Austin Improv

I'm posting this through a web proxy. It looks like my IP range at work has been banned. I keep getting strange errors:

phpBB : Critical Error

Could not update ban information

DEBUG MODE

SQL Error : 1054 Unknown column 'ban_reason' in 'field list'

INSERT INTO phpbb2_banlist (ban_ip, ban_reason) VALUES ('d1a38308', 'http:BL:10.59.5')

Line : 197
File : sessions.php

Can someone help a brother out?

-Jericho

That's really weird. I just checked the entire list of IP ranges banned, and nothing comes that close to the 3 different IPs you've posted from. Maybe Bob has an idea?

Can you take a screenshot of the error? Do the values ever change?

The values never change. I'm seeing the same thing in Explorer and Firefox.

I'm working on it: the issue is because of http://www.projecthoneypot.org/httpbl.php and spam coming out of various ISPs. I've managed to kill spam account signups (by a frighteningly simple method) so I can back off from using httpBL. No idea why it's causing problems recently; it's been quiet for months.

I've got the same problem at home. I can access here at work, but banned from the casa.

So for some reason the IP blacklist module keeps IP addresses in the database (apparently) forever; if the Project Honeypot blacklist subsequently unblacklists an IP address, the forum never grasps that and lets the user back in. Not cool. There should be an expiry time after which the IP address is purged from the database and gets looked up again with Project Honeypot.

I analyzed the IP addresses blacklisted by the forum and 167 of the 531 addresses are obviously from the US (31%.) Of those, 17 were from Texas, Florida, or California so I purged them from the database. We'll see if that helps. I got complaints from people in CA, FL, and TX; no fucking way am I unbanning random Comcast addresses given the torrents of spam and other shit Comcast vents on the rest of the internet. Fuck Comcast with a lawnmower.

In the meantime, if the forum tells you you're banned, go to http://www.lawrencegoetz.com/programs/ipinfo/ to find your IP address and mail it to support(a)cynistar.net and I'll fix it.

If you're curious about why your IP address has been banned in the first place, plug that IP address into the Project Honeypot IP search page and weep. Much of the internet is a shithole.