Stop Spammer

[Wizzlefits]

"reject" is the same as deleting them.
I don't suggest using "reject and send email". as the email will most likely bounce, for days.

If you don't currently have any waiting for approval, just wait until you do and then reject them and that will clear the phantom member count.

[Andrew Evenstar]

"reject" is the same as deleting them.
I don't suggest using "reject and send email". as the email will most likely bounce, for days.

If you don't currently have any waiting for approval, just wait until you do and then reject them and that will clear the phantom member count.

I'll do that and post back. Thanks

[hercululu]

Like iwords, I installed the latest version of Stop Spammer into SMF 1.1.13 and received a similar error message but different line number:

8: Undefined index: stopspammer_faildb_sub
File: /home/content/57/zzzzzzz/html/forum/Themes/default/Register.template.php (admin_settings sub template - eval?)
Line: 532

Other than this message in the Forum Error Log, everything seems to be functioning correctly. Any reason I should be concerned?

Installed and same issue
8: Undefined index: stopspammer_faildb_sub
File: /<snip>/Themes/default/Register.template.php
Line: 539

537-539 in register template are

Code Select Expand

// Test if mod StopSpammer is OK
$txt['stopspammer_ok'] = stopspammer_test_mod_ok();
$stopspammer_faildb_sub = $txt['stopspammer_faildb_sub'];

Is there a repair?

[Wizzlefits]

First install Disable Template Eval
This will allow 1.1.13 to show the real error.

They finally added this to 2.0 xxx, which I really wish they would have included in some update for 1.1.xxx.
That bloody template eval will cause you to run in circles chasing phantom errors. lol!

[Arantor]

It took some convincing even to get it added for 2.0 as I recall...

[spikeweb]

Just installed the mod on 1.X and translated to french the missing sentences

Checking my error log, I have the following message multiple times :

8: Undefined index: id
Fichier: /home/mypath/Sources/ManageMembers.php
Ligne: 736

Any idea to correct this ?

Thanks

[snoopy_virtual]

It's an error already reported before and it will be sorted in the next version.

It only happens when you check or report members from the pages "Waiting for approval / activation", but it never happens when you report members from the page "View all members".

Anyway you can ignore those errors, because even with them the mod works properly.

[Angie on Dialysis]

Thanks so much for your help with the yellow bug Snoopy. I didn't realize I still was using an old version 

Now my fiance needs to also fix it as he also has the same old version.

[snoopy_virtual]

No problem.

BTW, if he gets any troubles updating, tell him to call me. 

[Angie on Dialysis]

No problem.

BTW, if he gets any troubles updating, tell him to call me. 

Okay He gets home after ...well .. could be 2 or 3am your time...

[Kindred]

Actually, there seems to be a problem with "reject"

rejecting a spam-user results in the account being deleted. However, the account was still created and counted in the "new members this month" count.

I originally thought that we were using the OTHER SFS mod...  (argh) however, it appears to be this mod... and this one definitely has a problem:

In the normal SMF registration process, if the "Approval required" is turned on, then the account registrations are not counted as valid registrations until they are approved. Rejected (deleted) registrations are never counted.

However...   with this mod, we have the registration set to member activated... Which means that the registrations are counted in the stats as soon as the registration is completed, and then this mod catches them and sets the account to "requires approval".

So...   despite the fact that I have stopped 400 spammers, my forum stats have counted those spammer registrations, even after the account was rejected/deleted.

As I said, it's a minor glitch, but it does make the forum stats unreliable.

[rthrash]

Running into a problem where I'm not able to report spammers after manually upgrading to the latest release. It just reloads the page and nothing. I had to enable the curl method for the mod to report it was working properly as indicated in the known issues by modifying the (I didn't have a problem with the earlier 2.2 version and this). http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=282969.msg1857198#msg1857198

I am getting one error:

8: Undefined index: id
File: /public_html/*******/forums/Sources/ManageMembers.php
Line: 734

I'm running SMF 1.1.13 ... any suggestions to get my reporting working again?

