Hi all! So I was using my phone (or trying to) to check Susan's when I was informed by my phone's browser that I'd been banned! I received no warning, message, etc. that would have forewarned this, so obviously I was confused and sat dumbfounded for a bit. So how am I posting here? Well, as soon as I turned off cookies I was fine and was able to post. I guess I'm just wondering what the deal might be?

If I really am banned and I found a weird workaround, a mod is free to tell me so and I will take my leave, but I really do feel at home on Susan's so this is a bit hard to swallow, if I really am. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks!

Sounds like you ran into someone else's BAN.

Hugs, Devlyn

Sorry, not quite sure I understand. How could I get someone else's ban?

Let me explain as I used to be a mod many years back... Susans enforces bans based on your IP address, but phone companies often recycle these, so when someone is banned if you then pick up their recycled IP sometimes the system gets confused and thinks you are a banned individual.

It's a problem that some of the mods were not as aware of as others, and back in the day only Admins were allowed to hand out bans for that very reason, because if some overzealous mod had banned one of the IP blocks for a major mobile phone network that could wrongly lock out hundreds of members at a time.

The other problem happens with places like schools & hospitals - basically places with large wifi networks running out of a single IP address. If someone else in your hospital/hotel/school/work has been banned then that will ban you too. The solution is to email the admins with your IP address details and other info and then they can look into it.

Andrew,
You are not under any ban.
Take note of my email address so you can contact me if it continues.

Cindy

Jenny hit it right on the head. I probably took half of Boston out with me when I was BANNED! 

Anagrammic Jill-ism of the day:

AndrewB = Bandrew

*ducks*

Sorry this happened, Andrew.  We really do like you.

More hugs,
Jill

I like rebwand better.   Your not banned, but maybe your phone did a but dial thing.  Jk

Thanks so much for the help everyone, I was super worried I'd done something to hurt/offend another member or something without even realising it. I was in a different part of town, in Northeast Portland (OR), so I guess someone else was near there on their phones when they got banned or something. I s'pose everything's cleared up now, but thanks again for the explanation! Guess I can avoid the title of "Bandrew" indefinitely 

WardBen?

Glad you are OK Andrew.

Just a few points. No one is banned without them being told so. Banning is very much a last resort. We work hard not to ban people!

Instant bans are applied to spam, but we tell them as well.

So I'm not sure what the glitch was!

I have had this for ages too.

Pm me the ip addresses

I was just about to make a topic about this; I use my phone at school to check the forums and I saw this the day after I joined-but when I got home my laptop was let through just fine. I was seriously worried I had offended somebody or broken a rule but I'm glad this just seems to be a mistake or error.

The same thing happened to me just yesterday. And apparently the browser stores the failed login in cookies plus the forum seems to remember if a user with a ban marked in the cookies uses a new IP? I switched IPs, tried again, deleted cookies and still could not use the forums. Today I use a VPN and deleted all cookies before attempting to login and it worked, but this is hard to resolve once you run into these things - I also need to log in with all the other pages like facebook that use cookes for login...

Does that make sense to ban a user who can identify with a password by the IP address? I mean if a login is going on, you can just ban that user based on the username and if a banned user wants to register with a new name, you can just ban new user registrations based on IP if that is needed...

I ran into this issue with other Simplemachines forums as well...

Yeah, I still haven't been able to use my phone to log into the forum since I made this post. It's definitely a nuisance.

Sorry I don't have the words to properly convey what I am trying to say. I imagine that a third party between your phone and Susan's has been used in the past to send spam. The banning is likely the service that your phone apps use to communicate to the internet and nothing to do with you at all.

Mainly if you can still connect through your computer but not your phone then it is just annoying and not at all directed at you.