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Accessing restricted content

Here are some potential solutions to the “signed in, but still have no access”, issue that affects a very limited subset of readers of this site.
Photograph of a sign stating 'nothing to see here'
Nothing to see here. Photo by Erio Noen.

In mid/late June 2025 a very few subscribers started to experience strange sign in issues. Usually this manifests itself as the appearance that they were signed in, but with no access to subscriber, or sponsor (paywalled), posts.

The most obvious symptoms are as follows:

  • the newsletters arrive by email as usual, and can be read using your email client.
  • if you try to view the newsletter (post) in a browser your access is restricted.
  • the links in the top-right hand corner of the web page (see photos below) are typically completely unresponsive. They're clearly links, your mouse pointer changes shape and/or a URL appears in the bottom bar of the browser, but they don't do anything. These links appear on every post/page.
  • and, for good measure, the 'subscribe now' and login links on the home page are also non-functional.
Screenshot of the home page links on theapiarist.org
Screenshot of the relevant home page links on theapiarist.org
  • alternatively, you may appear to be signed in already, in which case the button in the top right of the screen will now have the word 'Account' on it, but again it doesn't do anything.

London calling

Each subscriber experiencing these problems — and this has included me — is UK-based and, unknowingly, is accessing a copy of the website on the London servers of my content delivery system (CDN).

If you're UK based, but access a different server (it's normally done geographically) using a VPN or the Tor network, you won't see these symptoms.

Bunny.net, the people who run the CDN, have today (9th July) acknowledged an issue with their servers and are trying to resolve it.

It's nothing to do with my website, or the company (MagicPages) that hosts The Apiarist, rather it's to do with the way the content is propagated around the world.

None of which is any compensation if you're trying to read a post you've paid for, but are blocked from accessing.

Possible solutions

Of the 5–6 people who I've exchanged lengthy correspondence with about this (there may be others afflicted who have not emailed me) it has almost always resolved itself within 24 hours.

It just starts working again, as though there had never been a problem in the first place.

That's good and bad.

Good that it works, bad that nothing I've suggested as a fix consistently restores access.

However, try the following, probably in this order:

  • clear your web browser cache and cookies for anything associated with theapiarist.org, exit your web browser, restart it and try to access the page you're after again.
  • try using a different web browser. If you usually use Chrome (and most of you do) then try Safari, or Firefox. If you usually use a web browser on your phone/tablet, try one on a different machine.
  • download, install and use the Tor browser. This is very secure and re-routes your access via a series of other computers around the globe. Consequently, you will almost certainly access the CDN servers in California, or Singapore, or Sydney (anywhere but London). Every time you use the Tor browser you will have to sign in again to theapiarist.org as it clears all cookies etc. when you exit. Simply click on the sign-in link, enter your email address, wait for the magic link by email, cut and paste the magic link (it's at the bottom of the email) into the Tor browser not you usual web browser.
  • use a VPN and route your access by anywhere a long way from London.

The Tor browser solution has worked for me every time … and it's part of the reason we're sure this is a problem limited to the London servers.

However, the Tor browser is very slow (because it's sending the request all around the world), so I'm not suggesting it's a permanent fix.

Bunny.net are going to provide that … all I'm trying to do is give you the access you're after 😄.

Thank you for your patience.

Writing a blog about beekeeping seems to be a rather uncomplicated thing to do. I have an idea, write it down, and press the big red 'Publish' button. However, distributing it globally, ensuring that access to the gigabytes of text and images is fast and restricted to those who should have access, turns out to be rather complicated. That's why I pay people to do it … and why they should come up with a solution soon.