June 3, 2025 Update:

We have seen reports of persistent issues. Additional measures have been implemented to block the source of the problems, but further restrictions may impact core site functionality.

The server nodes will automatically reset to clear the errors you see. Sometimes the error messages persist in your local browser even if the servers are all responding normally. This makes it hard for us to see the same issues here, as we can be accessing different servers at different times.

Typically a refresh will help as this can force a new connection to a different node. If the site goes down completely and is unresponsive for more than an hour or two, please do report it. We do not have the ability to continuously monitor the site so we rely on reports to inform us of problems.

For further information, this report from Nature details what we believe we are experiencing.

March 17, 2025 Update:

The 503 errors appear to have returned. We believe that this may be related to data capture for training models (such as AI LLMs). Unfortunately, there are so many bots at work trying to access our servers at the same time, this overwhelms our server nodes and makes it impossible to maintain service. Manual blocking of sets of IP addresses has been attempted, but, as soon as one set of addresses is blocked, the access will resume from different addresses, and so on. We are working on ways of addressing this and trying to stay ahead of the problem as the situation evolves.

The Perseus servers are currently being flooded with requests from overseas servers. Tufts Research Technology is endeavoring to block the bad actors and maintain operations, but there may be disruptions until all of the relevant domains can be identified.

We thank you for your patience.

Note that the Scaife Viewer is available: https://scaife.perseus.org
With a Quick Start Guide here: https://perseus.pubpub.org/pub/bv43kvmy/release/1

Please reach out to the Perseus webmaster with questions or concerns.