Cloudflare thinks I'm a robot

Bug
1

When I try to sign up for the newsletter, Cloudflare demands that I prove I’m a human, but displays an error and loops when I click the check box. I’m not actually a :robot:.

This is a problem I run into a lot these days, and I haven’t been able to figure out what causes it on my end; at least one site has fixed it by toning down the widget settings, but I don’t actually know what to suggest for tweaking the configuration.

I’m running current Firefox (136.0.2) on EndeavourOS (Arch with a nice installer):

  • Linux kernel is 6.13.7
  • KDE Plasma 6.3.3 desktop using Wayland

Firefox settings:

  • “Strict” Enhanced Tracking Protection
  • “Tell website not to sell or share my data”
  • Block dangerous and deceptive content
  • Enable HTTPS only mode
  • DNS over HTTPS is off

I’ve got Privacy Badger and uBlock Origin installed, but I’ve tried:

  • disabling all add-ons
  • Private window
  • Private window with all add-ons disabled

Cloudflare’s widget works fine for me in Vivaldi with similar settings and both of those add-ons installed and enabled. :person_shrugging:

Cloudflare is a terrible company for a host of reasons, but I don’t have a useful EU-hosted replacement to suggest.

2

I have the same settings and using Firefox, but no issues. Unsure how I can help you there, if you see this with a lot of sites, it sounds like a problem with Cloudflare/your setup.

3

Definitely a problem with Cloudflare; there’s something it considers “suspicious” about my setup, and I have no idea what it is. I have no idea what options are available on your end for configuring Cloudflare’s captcha.

Searching Cloudflare’s user forums, I see several threads about it breaking with Firefox whenever they do anything to reduce fingerprinting, etc. but there was nothing recent the last time I checked. Maybe it’s my OS somehow not being blessed? Cloudflare hates rolling releases? I have no idea and I haven’t been able to find any fixes other than “try disabling add-ons”, “try a private window”, " try disabling Tracking Protection", etc. all of which have had no effect.

I’m just over-explaining this to show that I’ve done everything (I’ve even tried a User-Agent add-on to masquerade as a Chrom* browser) already. Is there anything you can tweak on your end, or is it a black box and I need to find some way to gripe at Cloudflare?

4

It seems like there is nothing for me to change about this (IIRC Google’s reCaptcha has a setting where you can tune it down, but Cloudflare doesn’t, apparently). Looks like you need to find a way into the black box at Cloudflare :confused:

5

Thanks for checking, I appreciate it!

I’m reminded of the legend of the dev who got a job somewhere, fixed the bug(s) that were annoying them, and immediately quit. :thinking: