On my YaBB site, version 2.4, I have a long-standing member (9388 posts) who has suddenly found herself banned from the site. I have not done it (no one else has access to the backend). I cannot un-ban her. Things to note:

1. When I access her profile, all the links under username, e-mail and IP addresses show [Ban this IP address] ...in other words, yet to be banned through this method.

2. I cannot log in with her login information from my location (a different IP address).

3. Her IP address does not appear in any htaccess file.

4. There is no "banned" caption under her name. It's just when she/I attempt to log into her account that an error message then appears, not allowing a successful log-in.

5. I changed her password but that didn't work.

6. Other members seem to log in okay, as do I (admin).

So, I'm at a loss. Can anyone offer any help? Thank you in advance.

Some things to try ...

Willi wrote on Nov 8^th, 2013 at 1:49am:

I'll presume that "Username:" in her profile as you access it is showing "[Ban this username]" correct?

And her "E-Mail:" is also showing "[Ban this username]" correct?

Also, if she's showing more than one IP address, then make sure none of those have been banned somehow.

As silly as it may sound, you might want to try banning each of those variants one at a time, and then unbanning each of them until you see that her membership is working properly again.

Willi wrote on Nov 8^th, 2013 at 1:49am:

I'm guessing her membership files have 644 permissions, correct? If so, try changing those permissions to 666.

Willi wrote on Nov 8^th, 2013 at 1:49am:

In your Admin Center, go to Member Controls, Ban Members, and check for her IP, Email, and Username in the 3 different ban lists for those categories.

Lastly, if none of these suggestions work, upload from a local copy her vars membership file if you have that file backed up. It's possible that the same file on your server got corrupted somehow.

Because you can't log in with her login information, and you're using a different IP address, I'm thinking the problem is either a corrupted membership file, or the permissions on her membership files need to be changed.

Good luck!

Thank you Bill for responding. I truly appreciate it.

Bill Myers wrote on Nov 8^th, 2013 at 5:01am:


Yes, that is correct.

Bill Myers wrote on Nov 8^th, 2013 at 5:01am:


Yeah, I did a search and I don't see anything. Also, my own IP address isn't banned from the site, whether I attempt to log in as myself (admin) or as her.

Bill Myers wrote on Nov 8^th, 2013 at 5:01am:


Not silly at all. Actually, I had tried that already but forgot to mention it as one of the things I had tried. No change, though.

Bill Myers wrote on Nov 8^th, 2013 at 5:01am:


Her permissions are 644, that's right. I tried changing them to 666 but that didn't help. That might have been something of a longshot anyway seeing that everyone else, including myself, has 644 permissions. Directories, btw are 755, not that it matters.

Bill Myers wrote on Nov 8^th, 2013 at 5:01am:


She's not in any of them.

Bill Myers wrote on Nov 8^th, 2013 at 5:01am:


Yeah, I may need to do that. I try to keep at least 3 backups on my local machine. Hopefully that will do it. I guess you mean all her member oriented files, right? All of these: .ims, .log, .msg, .outbox, .rlog, .vars?

There are two places were banned IPs, user names and email addresses are stored

The Guardian - info stored in .htaccess

Member Controls > Ban Members - info stored in Variables/Settings.pl

Dandello wrote on Nov 9^th, 2013 at 5:06pm:


Yep. Boggling me, too.

Dandello wrote on Nov 9^th, 2013 at 5:06pm:


Actually, this last part got her back in. I changed her email address to something else (one of my own, non-forum related email addresses just in case the site bans my own form email) and I was then able to get in using her log in information. Funny, two email addresses of hers resulted in banning. Then, using an email address that belongs to her daughter ended up being okay (one I'm sure she never used through my site).

Not sure if this has anything to do with anything, but my member recently moved to a new home. Could this new computer location have done anything to make the site feel threatened? I realize that's a stretch but the coincidence seems too convenient.

Thank you for all your help! I'm really impressed with the quick response of the YaBB forum. Really appreciated.

No problem. But, actually, I'm wondering if this is the end of the story at all.

You see, she had provided me with three email addresses, two of which ended up in a banning. The first is an email address that I think she has had for a while...a gmail one. That one was already programmed in the account. The second one, I think, is a new one that her new ISP gave her (a comcast.net one after she moved to a new home recently). The third belongs to her daughter who I doubt ever visited the site and I seriously doubt was ever configured in the member's control panel. I have to confirm all this with her.

I keep wondering why the second one, the comcast.net one, would have resulted in a banning if it was never configured in her control panel (I'm waiting to hear from her as I write this to confirm). Right now, the daughter's email address (also a gmail address) is programmed into the member's account and I can currently access it from my location.

I'm wondering if my member will get a banning again as soon as she tries to access her account by using her computer from her new home. Maybe something to do with her new location's IP address, which I just realized I don't know. The IP address of her's I was originally searching for in the banning list may have been her old address, from before the move.

I just wrote her, asking her to visit whatismyipaddress.com and have her send me her current IP address. I will do a search on that then.

It's the only thing I can think of.

Okay, so here's something to bounce off of you: she really needs to have one of the banned emails as a destination.

I'm thinking of duct-taping a solution here by setting up an email through my site's domain, but then have it redirect to her banned email address. I assume it would work but it shouldn't cause any ban problems to my own domain, right?

Willi wrote on Nov 10^th, 2013 at 1:49am:

That should work just fine.

Coincidentally (not related to YaBB), my wife has friends whose email accounts bounce her messages back to her (bouncing back to other people as well). I did what you're thinking of doing by setting up email accounts on my wife's domain for her friends, which redirected messages to the respective email addresses of those friends.

It was a strange thing to do, and it shouldn't have been necessary had their email accounts worked as they should, but it solved that problem.