Repeated bot checks

tehuti88 • 3 March 2026 at 9:08 PM

The website is quite slow for me today (I'm about to give up the idea of feeding more and hope for better luck tomorrow), and if I'm idle for a moment or so and then attempt to navigate somewhere again, it sends me to a page to verify I'm not a malicious bot. So far it keeps allowing me through, but it's annoying and worrisome. I see nobody else complaining? Is it because I access the site with various devices? :/

EDIT, got the bot check posting this, then a 404. EDIT--twice!

snowywinter • 3 March 2026 at 9:43 PM

@tehuti88 I was actually thinking it was a me problem as it started happening across multiple devices, across different websites a couple days ago.
I was relieved when one of my friends on here confirmed it's happening for her too on Eggcave.
I think there's some protection stuff going on in the background. (It may be annoying, but it could be protecting against a deluge of attacks?)

(As for why no one else is complaining... Forums are a lot slower than they used to be.)

I'm assuming Ian is aware and working on it.
If not I'm sure someone will send in a ticket eventually. lol.

tehuti88 • 3 March 2026 at 9:49 PM

@snowywinter Ah good, glad to know it's not just me then. Thanks!

Orderedchaos • 3 March 2026 at 10:17 PM

I've been noticing this as well and have passed the information along to Ian. Hopefully it won't take too long to get to the bottom of.

dragongirl02 • 3 March 2026 at 10:52 PM

I know this is being looked into, but I wanted to mention I saw it anyway incase anyone is counting how many players saw it, and I wanted to add my concern: I've been seeing this on other sites too, and it’s causing a real headache. I often have to move quickly—it's a combination of racing against the clock and using a site where you have to be fast anyway—and these interruptions make that impossible.

There is also a factor that seems to be forgotten by many people on Eastern time: Hawaii (HST) does not observe Daylight Saving Time. When the mainland switches to EDT, our rollover jumps to 6:00 PM HST. This means HST players effectively lose an hour of 'catch-up' time. I consider this extremely disadvantageous; 6:00 PM is 'Prime Time'—it's the end of the workday for some and dinner time for others (I’m in the dinner group myself right now).

I've actually been taking notes for about a year on the dailies now. yep, started in 2025, focused on the 15 cave attempts, the lag errors, and the fact that the 5 cooldowns usually stretch closer to 2 hours total. I want to clean up these notes before officially presenting them.

snowywinter • 4 March 2026 at 12:12 AM

Thanks @Orderedchaos!

To other Arkians, I noticed something interesting in a Reddit thread about how the verification works in inperceptible ways, such as tracking mouse drift.
I had noticed that unlike other computer proceeses it seemed to take longer if I wasn't touching anything.
Testing it out on the tablet, it verified a lot quicker if I rubbed the page a little. lol.
(Maybe it's my imagination, or a placebo effect, but thought I'd pass it along in case it is helpful.)

mastergemma • 4 March 2026 at 1:57 AM

I've managed to get a screenshot of this happening to send to Ian, we won't need anyone else to get a screenshot.

Hang tight for more information.

dragiigy • 4 March 2026 at 2:00 AM

@Ian, and when I am feeding, I am getting message "There was an error processing your request. Please refresh your page and try again " All pages lagging slower as yesterday. 😊

pooh • 4 March 2026 at 8:56 AM

I have the same problem.

gngdia • 4 March 2026 at 9:01 AM

They implemented/updated cloudflare. Probably did it last night/yesterday and that's why the website was so slow for everyone (me included). The cloudflare messages popping up so often are indeed annoying. I get one each time I come back to the site or whenever I turn back on my internet.

snowwall • 4 March 2026 at 9:36 AM

I've got a different problem - it's locking me out without any captcha or bot check, merely saying "browser too old for us, buzz off". I've logged in from a different system, but it's not a tenable proposition for constant use. The Eggcave website worked well enough, so it's not a technical problem there - it's specifically Cloudflare being nasty.

granitore • 4 March 2026 at 2:38 PM

Hm, so this bot check is probably why my site is so slow today ... and yesterday too, my click speed slowed to a crawl (or what feels like it) ,

also i can SEE the check when i visit the site / popping up ever so often when i change to a new part of this website, fact is: in the week itself i dont really have time, so having my click-speed reduced made me ... not click a lot of creatures yesterday (not even my own) and probably... today too, though i will click my own today, even if its slow and i wish it would not be slow...

but everyone else that normally got clicks from me?

yeah, not happening in the middle of the week, maybe on the weekend, not today though.

tehuti88 • 4 March 2026 at 2:39 PM

Yeah...the slowness feeding critters is really dampening my desire to feed anything, including my own huge cove, which is rather a bummer. :/

Ian • 4 March 2026 at 3:27 PM

@dragiigy @pooh @gngdia @snowwall @granitore @tehuti88

Sorry everybody! Egg Cave has been under attack from bots the last couple of days and so this security check is on for now, otherwise the server is literally crashing.

