Random "You are banned From Vaping Underground" screen

[madmonkey]

Hey everyone...have a quick question...

Is anyone else getting random "You have been banned from Vaping Underground" screens not letting you post in threads? It is completely random...it will let me post a thread here but not reply there....or it will let me send a private message to one person but not another. If I pissed someone off I am sorry but I don't know what I did to get random bans. Has anyone else experienced this? it just started in the last couple days. I can read everything but I can't respond.

Am I the only one this has happened too?

 

[dr_rox]

2 things - Blocking error - too many tabs open w/ VU loaded.
2nd - if you get 522 error showing Cloudflare unable to get to host - use
www.vapingunderground.com
CF doesn't resolve without the "www."
Latter condition is erratic.

 

[madmonkey]

I am getting the same message that @5150sick was getting...I also got routed to a page saying I was blocked and not just a pop up. I tried to save it but only the text came threw. It's just random and weird...there's no rhyme or reason to the things it blocks me from....I couldn't reply to a thread but I could start this one. I am not the only one this is happening to apparently either

 

[madmonkey]

 

[madmonkey]

Also...this is the most recent thread I have been "blocked" from...right now it's the only one I've tried tonight that continually kicks me even after a DNS reset and everything....

http://vapingunderground.com/threads/best-least-expensive-mod-to-cloud-chase.67026/#post-406803

I need to get some sleep. Thank you for taking the time to help me but it's my bed time. I am not super worried about not being able to post in a thread at the moment but I hope this glitch gets resolved...it could become a problem if more of us start getting randomly "banned" from random things

 

[Smoky Blue]

weird.. i havent seen that one nor have i had the normal server busy error code..
just my observation since the site has come back.. in fact, i think the site is running even faster on the new server..
could just be me tho.. hate to hear you are having issues..

 

[TheBloke]

I am getting the same message that @5150sick was getting...I also got routed to a page saying I was blocked and not just a pop up. I tried to save it but only the text came threw. It's just random and weird...there's no rhyme or reason to the things it blocks me from....I couldn't reply to a thread but I could start this one. I am not the only one this is happening to apparently either

Yes, I am getting this constantly today. Exactly the same - I am often redirected to the CloudFlare Captcha screen, and sometimes forum features break just saying "YOU ARE BLOCKED". I assume this is because it wants to show me the captcha, but because I'm in the middle of a POST operation it's unable to do so. And of course the forum software doesn't understand what's happened so it can't handle it gracefully.

I very nearly lost a 3000-word post edit; fortunately I have a hard-grained habit of always copying and pasting any web form submission before hitting submit!

I started copying it back in (still a lot of work because I had to re-do some formatting that Word isn't preserving), and as soon as I hit Preview I got the message again.

This is not the first time I've had it. Today the forum is almost unusable for me because of it, but I had it appear once a few days ago as well. I've only been a member a couple of weeks and haven't tried to post much, so can't give a detailed analysis.

It's clearly a problem with VU's CDN network, CloudFlare. They're filtering the traffic coming to the website and they seem to think that some IPs, or some networks, or some browsers, or god know's what! are representing a spam/malware risk.

Hopefully this can be escalated to the forum administrator to raise with CloudFlare? Or if you're not using CloudFlare direct, talk to your hosting ISP.

I'm holding off trying to post in the meantime, it's too frustrating!

Thanks in advance.

 

[Whiskey]

@VaporJoes

 

[ej1024]

It's all good here...
BIGBOYVAPER

 

[TheBloke]

@VaporJoes

Here's a quick example, which just happened right now:

1. I go to this post and click edit: http://vapingunderground.com/thread...-beta-looking-for-feedback.57818/#post-405728
2. In the section under "Missing DB Flavours", I paste in the following few lines:
3. • FA Custard
   • FA Cinammon Ceylon (and any other cinammons that exist too, DB has none)
   • FA Marshmallow
   • FA Billyberry
   • FA Lemon Sicily (unless this is 'Lemon flavour')
   • FA Fresh Cream (unless this is 'Cream flavour')
4. I click "More Options" to go to the advanced form
5. I get the following CloudFare redirect:
   1. 
6. I fill out the CAPTCHA, and am then redirected to this forum error (because the forum hasn't understood what just happened to me!)
   1. 

