Forums watched even if hidden to guests

by Niko June 4th 2014, 8:07 pm

Hello everbody,

I am here in order to report an issue

There are some forums, that even if they are hidden to guests, you can see guests viewing this forum

For example:
Forums watched even if hidden to guests I_love10

Forums watched even if hidden to guests I_love10

actually the forum presentazioni can be seen only by members, but from the Administration Control Panel, as you can see in the screenshot, there are some guests that are viewing its content

How is this possible?
Note: it's not the index page, that is visible for guests, but a sub-forum that has been set correctly with permissions

by Derri June 4th 2014, 10:33 pm

Sometimes if a staff member is viewing that forum and they time out. It can show them as a guest viewing that forum.

by Base June 4th 2014, 10:46 pm

Hello,

As long as you have set up the permissions correctly, you have nothing to worry about. Guests will always be presented with the log in page and there is no risk in having your forums viewed.

by **SLGray** June 5th 2014, 4:05 am

Even if it shows that they are viewing the page, all they would see is the log in information with the message, "You are not connected ...."

by Niko June 5th 2014, 3:23 pm

I haven't explained it well..

the forum is completely hidden to guests, for example the staff section isn't shown in this support forum for me.. so guests can't view it
but in some forums this happen (I know that it can't be true) but in the ACP you have that issue, and it shouldn't be like that

by Derri June 5th 2014, 3:30 pm

Niko! wrote:I haven't explained it well..

the forum is completely hidden to guests, for example the staff section isn't shown in this support forum for me.. so guests can't view it
but in some forums this happen (I know that it can't be true) but in the ACP you have that issue, and it shouldn't be like that

And what we've said even if they're viewing the forum somehow they're aren't seeing anything.

And like I said sometimes if a staff member or whoever has access to that times out and then clicks on something they'll show up as a guest viewing that forum.

by Niko June 5th 2014, 3:42 pm

ok, but actually the administrator (the only user registered) is logged in, and you can see these guests (that maybe aren't even real) viewing the forum

but: only the administrator knows about this forum, so guests can't even find the link of the forum, so they shouldn't appear on the online list
I know there are no problems, but a friends asked me to ask ( Razz

) about this because she is afraid of this

by auxanges June 6th 2014, 2:37 pm

Have the same problem for like 2 days now. Guests are "watching" some hidden sections of the forum. I banned like 20 IPs , all being from the same ISP ( Ashburn, Virginia). Tried to match the IPs with the one of the forum members but none match.

PS: when i see this happen there are like 10-15 guests from the same ISP.

LE : seems i found my answer here of what this guests are : https://help.forumotion.com/t127657-banning-a-range-of-named-addresses-please-i-hope but i still don`t know why they are shown as hidden section viewers. If anybody can enlighten me, please do.

by Neptune- June 7th 2014, 7:37 pm

Hello ^^

Niko! wrote:but: only the administrator knows about this forum, so guests can't even find the link of the forum

Guests might not see the link but they can find all your links in a very easy way.

Is it so difficult to try that one for example
http://www.fmcodes.com/f80-

f80 does not exist on your board, but it could be a forum only admin can see. In that case a guest would be listed like watching that forum, but the only thing they would watch is your login page.
Members would have a "Only administrators can ..." message

by Niko June 7th 2014, 7:47 pm

sorry, but I don't think that 10 members can be on the same hidden forum at the same time... pale

by Neptune- June 7th 2014, 8:04 pm

Anyway if they do not have any rights to see that forum they wont see anything else than login page/error message...

... so where is your problem even if you have 500 guests listed as watching that forum ?

by Niko June 9th 2014, 6:50 pm

actually I'm reporting an issue of a friend

just that.. I mean it's not so hard to understand.. as soon as it's impossible that 10 guests are in the same forum (that should be hidden to guests)... there's a bug pale

by Ange Tuteur June 9th 2014, 10:10 pm

Niko! wrote:but: only the administrator knows about this forum, so guests can't even find the link of the forum

True to a small degree however, you can type any forum link and go to it. Say if you're curious and just want to see how many forums are available.

For example, the link below will take you to the first forum created on the support.

Code:: //help.forumotion.com/f1-

You can increment the number value to explore the many different forums available. Note : you wont have permissions to access all forums, so you may be met with an error or login. You don't necessarily need to see the forum to go to it.

So these guests are either typing the link randomly, or are recent members who are logged out and have clicked on history, or a bookmark.