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Problem: Stack Overflow blanks out when trying to open multiple tabs.

Steps to Reproduce

For 10K+

  1. Go to Tools.
  2. Click on 10 questions (middle click) to open in new tabs (5 opens / second).
  3. Try to click on 'Close' in the Question of a newly opened Tab.
  4. Receive error "Error retreiving close reasons" -OR-
  5. Try to open an 11th tab and receive blank page.

Use case:

With 12 close/reopen votes a day, or multiple questions that need to be viewed for deletion, I usually open them up all at one time and investigate each one, so I don't have to go back and forth between other tabs.

Resolution:
If I can only reopen/close a max of 12 questions a day, then the limit should also be 12 requests in a short time frame.

|improve this question
  • Broken for me too. Interesting bug/throttling mechanism. – jjnguy Feb 15 '10 at 18:05
  • Heck, even if they said, "You're being throttled because you exceeded our request limits", it'd be better than just a blank page. The first few times it happened, I thought maybe they were having server issues. – George Stocker Feb 15 '10 at 18:14
  • I periodically open up lots of questions at once just researching a topic or searching for duplicates... Never seen this before. Oddly enough, I can't reproduce in Firefox - the tabs refuse to open fast enough. In Chrome, I can make it happen from the Close list page, but not from the Questions page - can't move my cursor to the next question fast enough, I guess! – Shog9♦ Feb 15 '10 at 18:20
  • @Shog9 Are you using a laptop? Using my Mouse plus Ctrl+Click, I can easily get to the limit. Also, just trying pressing F5 really really quickly. It is the same effect. – Tyler Carter Feb 15 '10 at 18:21
  • @Chacha102: yes, and yes it does slow me down (also ruining my wrists) ;-). And i've no doubt I could hit it using F5 or equiv, but that's not what's being described here. – Shog9♦ Feb 15 '10 at 18:24
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This, I'm guessing, is to stop DDOS-like attacks where there are a large amount of requests in a short time frame.

Solution: don't open up so many tabs. I limit myself to opening 6-8 tabs at a time.

|improve this answer
  • @Chacha102: There is a valid use case for opening up 12 tabs (not more) at one time. There is a list, that list has 12+ items in it, I have 12 votes; if I want to make sure I'm doing 'my share' of pruning, it helps to open up those twelve items. Any roadblock to assist in pruning the system of Deadwood is a bad thing, IMO. – George Stocker Feb 15 '10 at 18:13
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    @George: what's wrong with opening up five tabs, investigating those, then opening five more? – Ether Feb 15 '10 at 19:09
  • @Ether It's inefficient. – George Stocker Feb 15 '10 at 19:50
  • @George Efficiency is for lazy people... – Tyler Carter Feb 15 '10 at 20:40
  • You forget the three virtues of a programmer: hhhh.org/wiml/virtues.html – George Stocker Feb 15 '10 at 20:49
  • @George Notice I never said anything about it being 'wrong' to be lazy... – Tyler Carter Feb 15 '10 at 21:14

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