of my comment.
There are vanishingly few instances of a natural monopoly occurring out of thin air and remaining a monopoly. In fact, there's a strong argument that regulatory capture is the cause of the more egregious examples of long-standing monopolies, which would not have continued to exist were it not for the burdens of entry creating through coordination with the monopolistic entities.
In our current political environment, it's hard to argue anything we face is actual capitalism as opposed to cronyism.
You're also making assumptions about the motive behind my statements of fact to convince yourself or others that I'm wrong without disputing the relevant details of my comment.
There are vanishingly few instances of a natural monopoly occurring out of thin air and remaining a monopoly. In fact, there's a strong argument that regulatory capture is the cause of the more egregious examples of long-standing monopolies, which would not have continued to exist were it not for the burdens of entry creating through coordination with the monopolistic entities.
In our current political environment, it's hard to argue anything we face is actual capitalism as opposed to cronyism.
No.
We live in a world that is driven by a remarkably small number of massive corporations.
Huge corporations acquire smaller corporations. Huge corporation merge with other huge corporations.
To say this type of behaviour is not at least serving the same negative function as a monopoly is utterly disingenuous.
This type of capitalism is not working well.
We live in a world that is driven by a remarkably small number of massive corporations.
Huge corporations acquire smaller corporations. Huge corporation merge with other huge corporations.
To say this type of behaviour is not at least serving the same negative function as a monopoly is utterly disingenuous.
This type of capitalism is not working well.
Cloudflare is half as old as Google and even younger than Amazon, yet your concern is with their monopolistic potential. Explain how that's possible if the companies at the top are maintaining all the control.
We've seen significant shrinkage among the FAANG and their peers in the past few years.
Walmart was considered a massive monopolist threat before Amazon came along and ate their lunch. These are examples that fly in the face of your contention.
What are some examples that support your argument that any of these businesses holds a de facto monopoly?
Again, the root cause of most of the monopolistic effects in our market are due to regulatory capture. Without regulations to set minimums for competitors, they face the threat of newcomers. This is why Walmart and other big organizations support minimum wage increases despite the negative impact on their bottom line. New supermarkets can't even begin to incorporate if they're faced with massive wage and regulatory requirements.
We've seen significant shrinkage among the FAANG and their peers in the past few years.
Walmart was considered a massive monopolist threat before Amazon came along and ate their lunch. These are examples that fly in the face of your contention.
What are some examples that support your argument that any of these businesses holds a de facto monopoly?
Again, the root cause of most of the monopolistic effects in our market are due to regulatory capture. Without regulations to set minimums for competitors, they face the threat of newcomers. This is why Walmart and other big organizations support minimum wage increases despite the negative impact on their bottom line. New supermarkets can't even begin to incorporate if they're faced with massive wage and regulatory requirements.
What chance does a small team without a large amount of funding honestly have of competing with any of these businesses?
I'm trying to talk generally about the concept of monopolies in a supposed free market economy and the need for regulation.
Fundamentally, we don't necessarily need business to operate at the scale its grown to.
The only reason these businesses have grown so vastly is because it increases profit in the hands of fewer people.
We (as a society) can do better.
I'm trying to talk generally about the concept of monopolies in a supposed free market economy and the need for regulation.
Fundamentally, we don't necessarily need business to operate at the scale its grown to.
The only reason these businesses have grown so vastly is because it increases profit in the hands of fewer people.
We (as a society) can do better.
Except that the examples I gave fly directly in the face of the situation you're stating. Amazon replaced Walmart with exponentially less starting cash. Netflix did the same to the entire media industry.
Venture capital and business loans could easily fund the next big industry giant provided the barriers to entry aren't astronomical. But corporations are utilizing their lobbying powers to capture the relevant regulatory market in ways that protect their interests.
Your problem is with corporatism and cronyism, whether you realize it or not.
Venture capital and business loans could easily fund the next big industry giant provided the barriers to entry aren't astronomical. But corporations are utilizing their lobbying powers to capture the relevant regulatory market in ways that protect their interests.
Your problem is with corporatism and cronyism, whether you realize it or not.
Corporatism and cronyism are major factors that create monopolies.
Seems to be working for me. Could this be a broader outage over at CloudFlare that affected several apps/sites? Or is this only affecting Discord?
Happened to me today. After Discord app update and few restarts it fixed itself.
Broke once, then it started working, now it's broken again.
Web browser version works just fine though.
Web browser version works just fine though.
Cloudflare also just had an API outage preventing me from signing into their dashboard.
https://www.cloudflarestatus.com
https://www.cloudflarestatus.com
Looks like it might be global based on the subreddit[1]. Oddly reinstalling the app fixed it for me, while it still shows the Cloudflare error page on Chromium. Meanwhile, the website loads fine on Firefox.
