Real-time updating of topics freezes under high activity

If this is the case and you want to push it harder.

  1. You can reduce rate limits, this will allow users to interact more aggressively with Discourse. Specifically you could double DISCOURSE_MAX_REQS_PER_IP_PER_MINUTE and DISCOURSE_MAX_REQS_PER_IP_PER_10_SECONDS

  2. You can try adding more unicorn workers

This is expected temporarily while you are overloaded, but stuff should automatically recover once load is reduced.

My guess here is that this is all just rate limit related, the rate limits are new, and there to protect the server, it appears your server is being protected by design.