EDIT: after learning about https://jort.link from @lifning (thanks!) i've made some changes to redirect mastodon traffic through them (as documented on their site) so that we aren't taking the brunt of it. still planning on fixing our own caching this week, but this should be an ok band-aid for now.
we're seeing issues related to the special caching we use for serving to Mastodon, which means we have had to temporarily start blocking requests from Mastodon to prevent performance issues.
the only impact (unless you're an instance admin) is that if you post a cohost link on mastodon, you won't get embed information. if you're an instance admin, you'll (probably) see an increase in failed requests to cohost (i will admit that i have no idea if this information is presented to admins).
we'll be unblocking mastodon server traffic once we've worked with fastly to fix the underlying issue this week. more technical details below the cut.
hopefully this is the last fire drill of the weekend. i'm tired. 