The forum I host is experiencing a relatively high number of 403 and 503 errors sporadically. This has only started happening in the past few days, so I'm not sure if this is a mod_security issue or not. However, nothing about the forum installation has changed, and there don't seem to be any error logs I can access through cPanel or FTP, so I'm perplexed about these errors.
403 & 503 Errors
- Thread starter thesouth
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403 errors would most likely be caused by mod security, 503 errors on the other hand would generally be something else.
Are you able to reproduce either of these errors on demand?
I checked out the error log for your site, I'm seeing 724 bot (bad IP) attempts blocked in the past 48 hours and mod security blocks triggered 67 times. Both of these would throw a 403 error.
The majority of mod security errors seem to be blocking legitimate spam attempts with some blocking submissions using editpost.php, do you recall seeing a 403 while editing a post at all?
Are you able to reproduce either of these errors on demand?
I checked out the error log for your site, I'm seeing 724 bot (bad IP) attempts blocked in the past 48 hours and mod security blocks triggered 67 times. Both of these would throw a 403 error.
The majority of mod security errors seem to be blocking legitimate spam attempts with some blocking submissions using editpost.php, do you recall seeing a 403 while editing a post at all?
Yes, I do have a user reporting that they get a 403 error when trying to edit a specific post. (If it's useful, this is the post in particular: http://thesouthpacific.x10.mx/thread-242-post-4851.html#pid4851) The errors seem to be affecting random posts, as far as I can tell. That particular post can't be edited at all without a 403 error, no matter who attempts to do it.
We do have issues with spambots signing up for our forums a lot. We used StopForumSpam.com for a bit, but there was an issue in MyBB's code that prevented it from working correctly.
For the 503 error, I can reproduce it trying to edit an announcement. For that, I have another admin on the forum reporting that they get the following errors, which is likely an issue with PHP 5.4 and MyBB:
We do have issues with spambots signing up for our forums a lot. We used StopForumSpam.com for a bit, but there was an issue in MyBB's code that prevented it from working correctly.
For the 503 error, I can reproduce it trying to edit an announcement. For that, I have another admin on the forum reporting that they get the following errors, which is likely an issue with PHP 5.4 and MyBB:
I'm bumping this because users on our forums are still experiencing 403 errors. It's making parts of the forums unusable.
We do regularly have spam accounts sign up, but these accounts do not post and are regularly banned. I realize that mod_security is there to deal with spam issues, among other things, but it's also blocking legitimate use.
We do regularly have spam accounts sign up, but these accounts do not post and are regularly banned. I realize that mod_security is there to deal with spam issues, among other things, but it's also blocking legitimate use.
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