So I basically can't edit that post at the moment, with any amount of new content. That is a very long post, so maybe it's related to the volume of information my browser is submitting. (I'm hoping this post will get through!)

EDIT: This one did work, obviously And this edit too hopefully!

 

[Whiskey]

Thanks for the screen shot, it helps for CJ & Joe to see whats going on, hopefully we'll get this taken care of shortly

 

[VaporJoe]

Here's a quick example, which just happened right now:

1. I go to this post and click edit: http://vapingunderground.com/thread...-beta-looking-for-feedback.57818/#post-405728
2. In the section under "Missing DB Flavours", I paste in the following few lines:
3. • FA Custard
   • FA Cinammon Ceylon (and any other cinammons that exist too, DB has none)
   • FA Marshmallow
   • FA Billyberry
   • FA Lemon Sicily (unless this is 'Lemon flavour')
   • FA Fresh Cream (unless this is 'Cream flavour')
4. I click "More Options" to go to the advanced form
5. I get the following CloudFare redirect:
   1. 
6. I fill out the CAPTCHA, and am then redirected to this forum error (because the forum hasn't understood what just happened to me!)
   1. 

So I basically can't edit that post at the moment, with any amount of new content. That is a very long post, so maybe it's related to the volume of information my browser is submitting. (I'm hoping this post will get through!)

EDIT: This one did work, obviously And this edit too hopefully!

I can see from your screenshot you have a ton of VU threads open. Each tab is a connection to VU. Try connecting with just a few tabs. We have a connection limit before you are temp blocked.

 

[TheBloke]

Thanks for the fast response.

That's pretty unfortunate though. I often have lots of tabs open to any site I'm using. I can't close them at the moment, I need them for reference. I'll give it another go later or tomorrow, and I'll try with and without the tabs to confirm that that's the cause.

Thanks.

 

[HeadInClouds]

We have a connection limit before you are temp blocked.

Oooooh, I don't think people are aware of that!

 

[AmandaD]

I'm trying to reply to a thread I was just chatting in - and suddenly I'm unable to post! I only have one VU tab open, and I only seem to be blocked from that thread. http://vapingunderground.com/threads/need-help-trying-to-salvage-some-ejuice.69229/#post-415722

 

[5150sick]

I'm trying to reply to a thread I was just chatting in - and suddenly I'm unable to post! I only have one VU tab open, and I only seem to be blocked from that thread. http://vapingunderground.com/threads/need-help-trying-to-salvage-some-ejuice.69229/#post-415722

I had a similar problem but I wasn't really blocked.
This is the screenshot of what mine looked like:



When I clicked outside of the error box it would vanish and I wasn't actually blocked
When I started typing again it would pop back up in like 3 or 4 words typed.

It never happened again but with the complete overhaul in the forum along with the security upgrades bugs like this are to be expected.
By any chance are any of you using a VPN or Tor?
That could cause a security threat false positive.

 

[AmandaD]

Nope not using a VPN or Tor. I did log in using the link Joe lists above, and I was then able to reply without getting the screen!

 

[madmonkey]

I know CJ is working on it, he was kind and patient and spent the better part of the day talking me threw and working on fixing my problems on friday...This is the first time I've heard of anyone else having problems but if you are unable to resolve it yourself let CJ know and he will take the time to help you....he really doesn't get enough props I think for all the work he puts into here. I know I would have wanted to shoot me if it was me trying to help me and I am grateful for all the assistance

 

[CJ]

Like @madmonkey was saying, if you need assistance please open a private message with me including a tracert to vapingunderground.com as well as your IP or and VPN IP you might be using.

 

[cherrycakes]

I'm having trouble posting in the alternate universe thread. Don't know why

 

[Whiskey]

Kelli asked that we close it. Admin allowed the closing.

