Forum Pages Not Accessible - 403 Error

[Macrura]

Hopefully this can be solved; Almost every page:

403:
https://processwire.com/talk/discover/content-started/
403
https://processwire.com/talk/discover/unread/
403
https://processwire.com/talk/discover/

i guess some type of blocker being overly aggressive, but this is false positive.

[Macrura]

update: those pages are now accessible, may have been a temporary issue. Will use this thread as a log for any future blocks. 

[BrendonKoz]

I believe it has to do with @ryan's spam/bot prevention via WireRequestBlocker. When he announced protection for the forum, and to refresh pages very quickly, I was never able to activate it to see what he meant. More recently though I've been hitting the Forbidden response far more often, and I usually have to wait a bit to attempt a refresh or revisit for things to render as expected.

https://processwire.com/blog/posts/throttling-ai-bot-traffic-in-processwire/

[cwsoft]

yepp. unread content link seem to work again right now. was showing errors most times starting some weeks ago. Maybe Ryan relaxed the spam protection settings int the forum recently. 

[Peter Knight]

Getting 403 errors repeatedly when viewing by unread. 
That’s the best way to browse imho, so id love to see it fixed. 🙏

[gmclelland]

Same 403 errors for me.

[Klenkes]

I got the feeling that during European daytime it's worse... there are days when I cant't reach /unread/ directly the whole day.

[Ivan Gretsky]

🐞Bug report confirmed (from my side)))

[jacmaes]

On 8/5/2026 at 11:27 PM, Peter Knight said:

Getting 403 errors repeatedly when viewing by unread. 
That’s the best way to browse imho, so id love to see it fixed. 🙏

Exact same issue. 

[howdytom]

Same here

[taotoo]

Me too.

[Jonathan Lahijani]

I usually come to the forum from my bookmark in chrome which is set to /talk/discover/ .  That link causes the 403.  However I realized if I remove the trailing slash so it's /talk/discover, it avoids the 403 error.  Just a heads-up hack-fix.  I messaged Ryan about it.

[gmclelland]

Thanks, I just tested it.

/talk/discover - works

/talk/discover/ - doesn’t work

/talk/discover/unread/ - doesn't work

/talk/discover/unread - doesn’t work 

Doesn’t work - shows 403 errors 

 

 

[Ivan Gretsky]

@Pete, this seems to be an ongoing issue affecting many of us. I am so used to look through the recently updated list that I actually do not even know how do I navigate the other way. And I get 403 almost every time I hit https://processwire.com/talk/discover/7/

We need to do something about it ASAP!

[taotoo]

Removing the trailing slash worked for me for a while, but now I'm getting the 403 errors again.

[Jonathan Lahijani]

5 hours ago, taotoo said:

Removing the trailing slash worked for me for a while, but now I'm getting the 403 errors again.

Are you sure? I haven't had a 403 on /talk/discover ever since I visited it without an ending slash.

[Ivan Gretsky]

Still had 403 a couple of times today and right now too at https://processwire.com/talk/discover/7 (with or without ending slash).

[Peter Knight]

13 minutes ago, Ivan Gretsky said:

Still had 403 a couple of times today and right now too at https://processwire.com/talk/discover/7 (with or without ending slash).

Yes, same here. This is getting ridiculous. I had to do some actual work today and couldn't use the forums for general procrastination😉

[gmclelland]

In case you haven't already tried, try signing out of the forums and then sign back in.

It helped on one of my devices.

I still need to try on my other device(ipad) to see if that helps.

[gmclelland]

I tried signing out of the forum on my ipad and signing back in and it seemed to work as well.

Now those urls mentioned no longer give me the 403 errors.

[jacmaes]

See the following debugging by @adrian:

 

[Peter Knight]

With apologies to true poets...

The 403 Blues

Some fine day I'll wake up
and it'll finally be...
the forums are free
of the dreaded 403

These errors frustrate
for months of late
as Cloudflare issues
have me reaching for tissues

A firewall setting?
Should I reset DNS?
These Firewall rules
give me forum blues

I thought it was quiet
just holiday cheer?
but folks are abandoning
that much is clear

new visitors bouncing
right at the door
old regulars wondering
what the forums are for

I've pestered the admins
dropped a DM or two
left another mention
just to bump it through

I even set GrokBot
to deliver me the news
a daily summary
of all the things I lose

But some fine day I'll wake up
and it'll finally be
the forums are free
of the dreaded 403

 

 

 

[Ivan Gretsky]

If poetry won't make it, nothing will!

But seriously, this should be a number one in the plan to make PW grow.