information about russia connectivity issues

[its0ka]

you never really cared in the past, but anyway...

the government enabled domain (TLS SNI) whitelist on cloudflare and ovh (and some others like hetzner too), only "osu.ppy.sh" is whitelisted, all others (bm, auth, etc...) are not in the list and so are blocked after 16kb of transfered data, not all ISPs are affected but this could change (for better or for worse) because this whitelist exists for like 6 months (first on mobile networks, recently on some home networks, on even more networks since today).

to fix this you could:
email the blocking agency or ask someone to do it (there is no easy way, it's not super easy for russians even, also they are idiots).

wait until the blocking agency sees a lot of complaints, realizes their mistake and reverses the blocking.

patch the game to use this specific "osu.ppy.sh" SNI for all requests and use http host header for routing (shouldn't even require changes on the server) and create a beatmap mirror in russia or just give everyone free direct so they could download maps from the game which forces "osu.ppy.sh" on all requests (not sure where the game updates are, if not at that subdomain then people won't be able to update)

upd: the block was lifted at least on my isp

[peppy]

Thanks for letting us know. I'm not sure we can do much here, based on the information you've provided.

It must suck living in a country like this 😦

[its0ka]

just checked, domains like "qwerty.osu.ppy.sh" also work (for most but not all)

[its0ka]

@peppy @ThePooN i made a proxy server for russian players and wanted to post on the russian forum (just a post about editing the hosts file), but mods banned me from talking about it because they think that i will steal everyones passwords. the thing is, several people copied my deleted post, edited it incorrectly or used an old version that doesn't work properly, and their posts are still on the forum and mods completely ignore them. because of this there is confusion and new people come to the forum almost every day and report the same connectivity issue and mess up their hosts file. can you message someone so this gets sorted? i just want mods to allow me to post, ideally pin the thread and delete all the old copies, thx.

[its0ka]

someone could tell users to paste a list of IPs that would redirect people from beatmap download server to server with some script that will hijack your data

this hosts file editing thing is on the forum since 2023 (but because my post was deleted, it's now also on random websites and youtube vids). 2 years have passed and there are 0 reports of any hijacks. do you realize how hard it is to do that? there is HTTPS and HSTS in the web browser and at least some certificate checking in the game.

I wish there was some way to finally do something with that awful situation, but I genuinely feel like your way isn't a proper one. Please understand it

there are multiple ways to fix (which i described above) which are free or extremely cheap for the devs, but they were ignored. Instead they want someone to provide a colo which usually start from 100+$ per month, and all that for a simple proxy.

why do you apply "guilty before proven innocent" "everyone is guilty"? once again: 0 reports over 2 years + i helped to fix multiple issues over the years. is reputation not a thing here? isn't it much easier and better to allow stuff and only prohibit it after it was reported? i really forgot how frustrating it is to talk to the devs, i regret asking for help here, should have just helped people in dms.

i got everyone's point and i don't want to hear about this anymore if it's still the same

[its0ka]

i can't believe my eyes, but i see that bm11.ppy.sh has appeared, and it's on OVH... so you did have money for a new server, there was a reason to use something else than OVH, but used it anyway??? and now i get messages from kids that they can't download maps again.
i have no words, this will never be properly fixed.

[ThePooN]

bm11 is replacing bm4. and if anything it is a cheaper server than bm4. way less than $100/mo btw. maybe question your own reading before drawing such conclusions. and happy new year

[its0ka]

maybe question your own reading before drawing such conclusions

i know how to read and do it carefully when reading your messages (it's really hard though because you're extremely vague), but this is not the first time im feeling that you aren't thinking enough when reading my messages, you completely missed the point of my last message and i never said that your servers costs 100$/mo (it is a standard price for a low-end dedicated server in russia though). im tired explaining because there is no point, i hope to never see messages from this topic again. everything that happened here is really a shame, nothing happy.

[peppy]

i feel like there's a huge breakdown of communication here.

if you (or anyone else) want to help, you could consider providing us with a box within russian that we can use to setup a mirror. we are always willing to work with people to setup local mirrors (we have similar user-supported mirrors in other countries).

we do not have the resources to make this happen as an australian company.

we cannot keep forum posts around asking users to bypass official servers (or russian blocks). this leads to the whole site being blocked in russia, and aforementioned security concerns (which i share with other developers who have alreayd posted).