 

[NightOwl]

Blocked, not banned.. Huge difference. Banned is a trigger word for some of us around here.

 

[vaperature]

 

[OBDave]

Just started getting this problem today in trying to access my PM...errr..."Conversations" box. I'm using Chrome and only have one VU tab open at once, is this still an ongoing isue? I've tried refreshing, closing and reloading the site, still wonky - heck, I'll be surprised if this post goes through!

 

[madmonkey]

Just started getting this problem today in trying to access my PM...errr..."Conversations" box. I'm using Chrome and only have one VU tab open at once, is this still an ongoing isue? I've tried refreshing, closing and reloading the site, still wonky - heck, I'll be surprised if this post goes through!

I'll tag @CJ in this post so he sees that it happened again and he is very kind and been super helpful about working this bug out...I am sure you'll forget you had an issue at all in no time and say Thank you CJ in advance

 

[OBDave]

It seems the only thing I'm blocked from doing is trying to help a Chinese vendor out and explaining that asking for help spamming the forum is going to win them more friends than enemies - I'm not even allowed to copy/paste the message I'd attempted to PM into a thread, though I've been posting fine elsewhere all day...weird.

 

[TheBloke]

I'd not had the issue for a good while until last night. When I had it I was trying to paste in a long-ish post.

I only had one VU tab open at the time.

I pasted in the full post, and got redirected to the Captcha. As before, upon filling that out, the forum software was confused and put me at an error page. I went back to the new post page, and this time I pasted my post in in parts - a few lines at a time, hitting Preview after each one. That worked fine.

Information on the post that triggered the error:

• 41 total lines
  • 20 non-blank lines; 21 blank lines
• 1861 total characters
• Lots of URLs, if that makes any difference (I was pasting image links wrapped in URL and IMG tags for images hosted on Imgur)

So I'm guessing there's some kind of anti-spam protection that kicks in based on the volume of data sent in one go? And/or possibly more likely to kick in when the post contains URLs? (Though this is the first time I've posted with a lot of IMG/URL links, when I first had the problem a week or two ago, the text I was putting in contained no URLs at all - but was lengthy.)

The issue is certainly not causing me any regular pain any more, and if the only problem is that I have to submit long posts in multiple chunks, I can definitely live with that. But it would be nice if the sensitivity of the protection could be turned down a bit.

 

[TheBloke]

Three further data points - all occurred when I had only a single VU tab open.

1. I wrote this very long post, and did not suffer the issue.
   1. This post is far longer than the one I mentioned earlier.
   2. But a key difference is that I wrote it live into the new post box, and therefore there was a large time difference between my page requests: probably 10 minutes or more.
2. Later, I came back to edit that same post and did suffer the issue.
   1. This time I made a small change and then quickly hit Preview to check it. This triggered the Captcha screen.
   2. So again this was a case of submitting a large amount of data a relatively short time after my last page request - even though the post content was nearly identical to earlier when it was not triggered.
3. On another occasion, I created this post containing multiple quotes and when I clicked More Options to go to the full size editor, I experienced the problen
   1. This is another case of submitting a lot of data a short time after the last request
   2. Because this forum doesn't seem to have the "Add to quote" feature, what I did was hit Reply on post 1, copied the quote, hit Reply on post 2, copied the quote, hit Reply on post 3, copied the quote, then pasted all of them together into the New Post box so I could add in my replies in one go.
   3. But then I hit More Options to use the bigger editor, and because I did this within seconds of my last request, it again triggered the issue.

So it seems quite clear - it's the combination of a lot of content, a short time after the last page request.

Unfortunately this is quite easy to do in situations such as editing an existing large post and then quickly hitting Preview or More Options to go to the bigger editor. Or when pasting in pre-written information, such as collating quotes to reply to all at once.

The good news is that in all cases I was able to get the new post/edit submitted fairly quickly, and on these new occasions the problem was improved in that after seeing the Captcha screen, I wasn't then presented with a forum error. Instead it redirected me to the intended Edit Post or New Post screen. That's a first - on all other occasions the Captcha screen has killed whatever I was trying to do (in one case resulting in my losing a large amount of changed post.)

