Sudden Massive Traffic Problem

[bmm]

Hi
I hope someone can help here as I have no idea how to fix this.
Over the past 2 months the visitor to my gallery has been causing massive traffic.
Our host and myself have singled it down to 1 IP number however that number is our hosts server IP!

My host has replied and below is their reply.

Can anyone help or point me in the right direction as if I try to block the IP number it obviously damages my gallery pages.
Thanks in advance for any help.

Here's the latest reply from our host..............

Nothing has been changed / updated on the server's end in the last period. I have checked the website traffic for May and here are the IP addresses with the most hits:

1699859 69.90.161.65
  52095 86.180.148.187
  46475 78.150.100.113
 
The first IP is indeed the server IP address and it is hitting the http://beermatmania.com/gallery/thumbnails.php script. It seems that the thumbnails keep regenerating every day and that is causing the resource usage problem:

69.90.161.65 - - [04/Jun/2019:12:37:06 +0100] "GET /gallery/albums/userpics/10156/thumb_stau84r.jpg HTTP/1.1" 200 4888 "http://beermatmania.com/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=873" "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; Trident/7.0; rv:11.0) like Gecko"
69.90.161.65 - - [04/Jun/2019:12:37:06 +0100] "GET /gallery/albums/userpics/10444/thumb_stau86.jpg HTTP/1.1" 200 5163 "http://beermatmania.com/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=873" "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; Trident/7.0; rv:11.0) like Gecko"
69.90.161.65 - - [04/Jun/2019:12:37:06 +0100] "GET /gallery/albums/userpics/10302/thumb_stau88f.jpg HTTP/1.1" 200 4828 "http://beermatmania.com/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=873" "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; Trident/7.0; rv:11.0) like Gecko"
69.90.161.65 - - [04/Jun/2019:12:37:06 +0100] "GET /gallery/albums/userpics/10302/thumb_stau88r.jpg HTTP/1.1" 200 4349 "http://beermatmania.com/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=873" "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; Trident/7.0; rv:11.0) like Gecko"
69.90.161.65 - - [04/Jun/2019:12:37:07 +0100] "GET /gallery/albums/userpics/10610/thumb_stau103r.jpg HTTP/1.1" 200 3827 "http://beermatmania.com/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=873" "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; Trident/7.0; rv:11.0) like Gecko"
69.90.161.65 - - [04/Jun/2019:12:37:07 +0100] "GET /gallery/albums/userpics/10622/thumb_stau104f.jpg HTTP/1.1" 200 4233 "http://beermatmania.com/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=873" "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; Trident/7.0; rv:11.0) like Gecko"
69.90.161.65 - - [04/Jun/2019:12:37:07 +0100] "GET /gallery/albums/userpics/10677/thumb_stau107.jpg HTTP/1.1" 200 5051 "http://beermatmania.com/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=873" "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; Trident/7.0; rv:11.0) like Gecko"

If possible check this case with your developer and see if there is any solution for this problem. In case that there is anything we should adjust on the server's end let us know and we will assist you right away.

[ron4mac]

No knowledge of why these could be emanating from your own server.
Things to try:
1) Set the theme to one that comes with CPG (curve?) and monitor it for a while to see if there is a change. The theme that you are using is somewhat malformed.
2) Disable plugins that you are using. See if things change.
3) Update CPG. What you are using is quite old.

[bmm]

No knowledge of why these could be emanating from your own server.
Things to try:
1) Set the theme to one that comes with CPG (curve?) and monitor it for a while to see if there is a change. The theme that you are using is somewhat malformed.
2) Disable plugins that you are using. See if things change.
3) Update CPG. What you are using is quite old.

Hi. Thanks for your help. I have done all of the above and the problem still persists.
The theme I was using I had changed the design and style sheet some 14 years ago and it has never changed. I reverted back to curve after the update and the problem persisted, even more so as the server IP is spidering more than just images.

I'm at a complete loss?

[bmm]

I have just stumbled upon something.
When I am logged in to my gallery my host IP is following me and crawling the same page I am on.
The same is happening when all other users are on, the server IP is crawling the page they are looking at and all the images on that page.
This is then being reported as visits thus causing the massive traffic problem
Any ideas?

[idosha]

Sounds like Nginx not setup properly and showing the server as the visitor when in fact they are visitors. Your host is likely just trying to get rid of you as hosting coppermine can get intensive for busy sites and some shared hosts can't handle it.

[bmm]

Would I be right in thinking that the server is not caching correctly and when members visit it thinks all images etc are new or have been modified so is crawling them again? Is this possible?