For what it is worth in my case as far as I can tell the behaviors of both 
devtools::submit_cran and the cran machine were quote reasonable,  even if it 
caused me a little pain.  The block Uwe describes sounds like fail2ban or the 
like,  and given the junk we see hitting our services  it is a reasonable thing 
to run.  I had the day wrong when I thought cran was back up.  devtools on 
submission said ti couldn’t connect,  It is not unreasonable as a submitter, 
thinking the machine was back up,  to wait a bit,  and  try again,  and maybe 
do so a few times throughout the day.  That is indeed what I did.  Then to be 
sure it wasn’t a devtools problem I went to the web page  and that is when it 
seemed to block me. 

So my point is everything to my mind behaved reasonably.  The only thing I 
could suggest,  and I have no idea of how much work this would entail, and I am 
not looking to make work for people,  is perhaps a banner on the webpage when 
the service is down,  and if possible have the server return to programs  like 
devtools an error that the service is down.

I can’t speak for why others were blocked,  but as I said this all seems 
reasonable.

Thanks,

-Roy

> On Jan 11, 2026, at 4:08 PM, Uwe Ligges <[email protected]> 
> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> On 11.01.2026 15:19, Hadley Wickham wrote:
>> Thanks for the fix!
>> Happy to chat about what devtools could do better here to avoid future 
>> problems.
> 
> 
> We try to find out why submissions got blocked. I guess devtools tried 
> multiple times to open some webpage that was shut down and then the 
> corresponding IP got auto blocked for too many connections within a time 
> frame (which is why I get blocked by WU Vienna few times a year). We hope to 
> get feedback from the sysadmins soon.
> 
> 
> Best,
> Uwe
> 
> 
>> Hadley
>> On Fri, Jan 9, 2026 at 9:40 AM Uwe Ligges <[email protected] dortmund.de 
>> <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
>>    It seems some people tried to submit with devtools during the CRAN
>>    vacations while the submission webpage was deactivated.
>>    Not sure what devtools does, but it seems some partial submission was
>>    possible that way (just incomplete) and that may have caused a pattern
>>    that lead to the IP block.
>>    At least we had some reports about the above mentioned szenario. The
>>    sysadmin team tries to resolve this.
>>    Perhaps simply send your IP to [email protected]
>>    for a quick solution.
>>    Best,
>>    Uwe
>>    On 09.01.2026 16:32, Hadley Wickham wrote:
>>     > Hmmm, I tried from my phone and it worked once, but I tried again
>>    now and
>>     > it didn't work either. This is the traceroute I see, in case it means
>>     > anything to anyone.
>>     >
>>     > traceroute to xmpalantir.wu.ac.at <http://xmpalantir.wu.ac.at>
>>    (137.208.57.16), 64 hops max, 40 byte
>>     > packets
>>     >   1  192.168.4.1 (192.168.4.1)  7.828 ms  3.684 ms  5.233 ms
>>     >   2  192.168.1.254 (192.168.1.254)  7.409 ms  5.343 ms  5.369 ms
>>     >   3 104-186-12-1.lightspeed.hstntx.sbcglobal.net
>>    <http://104-186-12-1.lightspeed.hstntx.sbcglobal.net>
>>    (104.186.12.1)  6.222 ms
>>     >   6.569 ms  10.912 ms
>>     >   4  71.149.39.62 (71.149.39.62)  5.816 ms  6.046 ms  4.386 ms
>>     >   5  * * *
>>     >   6  * * *
>>     >   7  * * *
>>     >   8  * * *
>>     >   9  * * 192.205.37.10 (192.205.37.10)  11.947 ms
>>     > 10 dls-b24-link.ip.twelve99.net <http://dls-b24-
>>    link.ip.twelve99.net> (62.115.139.131)  138.944 ms  140.363 ms
>>     > dls-b23-link.ip.twelve99.net <http://dls-b23-
>>    link.ip.twelve99.net> (62.115.138.65)  141.967 ms
>>     > 11 dls-bb1-link.ip.twelve99.net <http://dls-bb1-