Too many bots!

Working on resolving the issue but the check has to remain on for now, otherwise we'll go offline. ☹️

veritaspunk • 4 March 2026 at 3:31 PM

Yeah, I noticed the site running with 7 cookies, whereas It is usually 6 for me. At least most of this has started between events, as it has slowed things down on this site where it's just annoying to use rather than relaxing and engaging. ☹️

Ian • 4 March 2026 at 3:34 PM

@veritaspunk

The browser check should happen only once and be valid for an entire session... are you being interrupted multiple times by the browser check? Like, it could happen multiple times over the day but not on every page load.

snowywinter • 4 March 2026 at 3:38 PM

Thank you Ian for letting us know! < 3

Here's hoping for the longevity of the site; we can get through this together.

@snowwall
I hate getting messages like that. But Literally my preferred browser works so much nicer, the mainstream ones are soooo slow or display things weird with each new update it's hard for me to use. Even keeping it updated I'd get those messages all the time. Sorry you're going through that too now.


Edit 2: Ian, I'm getting the verification *at least* once an hour. (While I'm on and trying to do stuff. And especially each time I switch devices ...while still logged in.
Though I suppose it doesn't help that the Chromebook I'm borrowing keeps randomly refreshing the page. Still logged in, but it's a memory issue.
Doesn't explain why it's happening when I switch to the tablet though.)

veritaspunk • 4 March 2026 at 3:39 PM

@Ian I randomly interact on the site throughout a 24 hour period it seems every time I need to take a break for more than a few minutes it bot checks again but in general the site is a lot slower within the activities like cove, feeding etc. Yesterday it was even slower for me, but if the Valentines event was still on and I had to collect anything efficiently, I could not.

Hopefully this isn't an issue going forward by Dragold's Den time :-)

Thanks for the reply 😃

Ian • 4 March 2026 at 3:42 PM

@snowywinter curious: what's your preferred browser?

snowywinter • 4 March 2026 at 3:44 PM

@Ian the browser Samsung devices used to have built in.

(I prefer having the webpages zoomed OUT, small.)

Ian • 4 March 2026 at 3:45 PM

@snowywinter got it. In terms of device, that's completely fine. Every browser is being checked during "under attack" mode.

snowywinter • 4 March 2026 at 3:50 PM

@Ian, just for clarification, I never got the "browser too old" message here, but it happened on other sites. Just getting the Cloudflare verification across multiple websites, but mostly here.

Best wishes in keeping everything safe, and THANK YOU!

Ian • 4 March 2026 at 3:59 PM

@snowywinter of course!

The site is holding stable after turning "under attack" mode off. This means that whatever the attack was, it's likely over. But if bot checks return, it's because they're attacking again.

tehuti88 • 4 March 2026 at 3:59 PM

I use Brave browser and get the bot check multiple times per session, not every page load but if I go idle or to another site for a few minutes (while Egg Cave is still open in another tab), I get the verification again. Sometimes I have to check a box, sometimes not.

Yesterday I got the bot check twice (then redirected to a 404) simply while typing up the start of this thread. So, I actually was not idle at that time, I was typing.

(It doesn't seem as hypervigilant today.)

Ian • 4 March 2026 at 4:00 PM

@tehuti88 thanks for the details.

Browser checks have been able to be turned off, it appears the attack is over *fingers crossed*

tehuti88 • 4 March 2026 at 4:02 PM

Yee!

*hurries to go feed eggs*

veritaspunk • 4 March 2026 at 4:08 PM

@Ian @tehuti88 If only the site could be defended from bots without bogging down the site. :/

Ian • 4 March 2026 at 4:13 PM

@veritaspunk I know, it's so tough!

granitore • 4 March 2026 at 4:16 PM

i am glad to hear that the bot attacks seem to have stopped, fingers crossed it stays that way, thank you so much for the heads up and the feedback. 😃❤️

Ian • 4 March 2026 at 6:23 PM

Still looking stable, everybody! 😊 Thanks again.