False detections of banned users

[toTOW]

I received reports form forum users that the forum software might not detect ban rules correctly and then issue reports of ban to legitimate users.

I don't know what causes this at the moment, but here what we know :
- On my phone, I was able to get in by switching carrier (I have a phone with two SIMs from different carriers).
- I got reports of successful log in after using a different device on the same network (for instance PC vs. tablet or smartphone).
- I also got a report that using a different browser on the same machine would work too

If you're affected by the issue, you may try one of the workaround above until we figure out what's wrong behind the scenes ...

[Paragon]

This just happened to me...it said it was an IP ban. None of the computers in my house or my phone would access the site. The fix was to use an online proxy server to log in...seems to be fine now though (am logged in normally without the proxy).

[Joe_H]

If you happen to know the IP address your login was coming from, please send it to me in a PM.

[bollix47]

FYI
The message I and others saw yesterday:

Code: Select all

You have been banned from this board until Tue May 07, 2019 5:46 pm.

Please contact the Board Administrator for more information.

A ban has been issued on your IP address.

is no longer showing here and I'm not seeing any problem so far today.

[kbeeveer46]

I got the ban message, as well. It said I was IP banned so I connected to my work VPN and it still said I was banned. I no longer get the banned message this morning.

[kiore]

I got the ban message, as well. It said I was IP banned so I connected to my work VPN and it still said I was banned. I no longer get the banned message this morning.

Yes I had a similar issues, used 3 different IPs and all said I was banned, now (obviously) that nolonger happening.

[bruce]

Most likely the ban was applied to some kind of a gateway between each of you and the FAH servers. I suppose if we collect a few tracert (traceroute) reports, we could figure it out, but what's the point. It appears to have been resolved without an explanation.

If something like this happens again, maybe we can gather enough data to learn more about it.

[Nert]

If something like this happens again, maybe we can gather enough data to learn more about it.

So if this re-occurs we should gather trace route and local IP addresses ? Anything else ?

[bruce]

Yes, traceroute foldingforum.org (or tracert foldingforum.org) and then we compare the results from various locations around the world.

It's not likely to ever happen again. I don't remember it ever happening before in the dozen or so years I've been here.

[toTOW]

I didn't found any ban rule on the forum settings that would match the IP I had which were reported as banned ... that's probably some other kind of bug (maybe forum software/server failing to identify the correct IP) ...