Oops!

[MFGF]

Well, here am I a little embarrassed, 'fessing up to what I did. It all started so innocently. An eagle-eyed member (Lynn) alerted me to a new user who was an obvious spammer - links in his signature for all kinds of medications - you know the sort. Being a diligent muppet, I did the appropriate thing and banned him immediately.

Then I did my "good internet forum user" thing, and logged this guy's details on the stopforumspam.com site. Cognoise uses this site automatically to check new user accounts as they try to sign up - if they are logged on there as known spam accounts (via user name, email address or IP address) then they can't sign up with us. It seemed only fair to contribute and prevent other sites from having to deal with him. As I was putting his details in I half-noticed there was something odd about his IP address... more about this in a moment.

Next I did my "good housekeeping" duties and deleted the spam account altogether from Cognoise - now he's logged on stopforumspam, he can't sign back up again. Happy with myself for being a good, responsible and tidy muppet, I went back to what I was doing...

Around half an hour later I got another message from Lynn, asking if the Cognoise site was broken. I checked - nope - all looks good to me. I can access the site ok but Lynn can't. Strange!  It was on all her browsers, too, so not just a browser issue. I asked her to see if Tapatalk worked (it's an app for your smartphone that can access this forum). She told me it came back with a message saying "User guest is banned from the site. This ban is indefinite".

Uh oh. That didn't sound good. The only banning that had been done recently was by me. I hadn't banned anyone but the spammer, though! Or had I???

I went straight back to the ban logs and deleted the ban entry. Suddenly, as if by magic, the issues disappeared. Lynn could get back in via web browser and log in via tapatalk. Oh my!

So - my confession for today is that I inadvertently but effectively banned everyone on this wonderful forum for a short period of time. I have severely reprimanded myself and I will make sure the muppet doesn't do it again! :)

The one remaining mystery was how! I went back and checked the information in the ban (I record it locally as well as on the server). For some mad, weird reason the spammer's IP address was listed as a 192.168 address. I should have paid more attention - this is an internal IP not an external one. My guess is it's the IP of the server itself, or maybe of the web server. I have no idea why Cognoise thought it was the spammer's IP address, but it did.

So - lesson learned. I will be a more diligent muppet in future. Sorry if you tried to get onto the site earlier today and saw

Fatal error: Call to undefined function template_ad_position() in E:\Web\Cognoise\Community\Sources\Load.php(2152) : eval()'d code on line 544

Mea culpa. I should ban myself now to atone :)

MF.

[Lynn]

We all need a little fun on Friday  :D

[charon]

Awesome! nuff said.. 8)

[racon]

hi MFGF

I'm having trouble reading any post on this forum.

Every time I try to read a post this message appears to me:
Fatal error: Call to undefined function template_ad_position () in E: \ Web \ Cognoise \ community \ Sources \ load.php (2152): eval () 'd code on line 544

same thing happens to my teammates trying to connect from the office. It may be that our IP has been banned?

Sent from my iphone  ;)

[MFGF]

Hi,

I'd be happy to check for you. Since the forum moved to a server behind the Avnet firewall I can no longer see anyone's real IP address - they get reported as internal IPs within the Avnet network. This means I can't see your real IP address to compare it with the ban logs. Currently you are appearing as 192.168.225.85 which isn't banned.

Can you send me a personal message with your real IP address so I can check?

Cheers!

MF.

[Crispen Dry]

Test message

[MFGF]

Ok. I can view posts and even post new replies as a normal "non moderator" user, so there is no generic issue with the site. I sent you an email - if you can reply and include your IP I will try to get to the bottom of the issue for you.

Cheers!

MF.

[racon]

Wow, now I can read and post again! I'm back in the era of cognos knowledge!!

Thanks MF

[MFGF]

Wow, now I can read and post again! I'm back in the era of cognos knowledge!!

Thanks MF

Great news! Glad we managed to get the issue resolved :)

[Grim]

bwaaahahahaha...

That's it, no more drinking on the job for you MF. :)

[MFGF]

bwaaahahahaha...

That's it, no more drinking on the job for you MF. :)

Awwww. That's the best part of the job ;)

I'm happy to report the guys at Avnet have fixed the IP address issue now - progress is being made! Now if only the plugin for stopforumspam would work, my life would be so much easier!

MF.