[rthrash]

Scratch that ... turns out in fact to be the the previously reported not checking the user when reporting. This is a pretty big usability issue and a problem for us considering we typically block 40+ spam registrations a day. Any possibility someone could point us in the right direction to flag+report before the next release?

[snoopy_virtual]

@Kindred

Yes, the mod has a few problems with the forum stats. Not only the one you are pointing out, but a few more I found.

Anyway, as you said, it's not an urgent issue, as the mod is stopping the spammers even if it doesn't count them well.

I have it in my TODO list but, as I have a lot of more urgent things to do first, it will take me some time to do it.

But I will sort it in due time (I hope) 

=============

@rthrash

That problem you are reporting is more urgent than the another one, but it doesn't have an easy solution.

It was caused when I updated the mod from version 2.3.8 to the new one 2.3.9

Somebody else reported another bug in version 2.3.8 and gave us one possible solution, but when I applied that solution in version 2.3.9, it caused this new bug.

The problem is I cannot just revert what we changed there, as it would bring back the old bug (a lot worse than the one we have just now).

What I need to do is find a way to sort both bugs at the same time, but I haven't found it yet. That's why I said it doesn't have an easy solution.

========

Anyway, check the config page to be sure you have written there your API key.

A few months ago the admin in stopforumspam web site changed the rules (due to a lot of abuse) and now nobody can report a spammer without asking first for their own API key.

[rthrash]

We've used our own API key for several years but thanks for the head's up. Looking forward to simultaneous check/report. Where in the code are those bits handled and I'll see if we can figure out a way to help on that front. Thanks!

[snoopy_virtual]

You can try replacing the file StopSpammer.php (inside your Sources folder) with the attached one.

I haven't tested it yet, but it should sort the problem having to report and check twice every member.

The reason why I couldn't check that yet is because I have very good anti-spam programs in all my forums, so I only have to check or report 1 spammer every 2 or 3 months (and I have 7 very busy forums) so every time I want to do some checks I need to create a special test forum for that with no other anti-spam programs (only this mod).

It is not normal to have a forum where you need to check or report 40 or more a day.

What other anti-spam programs you use apart from this mod?

[rthrash]

Thank you that works as expected now.

Quick question: if we wanted to auto-reject when an email address matches, how challenging would that be to do?

[snoopy_virtual]

The quick answer is that it would be very easy to do if we wanted to do it.

We have talked about that a lot of times in this topic. A quick search through it will show you some of that conversations and you will see the reasons why we are not doing it.

Anyway, as you can see if you search the topic, my main concern for the next version of the mod (apart from sorting the wrong stats count, and some other minor problems) is to try to reduce as much as possible the number of false positives, so I still don't know if I will add something like that in the next version or not.

In the mean time we prefer to check manually all the members stopped by this mod. As I said in my previous post, every admin with good anti-spam measures in their forum only have to check 2 or 3 spammers a month. It is not normal to have a forum where you need to check or report 40 or more a day, so I will repeat the question that you haven't answered yet:

What other anti-spam programs you use apart from this mod?

[Kindred]

after the first burst of about 600 in the first 3 weeks, I am down to about three/four a month.

[rthrash]

Sorry I should have been more clear: we're getting 50+ registration attempts that are being blocked. We only report 2-3 a day but I'm sure some slip through the cracks due to the volume of posts. When their IP and email matches though I'd like to auto-reject them. I just did that with about 40 this AM and will have another round to go this PM.

The current heavy abuse pattern seems to be *+*@gmail.com matched in SFS database plus a matching IP. Names are typically (x)FirstLast(y) where x and y are single-character random letters on front/back of actual generated names. If the email + IP match, I'll never approve them and it would be helpful to not have to ever see them in the first place. For every 50 manually rejected, we're approving 2-3 that were flagged.

We blocked registration attempts from *@yahoo.com altogether since that's an insanely huge source of comment spammers (~140,000 blocked registration attempts from there). We've not really done much more than hard Captcha which I hate, but it's a necessary evil.

I suspect you'll have some recommendations including httpBL (which we're working on now)?

Thank you very much for taking the time to respond!