[Solved] Seemingly Random Banning

[Chimaeros]

I've recently been getting the following error when trying to access my [url=http]site[/url]:

It appears you have been banned from this website. If this is a mistake or you are not sure why you are banned, please contact the board administrator.

Board Administrator: *my email address is here*

You have been banned from this site.

The error appears on a white page. So far I have only noticed this when using Internet Explorer. However, I can usually just close the browser and reload the site and not get the banned message. I, as admin, as well as both registered members and guests have also gotten banned. Testing in FireFox I have yet to get the banned message.

Searching the forums I found references to a user -1 in the banlist so I checked that but did not find -1 there. Also there is a post about the referrer banlist being limited to 255 characters and exceeding that causes a similar but slightly different banned message. Would this be the same list as seen as "Un-ban one or more IP addresses" in the ACP's Ban Control? Not sure if I should just try deleting a bunch of the ips listed. I also checked to make sure I have the correct number of admins and mods set.

I know I need to update to phpBB 2.0.23 which I will try next but anyone have an idea what might be causing this? Is it simply a cookie issue? Any help would be much appreciated <img>

Edit: Hmm, did I enter this post incorrectly? I entered all the information in the CBACK Supportticket System but I don't see it now.

My host recently upgraded to php 5.1.4 and I didn't notice this problem before that.

[found it]

I will look into your problem for you ... but I personally havnt seen this problem before....

Have you changed any files on your site recently... or changed anything...

off topic... what an absolute wow looking theme on your site... great colours, personally love the whole look....

[Chimaeros]

Thanks, I appreciate the kind words! Hopefully it will - hard to say since I can't reliably duplicate the banning. Will let you know.

I suspect though that it is more something to do with the host than the integramod version (unless it is a case of one too many ips banned?) - my wife has the same build on another host that is using php 5.2.4 and hasn't had this problem. I'm hoping there is something I can do in the settings to fix/work-around it.

Thanks!

[Chimaeros]

Upgrading to 2.0.23 seemed to fix the banning. While 2.0.22 appears to work fine with PHP 5.2.4 I guess it isn't well liked by 5.1.4 <img> My backup site on a different host never saw this banning occur so it must be something between those two.

I am tentatively going to call this solved since I only got a couple of days to test it before my host developed other problems and now my site may or may not be up at any given time...getting core dump files for the first time, php pages giving "page cannot load" messages, etc. Good stuff.

Once that is figured out I will keep an eye open to see if this rears its head again.

Thanks again.