When I click a thread link from the list (left-hand frame) the thread frame doesn't load for long periods if at all.

This has been happening on and off for a few days. Sometimes it clears right up (as now), sometimes it persists past restarting Firefox, leading me to believe it's a server or network issue. Our not-so-broadband can be choppy, but the issue doesn't appear to affect loading from other sites quite so dramatically.

Firefox on Fedora 40 (Gnome 3x) desktop. Not happening on mobile (Samsung A7 tab).

Yup, getting the same. Clicking the thread a few more times usually fixes it.

I assume the server is basically just in maintenance mode these days.

Well it's weird that it works as per usual on mobile.

...and it also seems OK on Windows 11.

Same here on 10. I should probly run an update on Fedora, been a few months.

I assume it's a firefox-on-linux thing then. Which is unsurprising. Mozilla never gave a fuck about linux, even when they were markedly less shit than they are now.

I haven't updated it in months, and this just started a few days ago, so maybe not.

Anyway, working fine this morning.

I haven't experienced this. (Firefox ESR on Debian)

Linode sent a high CPU warning about a month ago now (not something I've received before), but I don't recall noticing any issues - I assumed it either resolved itself and/or Matt restarted the server; since there haven't been any more warnings I assumed it was a one-off and nothing to worry about.

One possibility is aggressively crawling bots - in the past I've had issues with Semrush bot and a few others and blocked them - so maybe we need an updated robots.txt - it's a low-effort first step at least.

I've heard of AI bots scraping websites for "training" (plagiarized) content causing load issues.