[1] https://old.reddit.com/r/discordapp/new
[1] https://old.reddit.com/r/discordapp/new
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Looking at the Discord Status page (https://discordstatus.com/) it appears they had an issue with API errors.
Yeah interestingly, woke up this morning, said I was blocked on computer. Phone still worked. Visiting the discord page in firefox works.
Being lazy, but might try reinstalling discord sometime later.
Being lazy, but might try reinstalling discord sometime later.
When the url says discord.com, it makes me feel like there's an official statement from discord. Clicked into, just a homepage.
Yeah, I cannot work out what happened here from the title, link and comments. Do Cloudflare provide ISP services? Is Cloudflares DNS not resolving Discord? Is Discord using Cloudflare as a CDN?
What is "blocking traffic" in this context?
What is "blocking traffic" in this context?
Nothing happened, people overreacted.
Desktop client of Discord didn't work for like 30 min but phone apps and browsers worked fine.
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I was blocked on my machine but could access via my phone (same wifi). But 5 minutes later, it was back on my machine
It is working fine for me through WARP, and this is just a link to their home page?
It works until it doesn't.
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Same problem, lasted about half an hour.
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I am blocked from discord also.
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why would you want to delete valid concerns?
if you read the comments posted here and know the spirit of this community, it's pretty obvious this isn't in the spirit of it. People need information, but this isn't the place for "me too".
It seems a lot of the crap comments got flagged and are dead, and wow it is a lot. Feels like an infestation. I don't remember seeing such here.
This thread is currently at the top on Google searches for "Discord block", "Discord Cloudflare" and similar.
It seems this is causing a flood of people that aren't really accustomed to constructive discussions like the ones usually held here, as this thread is currently full of:
- "I have the same problem"
- "Someone has a fix please" followed by questionable remedies
- Some kind of Nazi troll (Not making this up, luckily gets flagged pretty quickly)
It seems this is causing a flood of people that aren't really accustomed to constructive discussions like the ones usually held here, as this thread is currently full of:
- "I have the same problem"
- "Someone has a fix please" followed by questionable remedies
- Some kind of Nazi troll (Not making this up, luckily gets flagged pretty quickly)
What do the "constructive discussions" usually look like here
Click on the "HackerNews" link at the top of the page, then click on any of the "XXX comments" links on the resulting list of articles (that has more than a tiny number). Read some for yourself.
I suggest you go to the homepage and look for a post that interests you and see what people have to say about it.
Take the thread about the upcoming Raspberry Pi 5[1]. It's very active with comments so I think its a good example.
Notice how many comments are more than a paragraph long, they give valuable information from the article combined combined with an opinion of the author, and are sometimes just so very "nerdy" they're simply awesome to read, like someone running inflation calculations about how affordable a modern Raspberry Pi is compared to past times :) [2]
[1] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37685580 [2] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37688866
Take the thread about the upcoming Raspberry Pi 5[1]. It's very active with comments so I think its a good example.
Notice how many comments are more than a paragraph long, they give valuable information from the article combined combined with an opinion of the author, and are sometimes just so very "nerdy" they're simply awesome to read, like someone running inflation calculations about how affordable a modern Raspberry Pi is compared to past times :) [2]
[1] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37685580 [2] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37688866
An example of a time when Cloudflare had an outage and the usual audience discussed it would be https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31820635.
Most HN readers know what Cloudflare is, know that Cloudflare occasionally blocks legitimate users for no good reason, and know that if every Discord user is unable to access the desktop app because Cloudflare is blocking their entire userbase then the Discord on-call engineers are almost certainly having a busy day.
If you're interested in learning what Cloudflare is and how to use it, you could read https://developers.cloudflare.com/learning-paths/get-started..., or if you're interested in reading some material that's more critical you can see the previous discussion about it at https://hn.algolia.com/?q=cloudflare.
Most HN readers know what Cloudflare is, know that Cloudflare occasionally blocks legitimate users for no good reason, and know that if every Discord user is unable to access the desktop app because Cloudflare is blocking their entire userbase then the Discord on-call engineers are almost certainly having a busy day.
If you're interested in learning what Cloudflare is and how to use it, you could read https://developers.cloudflare.com/learning-paths/get-started..., or if you're interested in reading some material that's more critical you can see the previous discussion about it at https://hn.algolia.com/?q=cloudflare.
Thank you! I wish I could be more active here other than lurking but I haven't got much to bring to the table.
ah. i am not alone. yay.
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same here
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This could have been a random spate of 403s or challenges while their teams were trying to mitigate an attack, or similar.
In other words, this thread shouldn’t really be posted here.
In other words, this thread shouldn’t really be posted here.
In the meantime you can go to discord.com and use the web application or the mobile version. They both are not affected.
@dang can we block comments on this or delete or something?