Feeds in SpaceCowboy Feeder are restricted due to excessive requests

The SpaceCowboy Feeder app is making multiple amount of requests to feeds within a short time period, which is degrading the performance of websites and services.

Malicious intent could not be determined. But the owners of the application don't appear to be using the information in feed responses to avoid the excessive behavior. The requests are caught by rate limits and the associated IPs are eventually banned. As a result, these users may be experiencing problems with feeds used in the app until the issue is resolved.

04/23/2024 4:52 PM:

Note, there are IPs that have the SpaceCowboys Android RSS Reader user agent that are not contributing to this issue and have not been banned. This may be coincidental because the requests are spread out over time, not subscribed to as many feeds, or may be explicitly using a different frequency configuration.

The behavior seems to be isolated to a few specific IP addresses. As of 4:42 PM EST today, 37 IP addresses from the SpaceCowboys Android RSS Reader user agent have been banned. For example, the table below shows 24 requests from a single IP address, all made at the exact same time.


Request time	User agent	IP
2024-04-23 15:58:12.000 -0400	SpaceCowboys Android RSS Reader / 2.6.21(306)	92.60.40.219
2024-04-23 15:58:12.000 -0400	SpaceCowboys Android RSS Reader / 2.6.21(306)	92.60.40.219
2024-04-23 15:58:12.000 -0400	SpaceCowboys Android RSS Reader / 2.6.21(306)	92.60.40.219
2024-04-23 15:58:12.000 -0400	SpaceCowboys Android RSS Reader / 2.6.21(306)	92.60.40.219
2024-04-23 15:58:12.000 -0400	SpaceCowboys Android RSS Reader / 2.6.21(306)	92.60.40.219
2024-04-23 15:58:12.000 -0400	SpaceCowboys Android RSS Reader / 2.6.21(306)	92.60.40.219
2024-04-23 15:58:12.000 -0400	SpaceCowboys Android RSS Reader / 2.6.21(306)	92.60.40.219
2024-04-23 15:58:12.000 -0400	SpaceCowboys Android RSS Reader / 2.6.21(306)	92.60.40.219
2024-04-23 15:58:12.000 -0400	SpaceCowboys Android RSS Reader / 2.6.21(306)	92.60.40.219
2024-04-23 15:58:12.000 -0400	SpaceCowboys Android RSS Reader / 2.6.21(306)	92.60.40.219
2024-04-23 15:58:12.000 -0400	SpaceCowboys Android RSS Reader / 2.6.21(306)	92.60.40.219
2024-04-23 15:58:12.000 -0400	SpaceCowboys Android RSS Reader / 2.6.21(306)	92.60.40.219
2024-04-23 15:58:12.000 -0400	SpaceCowboys Android RSS Reader / 2.6.21(306)	92.60.40.219
2024-04-23 15:58:12.000 -0400	SpaceCowboys Android RSS Reader / 2.6.21(306)	92.60.40.219
2024-04-23 15:58:12.000 -0400	SpaceCowboys Android RSS Reader / 2.6.21(306)	92.60.40.219
2024-04-23 15:58:12.000 -0400	SpaceCowboys Android RSS Reader / 2.6.21(306)	92.60.40.219
2024-04-23 15:58:12.000 -0400	SpaceCowboys Android RSS Reader / 2.6.21(306)	92.60.40.219
2024-04-23 15:58:12.000 -0400	SpaceCowboys Android RSS Reader / 2.6.21(306)	92.60.40.219
2024-04-23 15:58:12.000 -0400	SpaceCowboys Android RSS Reader / 2.6.21(306)	92.60.40.219
2024-04-23 15:58:12.000 -0400	SpaceCowboys Android RSS Reader / 2.6.21(306)	92.60.40.219
2024-04-23 15:58:12.000 -0400	SpaceCowboys Android RSS Reader / 2.6.21(306)	92.60.40.219
2024-04-23 15:58:12.000 -0400	SpaceCowboys Android RSS Reader / 2.6.21(306)	92.60.40.219
2024-04-23 15:58:12.000 -0400	SpaceCowboys Android RSS Reader / 2.6.21(306)	92.60.40.219
2024-04-23 15:58:12.000 -0400	SpaceCowboys Android RSS Reader / 2.6.21(306)	92.60.40.219

06/02/2024 1:24 AM:
The Feeder app developer filled out our Contact form to confirm that the SpaceCowboys Android RSS Reader user agent is the Feeder app, and to inquire about resolving the issue.
06/02/2024 9:03 AM:
We responded to the email provided with details of the issue and gave specific instructions on how requests should be made to avoid the IP bans.
06/02/2024 9:05 AM:
Our email reply was undeliverable and "Returned to Sender". We've verified that the email address we responded to was the email the user entered into the contact form, so we're unsure of how to get in contact with the developer.
06/02/2024 1:35 PM:
We reached out to the Feeder developer on their support forum and were able to get in touch and re-communicate the issue.
06/03/2024 10:28 AM:
Feeder developer was successfully able to update the Feeder app per our recommended practices. The developer has instructed that users of the Feeder app will need to upgrade to at least version 2.6.25 for the issue to be resolved.
06/28/2024 9:37 PM:
We're still seeing feeds in older versions of the app being restricted. If you're using the Feeder app, updating it to at least version 2.6.25 may decrease the chances of feeds not working properly.
05/30/2025 7:34 AM:
Still seeing excessive requests with versions of the app higher than 2.6.25. So reopening as unresolved.