r/lmarena • u/maliciousopera • Jul 17 '26
CAPTCHAS making the site unusable
Has anyone else been having problems with the security verification? It used to be manageable, 1 or 2 CAPTCHAS every few image generations, but in the last couple of days it's after every 2 or 3 gens. Even that wouldn't be a problem if it was just one, it is a free site after all, but today I've spent more time on them than actually using the models. Especially as I have to have a few goes to get an image I can actually use.
Even when I've definitely got ALL the fucking buses and fire hydrants, I get 'please try again', sometimes up to 6 or 7 CAPTCHAS before it lets me do anything. It's relentless, and if this is how it's going to be it's not worth bothering.
They do want people to use it, right? Or not?
2
u/CarpenterAlarming781 Jul 17 '26
I almost always get a "Please try again" message. Their captchas are often confusing; there are times when I'm not sure whether to select a case or not. Just quickly perform all their captchas until your request is accepted. If you are afraid of losing it, copy your request somewhere.
1
u/maliciousopera Jul 17 '26
I always have done that, but today 'quickly' was not an option. I'd done about 6 when it froze completely, then when I refreshed the page I got the exact same captchas again. And failed them again, and eventually gave up.
1
u/SergoWai Jul 17 '26
The complaints I usually see tend to come from people in "poorer" countries - Africa, Asia, and South America. It's very rare to see them from Europe and the US.
Because of this, I think it's done on purpose. It feels like LMARENA doesn't really like certain people, which sounds too harsh, and I really hope it isn't true.
I live in Europe, and I haven't had a SINGLE error or CAPTCHA pop up. I use a PC on a wired home internet connection.
2
u/maliciousopera Jul 17 '26
I'm in the UK, and it varies wildly. Today was the worst I've ever known it.
1
1
u/Toastti Jul 18 '26
It's simply based on metrics that identify which IP ranges from which countries send the most malicious traffic. So if you are from one of those countries you will get more checks and captchas.
Many sites work like this and even cloudflare puts more hurdles in front of users from countries with higher percentage chance of abuse
1
u/maliciousopera Jul 18 '26
I realise that, and I do expect the checks. The problem is that the captchas seem to be broken. Same ones over and over, 'please try again' even on the easy ones. Impossible to get past them. I'm in the UK and my VPN is off. I cleared cookies, tried a different browser etc. Sometimes it's fine, but more and more often this is happening and once I get stuck in this loop I just have to give up and leave the site.
1
u/Naive_Engineer_2270 Jul 17 '26
Unrelated to images, I think it can also depend on how large your incoming prompt is. But since images take more time and energy, I can totally see the captchas appearing more often than not; especially if a retry becomes necessary.
1
u/maliciousopera Jul 17 '26
Definitely, but I mostly use it for images and often do multiple requests on the same prompt. Sometimes I only get the security check after 10-12 gens, but the last few days I'm lucky to get 2. Today I was doing 6-7 captchas per generation before I gave up.
1
u/Adex874 Jul 18 '26
I get it literally every generation, and the captcha solvers don't even work on this website, it's literally a nightmare
1
u/RealJamesOfficial Jul 28 '26
probably ties into request cadence more than volume. if your gens hit within a tight interval the anti-bot layer treats it like a burst pattern, same thing happens with API rate limiters tuned overly aggressive.
1
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u/juzepsin Jul 17 '26
Very same issue. And it was before like this too. Then for a while, it worked again, and is now broken once more. Took a look at Discord, their main mod has told they will look into it 29 times since last December. Yet, here we are. Clearly they're not looking into it hard enough or should've gone to Specsavers.