Pendraken Miniatures Forum

Welcome => Forum Info => Topic started by: GrumpyOldMan on 24 March 2015, 10:01:04 PM

Title: First the Preview Button - and now Banned!!
Post by: GrumpyOldMan on 24 March 2015, 10:01:04 PM
Hello All

I don't know if the vet was playing with the hamsters in the wheel but I just had the disturbing event of being Banned from the Pendraken website.

I was slurping around in my usual fashion when I started getting screens that said 'An Error has Occurred!' in the header, announcing I was banned from using the forum and not allowing me to log-on. Screen cap below. It seems to have cleared up now. It would now let me log on (after first rejecting my PC entered password). Very unusual and frightening, I've started doing a AV and Malware scan just in case  :o.

Anybody else have this happen?

Edit: When I tried to post this message I got

"Warning!
Sorry, you cannot post new topics in this board.
Please login below or register an account with Pendraken Miniatures Forum."

and then

" The following error or errors occurred while posting this message:
Your session timed out while posting. Please try to re-submit your message.
No subject was filled in.
The message body was left empty. "

This my second attempt at this message.

Edit 2

Been playing around (who said that I'm AR) and it seems to be the forum reacting to a particular IP identity in Anonymox in Firefox, UK5f - 146.185.31.221. Obviously somebody used this IP to do something naughty in the past


Cheers

GrumpyOldMan

Title: Re: First the Preview Button - and now Banned!!
Post by: getagrip on 24 March 2015, 10:14:10 PM
 :o

Serves you right for being grumpy  ;)

If you get banned though,  Lord help the rest of us :o :o :o
Title: Re: First the Preview Button - and now Banned!!
Post by: Leon on 24 March 2015, 10:32:44 PM
That's an interesting one, I'll have to mention that to Matt and see what's caused it.  It could be the IP, as we do have a list of previously banned IP's used by spammers, but it would be a bit of a coincidence for you to have the same address as one of them. 

Are you sure you've never sold Viagra or Ugg boots?!   :D
Title: Re: First the Preview Button - and now Banned!!
Post by: getagrip on 24 March 2015, 10:34:41 PM
Quote from: Leon on 24 March 2015, 10:32:44 PM
That's an interesting one, I'll have to mention that to Matt and see what's caused it.  It could be the IP, as we do have a list of previously banned IP's used by spammers, but it would be a bit of a coincidence for you to have the same address as one of them. 

Are you sure you've never sold Viagra or Ugg boots?!   :D

Is that going to be a "standard " forum question cos, if it is, er... :-[
Title: Re: First the Preview Button - and now Banned!!
Post by: GrumpyOldMan on 25 March 2015, 12:04:31 AM
Hello Leon

Quote from: Leon on 24 March 2015, 10:32:44 PM
Are you sure you've never sold Viagra or Ugg boots?!   :D

Well, yes I did but the Viagra + Ugg Boots package was not a successful marketing strategy. Even snappy slogans like "With our package only the pills will be blue! Your feet are snug and warm!!" made no impact on sales  :-\ :-\.

(Good Lord, what have I unleashed...... X_X X_X )

AnonymoX is a Firefox anonymous web browsing tool that loads a fake IP into the browser, UK5f - 146.185.31.221 is one of those fake IPs. So nowadays banning IPs is only able to stop the dumb spammers, the smart ones will just switch to a new fake IP. AnonymoX can also be set to delete cookies from a web site and receive a new one. I know this all seems excessive but I tend to err on the side of caution in regard to security.

Now can I interest you in a our special, never to be repeated, but wait there's more, buy one now and get another free, St Moritz Après-ski Viagra and Ugg boot pack  8) 8) 8).

Cheers

GrumpyOldMan
Title: Re: First the Preview Button - and now Banned!!
Post by: paulr on 25 March 2015, 03:59:55 AM
Perhaps the forum detected you were on TMP as well and was 'protecting' the rest of us :o :o :o
Title: Re: First the Preview Button - and now Banned!!
Post by: Lord Kermit of Birkenhead on 25 March 2015, 07:55:26 AM
Leon - just don't let him back in......

You could try rejoining with another email address......not from the same provider.

IanS
Title: Re: First the Preview Button - and now Banned!!
Post by: GrumpyOldMan on 25 March 2015, 10:26:14 PM
Quote from: ianrs54 on 25 March 2015, 07:55:26 AM
Leon - just don't let him back in......

It's too late, I'm back   :D :D

QuoteYou could try rejoining with another email address......not from the same provider.

IanS

Actually I could give lessons to some of these spammers on how to join with a false IP and a throwaway email address (only lasts for 60 minutes)  :d :d, but let's face it when you're a spammer and the scum of the earth  >:(, nobody expects you to be bright as well =) =).

(Sometime soon I'm going to learn to stop pressing the Preview button and expecting something to happen - "Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Albert Einstein)

Cheers

GrumpyOldMan
Title: Re: First the Preview Button - and now Banned!!
Post by: Leon on 26 March 2015, 01:00:15 AM
Quote from: GrumpyOldMan on 25 March 2015, 10:26:14 PM
(Sometime soon I'm going to learn to stop pressing the Preview button and expecting something to happen - "Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Albert Einstein)

There's still no update on that I'm afraid, we're still waiting on the upgrade from the people who make the forum software.  It's affecting a lot of the forums using this software, so you'd think it would be reasonably high up the priority list...  :-\
Title: Re: First the Preview Button - and now Banned!!
Post by: cbr3d.com on 26 March 2015, 02:40:37 PM
Quote from: Leon on 26 March 2015, 01:00:15 AM
There's still no update on that I'm afraid, we're still waiting on the upgrade from the people who make the forum software.  It's affecting a lot of the forums using this software, so you'd think it would be reasonably high up the priority list...  :-\

Leon - that is the flaw in your argument, you used logic when thinking about programmers! 
Title: Re: First the Preview Button - and now Banned!!
Post by: Leon on 26 March 2015, 05:32:33 PM
Quote from: Fig.ht on 26 March 2015, 02:40:37 PM
Leon - that is the flaw in your argument, you used logic when thinking about programmers! 

