topic Re: Forum Ban in Community Site Feedback

Forum Ban

khaled35 — Thu, 05 Oct 2017 11:26:25 GMT

Not sure where to post this so please feel free to move the thread.

I am on plusnet mobile and have never used the forum on 4G ever. I had an engineer in today, my home broadband was down and when I attempted to connect to plusnet community forums on my phone I get a message informing me that I'm banned. Strangely, I wasn't even logged in so I can only assume this is done at an IP level.

Any ideas why?

Re: Forum Ban

Alex — Thu, 05 Oct 2017 11:44:44 GMT

Probably better in Community Site Feedback - maybe a mod can move it.

That's strange and obviously you haven't been banned as you're still posting . I am not sure about IP level, I would have thought it was done by account. IP's get recycled around so it would seem a silly way of doing it, to me.

Re: Forum Ban

khaled35 — Thu, 05 Oct 2017 11:46:58 GMT

Hi Alex, can't be account either coz firstly, I have never browsed this forum on 4G before, and secondly, I wasn't logged into the forum for it to know what account was accessing the site.

Re: Forum Ban

jaread83 — Thu, 05 Oct 2017 11:47:49 GMT

Hi @khaled35, that seems a bit odd. So you were not logged in when you saw this error message? If you were not logged in, what was the URL you were trying to access as an anonymous user?
We do have certain IPs blocked but they are for certain parts of the world where spammers originate from and nothing within the UK is currently blocked at an IP level.

Re: Forum Ban

Alex — Thu, 05 Oct 2017 11:51:28 GMT

Thanks - I see it looks like IP blocking then.

Just test and see if you can get the problem again - if you do go onto a site such as www.whatismyip.com and PM someone like @jaread83 with the IP and your mobile network.

Re: Forum Ban

khaled35 — Thu, 05 Oct 2017 11:54:55 GMT

@jaread83

From plus.net, I click the commnunity link in the menu:

It takes me to an error page:

https://community.plus.net/t5/errors/FilterErrorHandlerPage

All subsequent clicks result n me getting the ban error.

Re: Forum Ban

jaread83 — Thu, 05 Oct 2017 11:55:19 GMT

The IP bans still require an account. We don't block access to anonymous users, just the accounts that are logged in and match the IP block that we have banned. It shouldn't do this for anonymous users (not logged in) at all. I am curious about the URL that was being accessed. It could be a false positive on the error reporting and it reqested the wrong error message when a specific URL could not be accessed.

Re: Forum Ban

khaled35 — Thu, 05 Oct 2017 11:57:17 GMT

@jaread83 it definitely isn't a one off as it is still currently not allowing me to access the forum on a 4G connection (provider is plusnet mobile as mentioned).

Re: Forum Ban

jaread83 — Thu, 05 Oct 2017 12:01:08 GMT

There are no bans in place for your IP address. Plus you seem to be able to post right now? Is it just the homepage of the forums where you are receiving this error message?

Re: Forum Ban

khaled35 — Thu, 05 Oct 2017 12:03:51 GMT

@jaread83 I'm posting right now from my desktop machine that is on PN fibre. The issue is occurring when I attempt to access this forum from my mobile using 4G. That IP is currently 213.205.251.10

Re: Forum Ban

jaread83 — Thu, 05 Oct 2017 12:08:07 GMT

Okay, so looking at the IP you provided, a user was banned using that IP. Does the username testname ring any bells?

Re: Forum Ban

jaread83 — Thu, 05 Oct 2017 12:10:34 GMT

I should add that this user was banned as a suspected spammer readying themselves to send spam PMs after unlocking the newbie rank. I am guessing that this was you? Our mod team (and myself) was not sure so banned the user to stay on the safe side. If you message on of the mods to lift the ban, I am sure they will.

Re: Forum Ban

khaled35 — Thu, 05 Oct 2017 12:10:47 GMT

@jaread83 as I've already said, have never accessed these forums from my phone before and have only very recently become a PN Mobile customer. My home IP is static, I have only ever had one username on this site.

In short, testusername rings no bells for me.

Re: Forum Ban

khaled35 — Thu, 05 Oct 2017 12:14:09 GMT

@jaread83 please don't make assumptions about me. I have only ever created one account on this forum. If you want to lift the ban, go ahead, if not, that's fine too. I'm already trying to chase PN to resolve a fibre issue and don't have the time or inclination to chase them up on something as trivial as unbanning a mobile IP that will likely change the next time I reconnect to 4G.

Re: Forum Ban

khaled35 — Thu, 05 Oct 2017 12:20:21 GMT

@jaread83 from one of your previous messages:

The IP bans still require an account. We don't block access to anonymous users, just the accounts that are logged in and match the IP block that we have banned. It shouldn't do this for anonymous users (not logged in) at all.

I've stated multiple times that I wasn't logged in, I simply clicked the link to "Community" from the main plus.net site. I find it offensive that you would insinuate that I may or may not be a potential spammer with another username.

Re: Forum Ban

jaread83 — Thu, 05 Oct 2017 13:08:55 GMT

Hi Khaled,

No problem and I understand from your perspective. Looking into it further, it seems that the ban on that particular account was set to match any of the criteria of username, IP or email address used. This is to stop banned accounts from just creating a new one and returning. It would seem that the IP was blocked in this case.

I have gone ahead and amended the ban record in the system and you should be able to browse the community from your 4G connection from now on. If this is stll giving you problems, I will take some further action to remove that IP ban entirely as it looks like a bit of a mixup with the IP address.

I am sorry that this happened but I am glad that you have brought this to my attention. I will talk to our moderators about the banning process for the future to ensure that this doesn't happen again. As I said, let me know if this isn't working still and I will sort it out for you with further action.

Thanks,

Jack

Re: Forum Ban

jaread83 — Thu, 05 Oct 2017 13:15:42 GMT

And I apologise if my previous post sounded like I was making an assumption about you, this was not my intention and was referring to the account that was banned (not you). I hope you are able to access the forums now from your phone?
Once again, apologies for the mixup on this.

Re: Forum Ban

khaled35 — Thu, 05 Oct 2017 13:22:12 GMT

@jaread83 I appreciate you taking the time to look into this and ultimately for exonerating me. I can confirm that I am now able to browse this forum via the 4G connection.

Re: Forum Ban

jaread83 — Thu, 05 Oct 2017 13:25:30 GMT

You're most welcome @khaled35 and I am glad that I could get this fixed for you
Let me know if you have any issues at all with anything related to the forums. I am more than happy to help.
Cheers,
Jack