>>    link.ip.twelve99.net> (62.115.136.118)  12.237 ms  12.013 ms
>>     >   14.187 ms
>>     > 12  * * nash-bb1-link.ip.twelve99.net <http://nash-bb1-
>>    link.ip.twelve99.net> (62.115.137.44)  100.600 ms
>>     > 13 atl-bb1-link.ip.twelve99.net <http://atl-bb1-
>>    link.ip.twelve99.net> (62.115.137.54)  32.449 ms  32.397 ms
>>     >   31.204 ms
>>     > 14 rest-bb1-link.ip.twelve99.net <http://rest-bb1-
>>    link.ip.twelve99.net> (62.115.138.70)  46.045 ms *  58.522 ms
>>     > 15 prs-bb1-link.ip.twelve99.net <http://prs-bb1-
>>    link.ip.twelve99.net> (62.115.140.104)  120.740 ms  134.808 ms *
>>     > 16 ffm-bb1-link.ip.twelve99.net <http://ffm-bb1-
>>    link.ip.twelve99.net> (62.115.123.12)  126.600 ms  128.108 ms
>>     >   173.614 ms
>>     > 17 win-bb1-link.ip.twelve99.net <http://win-bb1-
>>    link.ip.twelve99.net> (62.115.137.203)  137.453 ms  140.338 ms
>>     >   138.001 ms
>>     > 18 win-b7-link.ip.twelve99.net <http://win-b7-
>>    link.ip.twelve99.net> (62.115.137.103)  139.714 ms  142.909 ms
>>     >   140.607 ms
>>     > 19 nextlayer-ic-392861.ip.twelve99-cust.net <http://nextlayer-
>>    ic-392861.ip.twelve99-cust.net> (62.115.205.175)  142.257 ms
>>     >   139.253 ms  139.711 ms
>>     > 20  * * *
>>     > 21  * * *
>>     > 22  193.171.13.18 (193.171.13.18)  135.095 ms  139.585 ms  133.808 ms
>>     > 23 vpn.wu-wien.ac.at <http://vpn.wu-wien.ac.at> (137.208.9.41)     
>> 135.997 ms  140.398 ms  138.908 ms
>>     >
>>     > Hadley
>>     >
>>     > On Fri, Jan 9, 2026 at 8:46 AM Roy Mendelssohn - NOAA Federal <
>>     > [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
>>     >
>>     >> I can reach it from your work address but not from my home
>>    address.  When
>>     >> I do a traceroute from home I get blocked at the last step.
>>     >>
>>     >> HTH,
>>     >>
>>     >> -Roy
>>     >>
>>     >>
>>     >>> On Jan 9, 2026, at 6:29 AM, Dirk Eddelbuettel <[email protected]
>>    <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
>>     >>>
>>     >>>
>>     >>> On 9 January 2026 at 08:11, Hadley Wickham wrote:
>>     >>> | Is this just a me problem, or is
>>     >> https://xmpalantir.wu.ac.at/cransubmit/ <https://
>>    xmpalantir.wu.ac.at/cransubmit/>
>>     >>> | down for others too?
>>     >>>
>>     >>>> ciw::ciw() |> head()
>>     >>>     Folder                  Name                Time   Size          
>>   Age
>>     >>>     <char>                <char>              <POSc> <char>
>>    <difftime>
>>     >>> 1: pretest     NNS_11.6.4.tar.gz 2026-01-09 15:26:00   1.9M
>>    0.04 hours
>>     >>> 2: pretest   ggsced_0.1.2.tar.gz 2026-01-09 15:21:00   348K
>>    0.12 hours
>>     >>> 3: pretest  warprrr_0.1.0.tar.gz 2026-01-09 15:10:00   1.0M
>>    0.30 hours
>>     >>> 4: recheck    mapsf_1.1.0.tar.gz 2026-01-09 15:07:00   1.4M
>>    0.35 hours
>>     >>> 5: waiting     ripc_0.3.2.tar.gz 2026-01-09 14:56:00   103K
>>    0.54 hours
>>     >>> 6: recheck rD3plot_1.1.45.tar.gz 2026-01-09 14:20:00   2.2M
>>    1.14 hours
>>     >>>>
>>     >>>
>>     >>> Five uploads in the last hour may suggest it is a 'you' problem.
>>     >>>
>>     >>> Dirk
>>     >>>
>>     >>> --
>>     >>> dirk.eddelbuettel.com <http://dirk.eddelbuettel.com> |
>>    @eddelbuettel | [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
>>     >>>
>>     >>> ______________________________________________
>>     >>> [email protected] <mailto:R-package-devel@r-
>>    project.org> mailing list
>>     >>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-package-devel <https://
>>    stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-package-devel>
>>     >>
>>     >>
>>     >
>> -- 
>> http://hadley.nz <http://hadley.nz>
> 

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