Yeah...  :(
Title: Re: First the Preview Button - and now Banned!!
Post by: GrumpyOldMan on 26 March 2015, 09:39:09 PM
Hello

Quote from: Leon on 26 March 2015, 01:00:15 AM
There's still no update on that I'm afraid, we're still waiting on the upgrade from the people who make the forum software.  It's affecting a lot of the forums using this software, so you'd think it would be reasonably high up the priority list...  :-\

Well, there's the mistake. From my experience herding cats managing programmers, the thing to do would have been to tell them that this is a difficult problem but that, in the end, it is of small consequence. This would have ensured that they would expend 95% of their efforts on it, and, wonders of wonders, even work cooperatively  ;D ;D.

Cheers

GrumpyOldMan
(Preview button still not working, still haven't learnt not to push the button #-o)
Title: Re: First the Preview Button - and now Banned!!
Post by: Vamboozle on 26 March 2015, 10:27:08 PM
Quote from: GrumpyOldMan on 26 March 2015, 09:39:09 PM
Hello

Well, there's the mistake. From my experience herding cats managing programmers, the thing to do would have been to tell them that this is a difficult problem but that, in the end, it is of small consequence. This would have ensured that they would expend 95% of their efforts on it, and, wonders of wonders, even work cooperatively  ;D ;D.

Cheers

GrumpyOldMan
(Preview button still not working, still haven't learnt not to push the button #-o)

Agree with all of that - alternatively just tell them there's a doughnut in it. That usually works in my experience  ;)
Title: Re: First the Preview Button - and now Banned!!
Post by: paulr on 27 March 2015, 12:01:37 AM
Another, possible, bug you might like to take up with them Leon

In the "Recent Unread Topics" there are a couple of "MARK AS READ" buttons, these used to mark any unread topics on the page as read but leave any others as unread. Very useful for a few threads that you don't want to read at work or on a crowded train. You could then click on "Click here to try all unread topics".

It now appears that it marks all unread as read  :( >:( I know I hadn't read a number of topics but don't know which ones  :-/

PS Preview sometimes works for me, but only sometimes
Title: Re: First the Preview Button - and now Banned!!
Post by: Leon on 27 March 2015, 12:19:40 AM
Quote from: paulr on 27 March 2015, 12:01:37 AM
In the "Recent Unread Topics" there are a couple of "MARK AS READ" buttons, these used to mark any unread topics on the page as read but leave any others as unread. Very useful for a few threads that you don't want to read at work or on a crowded train. You could then click on "Click here to try all unread topics".

It now appears that it marks all unread as read  :( >:( I know I hadn't read a number of topics but don't know which ones  :-/

Thanks for the feedback, it's always done that for me though?  I always keep the requests/votes and also some queries, ready to come back to later, so I use that feature quite a bit.  I made the mistake about a year ago of clicking the 'Mark As Read' button by accident and lost all of them.  Luckily I'd just finished totting up votes, so it wasn't too bad.

When you say it '...used to mark any unread topics as read...' did you have little check buttons next to the topics to do that?  I've never had any way of selecting'/choosing the threads to then perform an action on them?
Title: Re: First the Preview Button - and now Banned!!
Post by: paulr on 27 March 2015, 01:30:18 AM
No check buttons, was just a really handy feature. It just seemed to work that way for me up until a few weeks ago :-/ :-/ :-/
Title: Re: First the Preview Button - and now Banned!!
Post by: Leon on 27 March 2015, 03:21:57 AM
Quote from: paulr on 27 March 2015, 01:30:18 AM
No check buttons, was just a really handy feature. It just seemed to work that way for me up until a few weeks ago :-/ :-/ :-/

Hmmm... not sure then.  How were you able to select which threads you wanted to mark as read?
Title: Re: First the Preview Button - and now Banned!!
Post by: paulr on 27 March 2015, 03:43:00 AM
It seemed to only mark those in the "Recent Unread Topic", i.e. those since my last visit not the older unread ones...
Title: Re: First the Preview Button - and now Banned!!
Post by: Leon on 27 March 2015, 07:08:37 PM
Quote from: paulr on 27 March 2015, 03:43:00 AM
It seemed to only mark those in the "Recent Unread Topic", i.e. those since my last visit not the older unread ones...

Ah right, so there wasn't any way of selecting which threads you wanted to mark, it just did all the ones shown on screen?  I'll have to chat with the webguy about it and see if there's been any other changes made to the software that we didn't know about.
Title: Re: First the Preview Button - and now Banned!!
Post by: Techno on 27 March 2015, 07:34:48 PM
I thought it had been like that for ages...... :-\

Cheers - Phil
Title: Re: First the Preview Button - and now Banned!!
Post by: Cavillarius on 24 September 2018, 10:33:47 AM
Just had the same problem, threw out the pendraken cookies. That seems to fix it (for now...).  :-X