Members receiving 'you are banned' messages when they're not banned

I am the co-administrator of Cutting Edge:-
http://cuttingedge2.forumotion.co.uk/

At least three of our members have tried to log in to our forum in the last couple of days only to receive a message telling them that they are banned! They have not been banned and there is nothing in our security log to suggest as much.

Two of them have IPs which start with the same two numbers as some known hackers who are on our banned list. In case that was causing a block ban, I unbanned the IPs of the hackers, but the problem persists.

Any suggestions, please?

What is the exact error message they get?

Wow! Thank you for that prompt response.

I’m afraid that I haven’t yet seen the message, but I had these comments from a moderator:-

“Both are saying they're banned from here” and “This board tells them they are banned.”

Then I had this from a third member: “Hi Ivan, just gone to try to post and the site is telling me that I am banned from the forum.” Some hours after I had unbanned the IPs of the hackers, she tried again: “Hi Ivan. Still same result I'm afraid.”

I’ll go and ask that third member to send me an exact copy of the message she receives.

Ivan White wrote:I am the co-administrator of Cutting Edge:-
http://cuttingedge2.forumotion.co.uk/

At least three of our members have tried to log in to our forum in the last couple of days only to receive a message telling them that they are banned! They have not been banned and there is nothing in our security log to suggest as much.

Two of them have IPs which start with the same two numbers as some known hackers who are on our banned list. In case that was causing a block ban, I unbanned the IPs of the hackers, but the problem persists.

Any suggestions, please?

Yes there is a fault on the site.
I have just gone onto your forum,Cutting Edge, by clicking the above link and it does display the message "you have been banned from this forum."
And I am only a guest and have never registered or posted.
So it seems that guests cannot view that forum either.
There is a problem on that site as there are probably other guests who cannot view the forum.

Thank you for doing that, Andrea. Most of our forum should be available for guests to read, so there is clearly an error.

I'm wondering why some members are getting 'banned', while others seem to be posting as usual. Maybe those who log in automatically, as I do, are safe from this error?

Well Ivan it could be that maybe you have banned a range of IPs from some Internet Service Providers(ISPs.)
As many people have the same ISP and by doing that you could be blocking other innocent users from accessing the site. That's why I never banned IPs, as you could end up banning the wrong people, and even yourself by mistake.
But if it's not that, it is some other problem.

It definitely seems to be a problem with IP banning.

Andrea. I mentioned in my opening post that I had previously banned some specific IPs which started with the same two numbers as the IPs of two members who can't access the site, but I've never banned a range of IPs. I did unban those specific IPs last night, but it has made no difference. (I've come to realise that there is little point in banning specific IPs, since they change so frequently.)

Your own experience when you tried to log in to Cutting Edge suggests that there is a fault. Thank you for your interest and help.

Sanket wrote:It definitely seems to be a problem with IP banning.

Sanket,the strange thing was that when I tried going onto his forum using a proxy I could browse his forum.
But I was unable to other wise and even when I unplugged my router to change my IP.

As with a Dynamic IP it constantly changes,I still cannot view his site.

So is that the message you normally get if an IP is blocked from a forum?
I would not know as I have never been IP banned. Though I think there is a fault on his forum that is blocking out most IPs.

I believe so Andrea.
Can you provide a screenshot of where you have banned all IP's ?

Sanket. Thank you for your reply. I have removed all bans on IPs on the forum. Perhaps either you or Andrea would be kind enough to visit the site, as Andrea did earlier, and see if the ban message still appears:-
http://cuttingedge2.forumotion.co.uk/

For me it never gave me that warning.
Andrea, should confirm as she had gotten the warning.

I have just now clicked the link for Ivan's forum and it seems to be all right now as I could browse the forum. But I could not before, so it must have been because some IPs were blocked.

You have to be careful when banning IPs. Because although the intention is to only ban IP address of the user or users,who are causing problems on the forum. If you are not careful you could be banning a whole range of IPs.

When I had my forum which I deleted recently,I also had users who I banned. Then they came back onto the site with Proxy IPs or another IP address.
So even if I had banned the IPs which I didn't, it would have made no difference.
As they just come back onto the forum anyway, with another username and IP address.

Also most IPs are Dynamic IPs and so they constantly change anyway.
So IP banning would not work unless they had a static IP.

You could perhaps make it a forum rule that no Proxies or Tor servers are allowed. As the only reason most users would use this is perhaps to evade their ban from the forum. As some of my banned members did.

Many thanks for your help and advice, Andrea. I won't ban any more IPs and I will suuggest to my co-administrator that we make it a rule that no Proxies or Tor servers are allowed.

I won't mark this thread as 'solved' until I have confirmation that those three 'banned' members can once again access the forum!

Not a problem, let us know if they face any problem
Thanks Andrea for the inputs.

Everything back to normal. My sincere thanks to both Sanket and Andrea for your swift responses and sound advice.

For anyone else reading this at a later date, it probably makes sense not to ban IP addresses.

Solved.