I also now make a point of always copying my post content to clipboard before I press any buttons

Hope that helps!

 

[lordmage]

tagging @CJ so he can see it again

 

[CJ]

@TheBloke - Will see what I can do about this. Can you PM me your IP please.

 

[TheBloke]

@TheBloke - Will see what I can do about this. Can you PM me your IP please.

Wonderful, thanks CJ!

 

[HeadInClouds]

I gotten the same error shown in post #16 several times today, but never before.
In each case I was typing a new message - nothing fancy or unusual, same stuff I always do. I could just click outside the error box to make it vanish and continue typing my message.

 

[Chibisaurus]

I just joined, and was trying to post in the new members section.. Can't.

 

[madmonkey]

I just joined, and was trying to post in the new members section.. Can't.

Well welcome to Vaping Underground...please don't let this dissway you from sticking around a bit. There's tons of friendly people and a wealth of vaping knowledge to be seen here. There was an upgrade done to the serves a month or so ago and the security protocalls were changed and some times certain words matched with the way your internet signal is routed to the server triggers it by accident as best as I can understand...I went threw this problem twice...once after the update and once after I did a wipe and reinstall of everything on my laptop. I've tagged @CJ to see this post...he is the webmaster and is super helpful and have you up and posting with the best of us in no time...sorry this happened to you and once again...welcome, I hope you enjoy your stay

 

[Chibisaurus]

Well welcome to Vaping Underground...please don't let this dissway you from sticking around a bit. There's tons of friendly people and a wealth of vaping knowledge to be seen here. There was an upgrade done to the serves a month or so ago and the security protocalls were changed and some times certain words matched with the way your internet signal is routed to the server triggers it by accident as best as I can understand...I went threw this problem twice...once after the update and once after I did a wipe and reinstall of everything on my laptop. I've tagged @CJ to see this post...he is the webmaster and is super helpful and have you up and posting with the best of us in no time...sorry this happened to you and once again...welcome, I hope you enjoy your stay

Thank you! I'm new to vaping so all help related forums are my friend I seem to be able to respond in the quick box. So no creating threads as of now. But thats okay!

 

[madmonkey]

Thank you! I'm new to vaping so all help related forums are my friend I seem to be able to respond in the quick box. So no creating threads as of now. But thats okay!

http://vapingunderground.com/thread...-sick-clouds-bro-thread-sticky-edition.78126/

Well, that sucks...in the mean time till they get you going full steam since you're new I suggest reading through this thread and related threads that are linked from it. It's a work in progress but it's kind of a unoficial "new vapor's beginner guide" a couple us put together written by my good friend @OBDave. It's full of all kinds of helpful things that I am sure can help at least answer some of your questions till you get sorted out

 

[OBDave]

Saw I was tagged, figured I'd pop in - I've gotten the ban screen before too, been told it was because I was running multiple Chrome tabs with VU at once - not sure how exactly the machine elves work though, the ban has mostly been gone lately but occasionally rears its ugly head. Hoping one of the more technically-inclined folks weighs in soon...

 

[Chibisaurus]

http://vapingunderground.com/thread...-sick-clouds-bro-thread-sticky-edition.78126/

Well, that sucks...in the mean time till they get you going full steam since you're new I suggest reading through this thread and related threads that are linked from it. It's a work in progress but it's kind of a unoficial "new vapor's beginner guide" a couple us put together written by my good friend @OBDave. It's full of all kinds of helpful things that I am sure can help at least answer some of your questions till you get sorted out

Oh that's awesome! Thank you!

 

[TheBloke]

I've been away from this forum a couple of months. Came back today, thought I'd do some posts. Rather wish I hadn't now.

I made a new post, and half way through writing it I got the usual Ban message flash up half over the screen. Thought I'd lost the whole post content, but fortunately I could click away from the message which was overlaid over the forum, not obliterating it. I realise now that it popped up then because the auto-save had kicked in.

Tried to submit the whole post, failed. Tried four more times, failed. Eventually I just submitted the half of the post it had auto saved.

