As it’s a hidden thread, I suppose you can’t see it even if I give you the link… it’s like “we’re looking into the issue” and that’s all for now.
The internal server error seems gone?
I saw a bunch of test threads today from an Avast employee for this issue. Posting replies to topics now seems to work again without the error.
Although getting error 403 isn’t fun either. My VPN (and this post) was suddenly blocked?
Yes Internal Server Error issue seems get fixed. And don’t worry I also got 403 error frequently, it feels like their anti-bot measure is too sensitive.
+1
Very difficult to interact with the Forum today
EDIT: Also our profile Avatars seem to have dissapeared.
Hello, this page is always appearing for me when I try to comment on topics.
Is anyone experiencing this same problem?
Yes, many of us have this problem. I suspect an overly agressive anti-spam setting, blocking VPN users or people just posting quickly.
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I’ve been thinking that the Avast team could be performing maintenance on the forum.
I don’t use a VPN so not that in my case.
I have a couple of security based add-ons for firefox, one, uBlock Origin Lite doesn’t check /Avast(dot)com/ at all the other uMatrix allows all but googletagemanager(dot)com
I have uBlock Origin and Privacy Badger in my Firefox. When I get a blocked access it is pretty much always the fact that I’m on a VPN and the add-ons weren’t a factor. Sometimes a specific endpoint is blocked. Sometimes a whole IP-range. Sometimes it works for a few clicks on a site and then access is revoked. Sometimes whole countries are blocked by default. Similar to a region lock but for different reasons.
The forum has a bot problem and if I had to guess I would say measures to combat that catch out legitimate forum visitors if for any reason their usage pattern is suspicious. And what defines that can be quite nebulous. It might be a strict pre-defined set of rules or it might be, dare I say it, AI learned rules. Which are prone to errors. Just moving around the forum and/or posting quickly might be enough to trigger it. So the faster you are as an actual person, the more you’re seen as a potential bot. I’ve had similar things happen on Youtube. Shadowbanned so you’re the only one seeing your posts.
I would also imagine Avast not wanting to say much about that specifically, to not give the bots a heads up about ways to circumvent it.
Hopefully the situation improves.
I noticed that @DavidR 's Avatar was displaying again, so tried to upload mine again. That failed to stick on my profile. Tried uploading/saving several times, so assume DavidR is lucky and rest of is are all stricken by post-maintenance Forum bugs.
EDIT: I have just logged in using Opera browser and my Avatar is OK. I will now try Firefox again. 
Nope. No Avatar on Firefox and loads of 403 errors on both browsers.
I had posted that I saw everybody’s avatar on Firefox, but after a cache clear they were gone. When I tried to edit my post to reflect that, I was blocked with error 403. Had to switch VPN endpoint to regain access.
Whatever Avast is doing, it is being overdone.
That stroke of luck as you call it has also ended no ones avatar is showing - I haven’t cleared the firefox browser cache.
Another Error I’m getting tired of on virtually every reply or posts :
'Draft is being edited in another Window. Please reload this page.
Who else would be editing this - this often results in loosing some of the text you have input.
The default avatars seem to be showing. At least my ‘R’ is there: 
All custom avatars are now 
Mine isn’t and there are many others with the Shadow portrait, those with the Green circle around them, indicate that the ‘avatar image’ hasn’t loaded NON, New_Style_xd.
EDIT: The R in your case just happens to be the first letter of your username.
Yes I know. That is why I explicitly made the distinction between default avatars and custom avatars in the first place!
The ‘R’ is still an image loaded from the avast servers. Just like user set avatars.
Also rocksteady and new_style do not have the green circle around their avatar, despite it being the same ‘shadow’ image as yours and NON. You all had set custom avatars, none of you now show your avatar, but only some of you have the green circle. I have never set a custom avatar since the forum changeover to begin with, so there isn’t even a custom avatar to load, yet I have a green circle.
Edit: the green circle seems to be there or not randomly. Sometimes some users do not have the circle, and then a moment later they do. I wouldn’t read to much into that. New_style now does, rocksteady still does not. It changes.
Edit 2: Now NON also does not have the green circle. It varies and it might even vary for every user viewing the thread. Who knows…
Presumably that is only there when they are active, as yours is.
EDIT: if you have a look at the bottom of a topic you will see what Users are on-line, previously that also showed the custom avatar images, not any longer.
Could be. That would mean the circle indicates a user being present on the forum (which makes more sense), and not a status indicator for their custom avatar having loaded or not, as you said.
It looks like in the last maintenance update Avast has managed to lose the previously uploaded images.
I have reuploaded it again and now it shows.
Procrastination wins again lol.