Edge Network Connection Reset for VRBO iCal Scraper
jskracht
HOBBYOP

13 days ago

I host an application on Railway (bluesprucecaboose.com) that serves an iCal feed. I am trying to sync our calendar with VRBO, but their automated importer is failing to connect. BTW the same URL below works with Airbnb and VRBO successfully imports other iCals

VRBO's engineering team provided the following details:

  • Timestamp: 2026-05-09 around 19:38 UTC
  • Target URL:https://bluesprucecaboose.com/api/ical/977675608178862426.ics
  • Error: The connection is being reset/terminated during the secure (HTTPS) connection step.

Because this is failing during the TLS/HTTPS handshake (Node.js app logs show no incoming request at that time), I suspect this is happening at the Railway Edge proxy.

Could you please check the edge proxy logs around 19:38 UTC on May 9th for that URL? I am trying to determine if:

  1. Railway's DDoS/bot protection is blocking VRBO's scraper IPs.
  2. VRBO's legacy client is failing to pass the SNI (Server Name Indication) extension during the TLS ClientHello, causing the edge to drop the connection.

Any insight from the edge logs would be immensely helpful so I can tell VRBO exactly what their client needs to fix, thank you!

Solved

2 Replies

Status changed to Awaiting Railway Response Railway 13 days ago


11 days ago

Our edge requires TLS SNI on all inbound connections, as documented in our networking specs. If VRBO's client omits the SNI extension during the TLS ClientHello, the connection will be reset. We do not perform any application-layer bot blocking or IP filtering, so DDoS protection is not the cause here. Your domain and certificate are valid and healthy on our side. You can tell VRBO's engineering team that their client must send SNI with TLS 1.2 or above, including the correct hostname in the SNI field, to complete the handshake.


Status changed to Awaiting User Response Railway 11 days ago


jskracht
HOBBYOP

11 days ago

Ok, thank you!


Status changed to Awaiting Railway Response Railway 11 days ago


Status changed to Solved Railway 11 days ago


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