The automatic fallback feature suffers at least two flaws:

- it is not configurable: Math is the hardcoded default
- it tries to establish a TCP connection on port 80 to the reCaptcha verify server, which is not that great in terms of performance, and is very unreliable.

At the very minimum, I suggest adding a configuration option that would allow disabling this feature and selecting the fallback captcha.

Comments

robloach’s picture

robloach
he/him
commented
Component: General » reCAPTCHA Captcha
Priority: Normal » Critical

Definitely, I think we have two options here....

  • Make the check to see if reCAPTCHA a toggle checkbox and the fallback feature configurable so that you could switch to something other then Math
  • Remove this feature entirely. I believe we put this in back when reCAPTCHA was quite new and was having troubles with the server load. I'm sure they have a decent server farm by now, so they should be okay.

Pushing to critical so that it gets in the next release.

hass’s picture

hass commented
Version: 6.x-1.x-dev » 8.x-2.x-dev
Category: Bug report » Feature request
Priority: Critical » Normal
Issue summary: View changes

I do not think this is a bug. Math captcha may have been chosen as we know this is always available.

Otherwise we need to write the configurable fallback logic + we need to have the fallback to Math captcha if the configured fallback is also not available. It may be useful to re-use the default captcha configured in captcha module setting...

The fallback is required if reCAPTCHA module has not yet configured (private/public keys are missing) and someone nevertheless assigns the recaptcha to a form, too.

liam morland’s picture

liam morland
Primary language English
Location Ontario, CA 🇨🇦
commented

A configurable fallback mechanism sounds to me like something that should be in the CAPTCHA module, not reCAPTCHA.

hass’s picture

hass commented
Project: reCAPTCHA » CAPTCHA
Version: 8.x-2.x-dev » 8.x-1.x-dev
Component: reCAPTCHA Captcha » Code

Moving for review.

couturier’s picture

couturier commented
Related issues: +#2982140: Captcha is unusable with current beta and DEV state
anybody’s picture

anybody
Primary language German
Location Porta Westfalica
commented
Status: Active » Closed (won't fix)

I do not think this is a bug. Math captcha may have been chosen as we know this is always available.

Correct!

A configurable fallback mechanism sounds to me like something that should be in the CAPTCHA module, not reCAPTCHA.

Right!

But well, we have the "Default CAPTCHA" already, so I don't think another fallback will be more understandable for users, nor be more robust... in the end of the chain we'll once again end up with Math captcha or NO captcha at all.

So I'm closing this won't fix. Feel free to reopen if it's worth it.