Now I'm trying to edit it. Tried putting the whole post in, failed. Tried again again again again. Eventually tried paragraph by paragraph. After 15 minutes I've managed to add one extra paragraph to it.

So now I'm trying to post the rest as a new post below that. I'm trying to post a 120 word new post, 584 characters, and I get the message every time.

So I pasted it into the box and then just left it, came over here to post this. Thought maybe a long delay might help (I seem to remember frequency of page loads was a factor.) Now I tab back to it, and guess what? Got the message again. That must be the auto save. Except this time nothing actually got saved.

Tried posting again, no dice of course. So I can't finish my post, either as an edit or a second post

This is the thread, look for my post at the bottom: http://vapingunderground.com/threads/stainless-steel-coils-for-temp-control.119306/

I guess I'll leave VU again for a while. I can't cope with this. Tested Chrome and IE, both with only a single tab open. I post on many other forums, many other sites, sometimes writing 3000 words at a time. This is the only forum I ever get this on.

 

[TheBloke]

I managed to post in this thread, obviously, and I managed to post a two sentence post in the other thread.

I'll come back in 15 minutes and try to edit that, see if I can say what I actually wanted to say.

 

[TheBloke]

Tried to edit post in the other thread to change it to the following content, whcih was blocked. Let's see if it works in this thread.

Nope it didn't work in this thread either, so I can't show you what I was going to post! Wonderful. Maybe I can write one more line, being this line.

 

[TheBloke]

This is what I have tried and failed (a dozen or more times now) to write in the other thread as a new post, and also failed in this thread. Will a screenshot work? Will anything work?

 

[TheBloke]

You can see I already cut out the actual image from that, thinking a URL might make it more likely to fail. But apparently just those three paragraphs of text on their own are enough for your anti-spam to label me a spammer.

OK I'll stop now. This has been going on for months now so I'm guessing you can't fix it, but it would be nice if you did.

Edit: I eventually gave up on trying to write those three paragraphs, instead writing three shorter paragraphs spread over two posts, which I did manage to get saved.

 

[5150sick]

There is one small phrase in there somewhere that cloudflare kicks out for some reason.
We had the same problem the other day and I got it narrowed down to one sentence.
It wasn't even anything bad or out of the ordinary.
We all tried posting the phrase and two of the other moderators were able to post it while four of us were getting the "blocked" message.
@CJ is trying to see if there is a fix for it.
I'm sorry I could not help you more but I'm getting the same message as you every once in a while.

 

[TheBloke]

@5150sick thank you! No, that is very helpful.

I am sorry for my earlier pissy tone. I had this problem a lot when I last was on VU, and that is one reason I stopped posting here (while posting every day on ECF.) Today I thought it was high time to come back here, and I found some good threads I wanted to pile into. Then it took me 30 mins to post one post and I got pissed, because my feeling was that this problem must only be for a tiny % of users and that therefore it wouldn't be found and wouldn't be fixed.

Now you have told me you are seeing it regularly, and it is easy to replicate, that is entirely a different story. I am sure now it will be addressed as quick as you are able.

Apologies again for being annoyed, and please do let me know if I can do further testing or analysis. I am a systems administrator/developer myself so perhaps I can help with testing or further isolating the problem if that turns out to be necessary.

Thanks!

 

[richardward77]

I post and always use my phone as the missus hoggs the computer and never had a prob.

Sent from my ST23i using Tapatalk

 

[Whiskey]

Moved to report a bug

 

[HeadInClouds]

@TheBloke you're not the only one. I had the same issue and tracked it to a series of 3 words: "popular" plus the name of a flavor brand plus the word "flavor". I had the same issue one more time and didn't bother trying to figure it out (just didn't make the post).

 

[Zamazam]

From my understanding it's a bug that's being addressed by our forum tech guy. No nanny filters.

 

[Zamazam]

Meh it's jus' a lil' bug... what could go wrong?

I suggest that if you want to quote me, you don't edit the quoted posts for snark, OK Shark?