False Positives overwhelming

Just want to confirm that I also get the same issue as above so hope for some solution. Thanks.

Same here. Many live links got 404’ed.

I’m sure it’s not a plugin conflict because I disabled everything except Broken Links Checker and a Maintenance plugin.

Do the false positives have anything in common? For example, are they all links to images or some other specific file type, or maybe they all point to the same site or subdirectory?

I ask this because one common cause of false positives is server settings or software designed to prevent malicious visitors or automated web crawlers/bots from accessing your site. In particular, if the false positives are mainly image links, that could indicate that a hotlink protection tool is blocking the link checker.

I too am getting the same false positives. I have over 40+ outside links and all of a sudden I am getting tons of notices but they are still good links. These links are to various companies sites (homepages). I sometimes force a re-check and it settles it down but then after about 12 hours I start getting the warnings again.

I have used this plugin for quite a while and I like it. I have never had a problem before that last week or so.

Here is a link to my site that uses the plugin (fashionportland.com).

What status code does the plugin show for those links? If it’s something like “Timeout” you might need to increase the timeout setting under Settings -> Link Checker -> Advanced.

I have the same issue. If I remember correctly it stated with the last update. Links that are correct getting the Unknown Error message. I see no colloration between the reported links. They are to various websites/homepages. I have checked and rechecked and replaced the links many times and it still shows up as broken with the Unknown Error as the status. Please fix this. I don’t want to just ignore the links because if they go broken in the future I won’t be notified.

To Janis, to answer your last question, that is the actual status code: Unknown Error

I would that I could. Unfortunately, at this time I don’t know what’s causing that “unknown error”.

Same here. Across like 4-5 sites that I manage.

A client even forwarded me the email notification about this the other day…makes it seem like i built the website wrong ??

error codes are usually 200. I’ve liked this plugin and it has worked well for me. Not sure why it started doing this all of a sudden. Maybe 4 weeks ago.

I am just now trying to research and get to the bottom of this…

Jose

HTTP code 200 is a normal status and usually would not be reported as an error. Try clicking on the status/error message – it will display additional information about it. The “log” field might have something useful like a more detailed error message.

Janis, okay, I did as you suggested above and clicked on the Unknown Error status (didn’t realise you could do that to get extra info). Anyway, it says: Log:Empty reply from server [Error #52]
=== (No response) ===

Again, there is nothing wrong with these websites. They load quickly with no isses, and in fact, clicking on the supposedly broken link takes you to the site just fine. There is no redirect, there is no time-out, nothing.

I don’t know if this helps. I’m not a tech person and I have no idea what error #52 means.

Hmm, I’ve seen that “Empty reply from server” error before. In that case, it turned out that the linked site was blocking the plugin. When you click the link yourself everything looks fine because the site blocks your server’s IP address, not your own IP.

Janis, thanks for the suggestion. I’m contacting one of the person’s who’s links show up as broken and see if there is an issue with them inadvertedly blocking my server’s IP addresses. I will report back as soon as I find out.

This person is a friend (not a techy person either) and we were discussing the broken links the other day. They asked me if I would write another promotional post higlighting their services. I told them I would be happy to do so, however all their links show up as broken. The point is I know this person didn’t block my IPs intentionally.

Now the question would be, why would their server block my server’s IPs? Is the plugin making too many requests? I have the original settings which is to check links every 72 hours, so that doesn’t seem to be the case. Anyway, I will wait to hear back from them and let you know…

Now the question would be, why would their server block my server’s IPs? Is the plugin making too many requests? I have the original settings which is to check links every 72 hours, so that doesn’t seem to be the case. Anyway, I will wait to hear back from them and let you know…

Previous versions of the plugin could indeed make a lot of requests very quickly. That should no longer be the case with the current version – it has a request rate limit.

It’s possible that someone decided to block it a while ago and they don’t know that the plugin has been updated.

Could you perhaps post an example link or two? I could test if it’s really IP-based blocking or something else. (If you don’t want to post the links in a public forum you can contact me via email: whiteshadow [at] w-shadow.com )

Janis, I sent you some links via PM. Thanks for looking into this. ??

To those that encountered “Unknown Error” and “Empty reply from server”: please try the development version of BLC. It should fix this kind of false positives.

(It probably won’t help with other types of false positives, however.)