Banned Users

There are some known issues with the Ban Users feature.

To start with there is a bug in the error handling. The effect is that in case of an error only half of the error message or even no message at all is displayed …

In case of an invalid ip address you will get:

166.137.136-78 is not a valid address in the ban users box.

(or no message at all) but it should be:

Note that the ban users feature has been disabled until the following errors are corrected:

166.137.136-78 is not a valid address in the ban users box.

In order to get the full message you need to implement a small code fix:

– First make a copy of the wp-content/plugins/better-wp-security/modules/free/ban-users/class-itsec-ban-users-admin.php file.
– Then edit this file and search (only once) for:

$no_errors === true

and then replace true with false. After editing save the change to the file. Do this only for the FIRST search hit …

Then retry. Fixing this cosmetic bug might get you back on track.

dwinden

No, nothing happens.

In the setting. I see the menu “Enable ban users” but the square is empty. If i click to activate this setting, the whole menu opens and I can see all IPs. Then I hit save all settings. If then I got back down to the section, the “Enable ban users” menu is again “closed” and unchecked!

Are you using WP in multi-site mode ?

dwinden

No.

Ok, enable WP_DEBUG in the wp-config.php

Then retry and see whether any message\warning gets displayed at the
TOP of the screen.

dwinden

No, nothing. Says always “Settings Updated”. Any other idea? By the way, thanks for helping!

How many ip addresses are listed in the Ban Hosts box ?

Did you enter these addresses yourself or are they auto enlisted ?

You could copy\paste the ip addresses into notepad and then remove
all. So empty the Ban Hosts box. Then try to Save All Changes and see whether that makes any difference.

dwinden

I emptied the Ban Hosts box and it works. The menu still remains open. Added each IP back again and it seem that there is a problem with wildcards. IP without works. As soon as I enter a IP address with a wildcard (at the end xxx.xxx.xxx.*) it doesn’t work any more.

There has been a bug with wildcard ips but it was fixed by iThemes.
Are you using the latest iTSec plugin release (4.6.13) ?

Also provide the following info:

– PHP version
– Apache version
– Browser version

dwinden

iTSec version: 4.6.13
PHP version: 5.4.39
Apache version: ?
Browser version: Safari 8.0.5