wu :: forums (http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~wwu/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi)
riddles >> suggestions, help, and FAQ >> message: access forbidden
(Message started by: BenVitale on Feb 22nd, 2011, 6:42pm)

Title: message: access forbidden
Post by BenVitale on Feb 22nd, 2011, 6:42pm
I tried to post a comment to towr to the puzzle :Year 2011.

x, y and z can be positive and negative

The message I got back is:


Forbidden

You don't have permission to access /~wwu/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi on this server.

Why is my access forbidden?

Title: Re: message: access forbidden
Post by towr on Feb 22nd, 2011, 10:02pm
The server is having problems; this is affecting everyone.

When replying it seems to help to remove ";title=Post+reply;start=" from the url. (I've had several successes with it, though don't ask me why it would help.) When posting you may still get an error, even if it's successful, so check before trying again.

[edit] ::) [/edit]

Title: Re: message: access forbidden
Post by Noke Lieu on Feb 23rd, 2011, 3:59pm
And running with that idea, when you get the Forbidden screen, if you remove the 'start=0', and you'll be fine. Bizarre.

I'm just going to have a look at modifying. If it works, then I'll delete the bit in quotations..."yes this bit."... and add


Title: Re: message: access forbidden
Post by ThudnBlunder on Feb 24th, 2011, 6:12am
Ah, that's better. Thanks. Doesn't seem to work on Modifying though.
I guess it will cure my compulsive editing and force me to write what I mean and mean what I write.

Title: Re: message: access forbidden
Post by ThudnBlunder on Feb 24th, 2011, 7:11pm

Quote:
And running with that idea, when you get the Forbidden screen, if you remove the 'start=0', and you'll be fine.

However, this also restricts us to the first page of each thread.

Title: Re: message: access forbidden
Post by JiNbOtAk on Feb 27th, 2011, 5:06pm
That is weird. What's even weirder is, how the heck did towr figured that out ? Did you just play around with the url until a certain one works ??  ::)

Title: Re: message: access forbidden
Post by towr on Feb 27th, 2011, 9:56pm
Basically, yes. It was just a puzzle waiting to be solved. :P
And if some types of url on the forum work, and some don't, then possibly the form of the url is part of the problem.

Title: Re: message: access forbidden
Post by william wu on Mar 2nd, 2011, 1:12pm
Hi guys,

I tested an clean installation of YaBB, which is now  producing the same errors that we are experiencing.

Do you remember roughly when this bug first showed up? I didn't change any of the source code files recently, so I think OCF must have changed some server settings. If I have a rough date of when this occurred, that could assist my discussions with them.

Title: Re: message: access forbidden
Post by SMQ on Mar 2nd, 2011, 1:35pm
William, the problem began overnight between the 20th and 21st, I believe, though it may have been between the 21st and 22nd.

--SMQ

Title: Re: message: access forbidden
Post by Grimbal on Mar 3rd, 2011, 7:46am
It looks like OCF added a filter to block some requests based on the URL, possibly to block spam, and the wu forum "post reply" URL happens to match that pattern.

The smallest URL I could find that gets forbidden is (modulo some spaces):
http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~wwu/  ?  =  um  =  0;t

So in fact, all you need to do is to add a space between ";" and "title".

Title: Re: message: access forbidden
Post by towr on Mar 3rd, 2011, 8:39am
Or you can move it to the front. Which works for the threadid if you want top edit a post.

Title: Re: message: access forbidden
Post by william wu on Mar 3rd, 2011, 4:02pm
Grimbal, that is super helpful, thank you! :D
I got an OCF'er to take a look at this tonight, and I will forward your discovery on to him.

Title: Re: message: access forbidden
Post by william wu on Mar 4th, 2011, 11:05am
Problem solved!  :D

"As you suspected, this issue was caused by an overzealous web application rule that I have now disabled." - Stephen Le

Big thanks to everyone involved in debugging this problem.

Title: Re: message: access forbidden
Post by fizyka on Dec 30th, 2011, 3:32pm
Hehe now it's working like a charm.
My only question is maybe could You do something to have notification only of unreaded messages?

Title: Re: message: access forbidden
Post by goprel on Apr 13th, 2014, 3:24am
In a list of topics you shoud see the sign "New"

Title: Re: message: access forbidden
Post by rmsgrey on Apr 14th, 2014, 5:05am

on 04/13/14 at 03:24:48, goprel wrote:
In a list of topics you shoud see the sign "New"

That tells you about unread posts (or threads that you haven't visited for long enough that the software has given up on tracking them). What it doesn't tell you about is new personal messages - at the top of my page, it tells me "Hey, rmsgrey, you have 15 messages." What it doesn't tell me is that none of them are new - or, more to the point, when the last one arrived, the only ways I could tell I had a new message were by noticing the number had changed, or by getting the notification email the forum sent me...



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