Unable to access static resources hosted by cloudflare

Website, Application, Performance Security
1

I am unable to use any site that uses cloudflare static resources. Usually I will see a cloudflare verify you’re human page which autocompletes and sends me to the site. However, the site does not look or work right because all of the static resources(js, css, images, etc) will not load because the content is actually a cloudflare verification page.

I can access the site if I go through a VPN, therefore its specific to my IP.
I am the only person using my internet connection.
The problem first started last Wednesday, after the issue persisted for several days and my ISP tech support was zero help, I forced my router to get a new IP which resolved the issue completely… at least it did for approx 60 hours.
Now the issue is back which would indicate that traffic on my network was causing me to get blocked. However, before I forced the new IP, I setup logging on my router to track devices & traffic per device. I have found zero anomalies.
The IPs are not in the same subnet, 50.x.x.x 75.x.x.x

All machines & browsers are affected. I have also tried curl to confirm the content that is being returned.

For example, below are a few of the request and response headers for a js file when trying to access stackoverflow or any domain hosted by stackoverflow

Request URL: https://cdn.sstatic.net/Js/third-party/npm/@stackoverflow/stacks/dist/js/stacks.min.js?v=935b5e6f1844
Request Method:GET
Status Code:403
Referer: https://stackoverflow.com/

Cf-Mitigated: challenge
Content-Type:text/html; charset=UTF-8
Server: cloudflare
4

Hi @travis.vanderpool

I’m sorry you are experiencing this, but we are not able to either take contact to any of the website owners, nor make any changes to their setup, so if you are seeing false positives, you have to take contact to the website owners and explain the situation.

5

This is not isolated to a specific domain or website/host, which is why I’m asking for help here. The issue isn’t a “block” its that something about my IP is triggering cloudflare to respond with a challenge as if I’m abusing cloudflare cdns. When a webpage results in a challenge, even though it can be annoying at least its still usable but when a static resource triggers a challenge its blocked by the browser either because the content type is wrong (because its a challenge web page) or because of cross-domain policies.
If I browse over a vpn I encounter clareflare challenge pages often, which makes sense, because that is a lot of requests all originating from the same IP. This seems like what is happening my my public IP from my ISP, except I have been monitoring the logs and there hasn’t been any unexpected traffic. The other difference between what I have experienced over a vpn when I get a cloudflare challenge, is that it only affects the web page, not the static resources.

The other reason I know its something cloudflare wide as opposed to a cloudflare customer, is that the challenges start across domains/sites/hosts all at once.

When I first tried to get my ISP to release my IP so I could get a new one, I went to my ISP’s site, everything on their site worked, until I tried to use chat, turns out, while most of the static resources are not hosted through cloudflare, the chat JS file is hosted through cloudflare, so I couldn’t even use my ISP’s chat.

6

Sounds more like malware.

If that were the case, we’d see dozens of posts here and hundreds of tickets. Neither is the case.

Can you disable any & browser extensions and make sure your browser is up to date? What OS & browser combination are you using?

I do see the IP you are using here on one public block list spamhaus.org but doubt that is the issue.

7

I wondered the same thing which is why I’ve been watching my traffic logs. Depending on the type or what was affected, malware could explain what is triggering something on cloudflare. I also considered malware causing the issue locally, but both of my machines are affected & have been scanned as well. I don’t see how using a VPN(private & work) would resolve the issue if it is being caused at the machine or browser level though. I would also expect the issue to be unaffected by getting a new WAN IP.

  • Ubuntu Focal (personal desktop)
    • Chrome(primary)
      • default profile
      • incognito
      • new profile (no extensions)
    • Firefox
    • curl
    • wget
  • Ubuntu Jammy live usb (personal desktop)
    • Firefox
    • Chrome
  • Windows 10(work laptop)
    • Chrome
    • Firefox
  • Debian Bullseye (Raspberry PI)
    • curl
    • wget

47 hours ago I changed the WAN MAC on my router so I could get a new IP, which again instantly fixed the problem(hopefully not temporarily this time…). Once the new IP was acquired, tabs which were already partial loaded, except for static resources from cloudflare, loaded correctly using F5.

The previous IP change resolved the issue for approx 60 hours, approx 13 hours from now I will reach that mark with my latest IP…

8

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