Blocked hosting on Plusnet

[#1]

Glad you got it sorted in the end
A static IP is great if you are capable of managing your own systems and making sure you don't get viruses / spyware etc etc. You can then keep a nice clean IP address that isn't blacklisted.
If you go dynamic, you run the risk of getting one that has previously been abused. You can always try to reassign another with a disconnect / connect but it is a bit of a lottery at times.
Have a check on the global blacklists here and make sure you've not been blacklisted by any of the main engines :
http://whatismyipaddress.com/blacklist-check
Ta for posting back with the conclusion - always good to find out what the issue was in the end 

[#2]

Well hopefully will all be re-instated by tomorrow morning.
I Always try to give the feed back to conclusion otherwise it remain open ended.
Still bugs me that it took so long, The forum shouldn't be the way these things are solved, PN professionals should have given me the pointers to where the problem was. I'm no expert on Traceroute and ping etc but it seems to me that when my Traceroute results came up with an immediate and correct response from the forum I could get it sorted. Lessons to be learned all around I think.
dick:quote

[#3]

Glad you've solved the issue and thanks for letting us know.
Still think you're being a tad hard on plusnet.
They did at least try to help, whereas most ISP's would have just said they don't support external web hosts.

[#4]

I have been very supportive of PN over the years and recommended them to a number of people. On the whole I've been very happy with them. However, this has taken an incredibly long time to sort out, largely to do with the long time between responses to ticket updates. 24+ hours between responses is painfully slow. This wouldn't have been the case pre BT ownership days. I suspect there is understaffing involved and needs addressing.
Thanks again to the Forum participants who ironically set PN apart from the rest of the ISP's

[#5]

Small addendum:
I accept that other ISP's would say that "Not Our Problem" but from the outset we all got bogged down in the Fictitious 'Malware' thing which put the ball firmly in PN's court. All they needed to do was to say that they believed it to be out of their hands and the trace route, I understand, would have confirmed it earlier.
ç'est la vie.
jim:quote

[#6]

Quote from: Word

Now, a question. Currently I have, as mentioned before, a static IP. I get the impression that a dynamic IP might prevent this issue happening in future is this a correct assumption? If so, should I request PN to change me back to one? I've had a static IP for historical reasons but I don't necessarily need one now as far as I can ascertain. At the risk of calling on your expertise yet again, what do you think guys.

Not being on a static IP means a TBB Broadband Quality Monitor won't keep track of your connection if you use one.

[#7]

Quote from: Word

largely to do with the long time between responses to ticket updates. 24+ hours between responses is painfully slow.

Now you've hit on one of my pet grumbles. 
You're lucky, it usually takes 3 days for me to get a reply. And if I'm foolish enough to add to the ticket, it then takes a further 3 days. 

[#8]

I don't bother adding to the ticket nowadays; I just call, or post here.

[#9]

Quote from: WWWombat

I don't bother adding to the ticket nowadays; I just call, or post here.

I called on a couple of occasions but was told to raise a ticket. That said they did say a call could speed up an action once you'd replied to one but not always convenient.

[#10]

Quote from: jelv

Not being on a static IP means a TBB Broadband Quality Monitor won't keep track of your connection if you use one.

Sorry, I don't know what that means, can you explain to a laymen who is a tad tired what that means please?

[#11]

It's the graphs shown on this page: http://community.plus.net/ping-graphs/
Click one of the graphs to find out more.

[#12]

So, stick with the static IP tun and hope the issue doesn't occur again. At least I'll have a vague idea of the cause. I had a similar thing a while back but it was intermittent so difficult to nail down.
Thanks again community forum. This thread now comes under the resolved category. 

[#13]

Okay it's happened again and they say it's due to excessive port scans in a given period which is causing the block. They (Hostpapa) say that either my ftp client is doing it or there may be a virus causing it.
I'm not using an ftp client at the moment in fact I can't figure what activity I may be doing when it triggers this. The software for the website is Joomla 2.5.27 and Piwigo gallery so i don't need an ftp client for it.
I have installed, Spam Sieve for my Mail client which works brilliantly BTW, Bitdefender is constantly monitoring for viruses, adware, malware etc which seems to be very good too.
Is there anything that might be causing hostpapa to be blocking me from time to time. I'm in the dark on this, could my router be doing something?
At anyone time there could be an iMac, MacBook Pro, iPad, iPad mini and three iPhones connected to our network all on WiFi on a static IP
Your help would be very much appreciated again in this. You're all far cleverer than I.
Thanks in anticipation of restoring my stress levels to normal 

[#14]

Quote

Okay it's happened again and they say it's due to excessive port scans in a given period which is causing the block. They (Hostpapa) say that either my ftp client is doing it or there may be a virus causing it.

I'm assuming as they have said it might be your FTP client doing this that the port scans they are seeing are on port 21?
You could try running Wireshark on whichever machine you  generally use and then search the output file for the hosting company IP address.

[#15]

Have they confirmed that it is an individual IP that is being blocked or an IP subnet? It could easily be the latter and therefore nothing to do with you that triggers the block.