Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine Blocks Some Real Users Amid High-Volume Bot Traffic

The Internet Archive said September 15 that the Wayback Machine has been hit by waves of high-volume automated traffic, prompting it to put protections in place to keep the service running.

The archive said some of those protections have mistakenly blocked real users.

The archive also recently changed the message users see when a request is blocked with a 429 error. The error means "too many requests."

The Internet Archive said it is improving its ability to distinguish abusive bots from people who use the Wayback Machine. Users who believe they were blocked by mistake can email info@archive.org with their operating system, browser and IP address so the archive can investigate.

The update was posted by Mark Graham, director of the Wayback Machine, who apologized for the errors and thanked users for their patience.

Screenshot: DIW. CC BY

Fact-Checked by Irfan Ahmad.

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by AI Analysis via Digital Information World