Has any veteran forum member been banned by mistake?

[Pugsy]

Hopefully you can at least read this.
I got your PM about not being able to post due to being banned.
I replied to your PM but you haven't opened my reply....maybe you can't.

I did NOT ban you nor have I banned any IP addresses in years because I fear that a legit forum member might be affected.

I did send Carolyn a note about your problem because since I didn't ever ban you I can't unban you or fix the problem.

We have had a couple of others who got the "you are banned" message and I didn't ban them either but it was intermittent and seems to have got sorted out.

[chunkyfrog]

That is so freakin weird.
Hacker attack?

[Pugsy]

That is so freakin weird.
Hacker attack?

No....the mysterious banning happened also when we were having so much trouble for so long with the forum software being messed up. I am pretty sure it is a simple software issue.

[Miss Emerita]

Yes, I got banned a couple of times during the connectivity problems.

[Phroger]

Hopefully you can at least read this.
I got your PM about not being able to post due to being banned.
I replied to your PM but you haven't opened my reply....maybe you can't.

I did NOT ban you nor have I banned any IP addresses in years because I fear that a legit forum member might be affected.

I did send Carolyn a note about your problem because since I didn't ever ban you I can't unban you or fix the problem.

We have had a couple of others who got the "you are banned" message and I didn't ban them either but it was intermittent and seems to have got sorted out.

Hi Pugsy,

First off, thank you.

Second, no I could not even read this until I created an account (which I just did).

Third, I had forgotten that I had not created an account here before: I only used this forum as a lurker. Belated thanks to all the participants and moderators (and you Pugsy) for all you do.

Fourth, in order to even create an account, log in, etc... I had to turn off the "Limit IP address tracking" setting in the networking section of the settings for my Mac (running the Sonoma MacOS). Until I did, my real IP address was not the one being really used when it hit your server, and so it could have been a real anti-spam measure taken by your site against "someone", but not me per se.

Fifth, all is well now!

[Pugsy]

so it could have been a real anti-spam measure taken by your site against "someone", but not me per se.

Not by me as I quit blocking IP addresses years ago when I accidentally blocked the IP address that RickBlaine in the UK uses.

I set up this post/thread when I realized you hadn't read my replies to your PM to me.

I did get an email from Carolyn last night about your problem and she is going to check on it but I don't know that anything can be done.

[Phroger]

so it could have been a real anti-spam measure taken by your site against "someone", but not me per se.

Not by me as I quit blocking IP addresses years ago when I accidentally blocked the IP address that RickBlaine in the UK uses.

I set up this post/thread when I realized you hadn't read my replies to your PM to me.

I did get an email from Carolyn last night about your problem and she is going to check on it but I don't know that anything can be done.

Thanks again, Pugsy. All is well now.

And by "your site" I meant the forum software on the server may be configured to automatically blacklist IP addresses under certain circumstances, but that is almost always a bad idea as the bad actors are users aka people, not IP addresses and very few people have fixed addresses that they can be equated to. Software masquerading IP addresses such as Apple's Private Relay (which I was using and is now turned off by Apple because it is having issues now too) does not help that situation either.

It's nothing you did Pugsy. All you did was good, including trying to reply to me, but as a non-user, I could not access any PMs and could not even see the main page.

Cheers,

[Pugsy]

And by "your site" I meant the forum software on the server may be configured to automatically blacklist IP addresses under certain circumstances

I don't think that the forum software itself automatically blocks certain IP addresses for the very reasons you mentioned.
I know back when they made me moderator Carolyn told me that they/She didn't do that very often because of maybe blocking a "good" poster by accident.

And....you were able to at least send me a private message and at the time you did you weren't blocked/banned because you were able to send me a PM. People who are banned/blocked can't send PMs to anyone. So at least when you composed your PM to me you weren't blocked.
Might be like what happened to MissEmerita...her issues were random and no rhyme or reason to it and we chalked it up to the forum software issues were have been having for quite some time...and hopefully those issues are now fixed and won't return.

I dunno....you might check your RogerSC account randomly and see if you are still blocked/banned. It might clear itself up on it's own.

[Phroger]

And....you were able to at least send me a private message and at the time you did you weren't blocked/banned because you were able to send me a PM. People who are banned/blocked can't send PMs to anyone. So at least when you composed your PM to me you weren't blocked.

Actually, I sent the message from a form available from the screen saying that I was banned: there was a link to message the Administrator. And I couldn't otherwise have sent a PM because...

I dunno....you might check your RogerSC account randomly and see if you are still blocked/banned. It might clear itself up on it's own.

I didn't have an account on this site, until yesterday when I created one to respond to this thread. As I said, I was a lurker until then, which I had forgotten about. So there wasn't even an account to ban, just an IP address... which wasn't even mine at the time, because I am using Apple's Private Relay, which masks their user real IP addresses. Whew!

All good. Thanks again, Pugsy!

[Pugsy]

Okay, all is good.
I am going to now unsticky this thread and let it fade away and not be at the top of the list anymore.

Glad you got it sorted out and you know it wasn't of my doing.

Now I gotta go find that elephant that walked on my back all night and whip his ass. Probably going to rain either tonight or tomorrow ....or miss a damn good chance. I hurt like hell right now and I got a mess to clean up. My Keurig quit this morning....quit before I got my first cup of coffee this morning. Sigh...it was old. Anyway, just now got home from WalMart and got my new Keurig up and running and finally got my much needed coffee. All is right with the world.

[RogerSC]

Pugsy, I really appreciate the message. I've just been reading, haven't posted since I was banned. I was unbanned without comment after a while, but for someone who's spent a career in computers it was pretty easy to figure out how to get around an IP address ban to be able to read postings.

Anyways, don't know if I'll be posting again, still have a bit of PTSD from the abrupt banning for no apparent reason that I could figure out.

Thanks again.

[Phroger]

This gets interesting.

There is an actual user called RogerSC: hi there RogerSC!

So, it was entirely wrong for me to post in this thread as I am not him, yet I am also a Roger of sorts, and I also received the message that I was banned while trying to view the forum home page. I explained that I didn't even have an account here (I was just a lurker), and that I did create one when I saw Pugsy message to whom I thought was me. My bad, and RogerSC, my apologies.

Again, all good now.

[Pugsy]

Well I am thoroughly confused now.

I am certain of one fact ..... I know I didn't ban RogerSC. I think he was a victim of forum software gremlins.

[Dog Slobber]

So Rogers are being mysteriously banned.

Could explain why Roger (Moore, Waters, Taylor, Daltrey, Clemens, Rabbit, etc.), have never posted here.

[RogerSC]

This gets interesting.

There is an actual user called RogerSC: hi there RogerSC!

So, it was entirely wrong for me to post in this thread as I am not him, yet I am also a Roger of sorts, and I also received the message that I was banned while trying to view the forum home page. I explained that I didn't even have an account here (I was just a lurker), and that I did create one when I saw Pugsy message to whom I thought was me. My bad, and RogerSC, my apologies.

Again, all good now.

Yes, that's largely why I posted...no problem, just felt that I should respond so that it was clear that the OG RogerSC has seen this *smile*.