Syndic8 and PubSub blocked by Bad Behavior 1.2.4
December 4th, 2005 by Michael Hampton
I’ve received several reports that the crawlers used by Syndic8 and PubSub are being blocked by the latest version of Bad Behavior.
The denial message reads, Header ”Pragma” without ”Cache-Control” prohibited for HTTP/1.1 requests.
(This is part of a series of new tests for spambots which claim to use the HTTP/1.1 protocol but actually do not do so properly.)
The trouble has been traced to a problem with those particular bots, and Syndic8 and PubSub have been notified.
Until they are able to fix their bots, you can add them to Bad Behavior’s whitelist.
Update: If you’re being blocked by Bad Behavior, don’t comment here. Read this.
Blocked by Pragma Says
I get blocked do by this error, but I didn’t do anything! How can I even control my headers?!
Please help.
Dec 9th, 2005 at 9:13 pm
oops Says
do=too
Dec 9th, 2005 at 9:13 pm
Michael Hampton Says
I can do nothing for you, since you failed to leave a valid email address to contact you.
Dec 9th, 2005 at 10:20 pm
Blocked by Pragma Says
It’s better to answer here and help other people, but if you insist here it is
BTW, I have only an inbound firewall (that blocks ports from being used as servers), no proxy and XP’s IE 6.
Thanks!
Dec 9th, 2005 at 11:15 pm
Michael Hampton Says
The problem, then, is specific to the proxy server you’re using. (Don’t say you aren’t; it’s clear that you are. It probably came with your firewall and automatically enabled itself.) This check does not block Internet Explorer on Windows XP.
The instructions on what to do when this thing happens, which I apparently forgot to link to here, are elsewhere on this site.
I haven’t e-mailed you since you again didn’t provide a valid address; if you read the above linked article and still need further assistance, feel free to contact me.
Dec 9th, 2005 at 11:24 pm
Blocked by Pragma Says
I swear I don’t use a proxy (maybe my ISP does something in their own computers?). I’d show you a screenshot of my IE’s connections tab to show you it’s empty…
Also, my e-mail is valid. Just try and see I’d reply back.
P.S.
What’s the time limit after I get locked out?
Thanks!
Dec 10th, 2005 at 12:33 am
Michael Hampton Says
Sorry, but you’re going to have to contact me instead. Go read the above linked article and follow directions.
Dec 10th, 2005 at 12:59 am
Blocked by Pragma Says
Listen, I’m asking for help as a user and not as a webmaster (although if we fix this I may use it too). I’m currently locked out of any site in the world that has the newest version of Bad Behavior and can’t do nothing about it.
But I’ve checked out your HTTP headers tool and found something interesting – sometimes I get “Pragma: no-cache” and sometimes I don’t…and I found a pattern! See, I get it if this is a fresh loading (first time I’m there after a while or if I click ctrl+f5 [i.e. total refresh]).
What do you think about the pattern?
I shall contact you now.
Dec 10th, 2005 at 1:15 am
Blocked by Pragma Says
Well, guess what?! I can’t contact you because once I click “submit” in your contact page, I get the 412 error!
I would use the address the 412 error states and hope it’s really yours.
Dec 10th, 2005 at 1:21 am
Michael Hampton Says
You are perfectly capable of contacting me; I even left my email address on the “what to do” page you apparently didn’t read. And I even got an email from you with an invalid return address. What am I supposed to do with that?
Dec 10th, 2005 at 1:41 am
Blocked by Pragma Says
What do you mean “invalid”? It’s my address. Just reply.
Didn’t read? What do PHPMyAdmin and MySQL have to do with me as a user that can’t visit certain sites?
Dec 10th, 2005 at 12:47 pm
Michael Hampton Says
If you can’t visit certain sites, you need to contact the people who run those sites in order to receive assistance.
Dec 10th, 2005 at 5:26 pm
Blocked by Pragma Says
Dear Michael, please understand – I can’t visit sites that use the newest version of Bad Behavior. Or if you will, I’m slowly being blocked by sites once they install your newest version. Although I see I can finally use your contact form without being blocked.
Anyway, all of them tell it’s because of the “Prgma: no-cache” issue and all of them refer me to you!
Dec 10th, 2005 at 7:15 pm
Michael Hampton Says
Well, you shouldn’t have lied to me in the first place. You WERE using a poorly written proxy, just like I said. And once you disabled it, everything was fine.
Dec 13th, 2005 at 8:27 pm
Blocked by Pragma Says
I’m sorry. I use Proxomitron and had it on bypass mode. I thought bypass was equal to not having it run at all.
Please let’s continue this discussion in the correct topic (click on my name) as I would like to know more about Proxomitron vs. Bad Bevavior.
Dec 14th, 2005 at 2:14 pm
3choBoomer Says
I’ve added both of these to my whitelist and they’re still being blocked…
Here’s the text from bad-behavior-whitelist.php:
$wp_bb_whitelist_user_agents = array(
“Syndic8/1.0 (http://www.syndic8.com/)”,
“PubSub-RSS-Reader/1.1 (http://www.pubsub.com/)”,
);
I’m using a great spoofer for testing that I found here:
http://www.puremango.co.uk/cm_headerspoof_14.php
Dec 21st, 2005 at 10:43 pm
3choBoomer Says
I’ve also experienced a good bit of blockage of people using the Konqueror/3.x web browser from the KDE.
Blocking reason: Required header ‘Accept’ missing
according to them (them being the Konqueror developers) it is not required by the HTTP spec:
http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=20018
Any suggestions?
Dec 21st, 2005 at 10:51 pm
Michael Hampton Says
Hm, that Konqueror problem was fixed YEARS ago. If you’re seeing Konqueror users blocked, they are most likely fake, generated by spambots.
Dec 21st, 2005 at 11:08 pm
3choBoomer Says
Any suggestions for my other problem?
Dec 22nd, 2005 at 6:59 pm
3choBoomer Says
Any help???
I’ve added both of these to my whitelist and they’re still being blocked…
Here’s the text from bad-behavior-whitelist.php:
$wp_bb_whitelist_user_agents = array(
“Syndic8/1.0 (http://www.syndic8.com/)�,
“PubSub-RSS-Reader/1.1 (http://www.pubsub.com/)�,
);
I’m using a great spoofer for testing that I found here:
http://www.puremango.co.uk/cm_headerspoof_14.php
Jan 4th, 2006 at 11:36 pm
Michael Hampton Says
Yes, go read the original post. It clearly says don’t comment here, go read a certain page instead.
Jan 5th, 2006 at 2:00 am