Client IP is locked out, and I cannot seem to unblock it

Hi @bluebearmedia, thanks for reaching out to us.

In our recommended settings, under “If a crawler’s pages not found (404s) exceed…“, you may find some details on why this is happening and some recommended settings.

The 404 number can escalate quite quickly if there are broken elements such as images, scripts and pages included within other pages. This way, you can get multiple 404s registered in just 1 attempted page load and these can build up. These can often be spotted in your browser console under the “Network” tab when the page loads up.

I wasn’t able to see any site content myself from your link so please let me know how you get on!

Thanks,

Peter.

Hi Peter – thanks for the reply.

As a longtime WF premium user myself, I’m very familiar with the WF settings, and even temporarily disabling crawler restrictions didn’t unblock my client’s IP. (This particular client is not using the premium version of WF).

I searched the WF block logs, the Live Traffic logs, and even manually searched the MySQL WF DBs for my client’s (encoded) IP address in order to unblock it but I was completely unsuccessful, and they continue to get the blocked msg from WF when trying to access the site.

How do I get their IP unblocked at the WF level so they can regain access to their site?

I am myself locked out (i.e., my IP address is blocked). It happened while I was setting up Wordfence. I was pasting text into the text block for the error message to display when it blocks someone. I did CTRL-V and I got the message: Your access to this site has been temporarily limited by the site owner.

I was blocked yesterday for an unknown reason. My assistant deactivated WF, so today I was able to login and try to activate and set up WF again, only to be blocked, as described above, again.

How to correct this issue and avoid a recurrence?

I’m trying to make this a new thread, but I’m a novice and I may be piggybacking on the similar thread already open.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 3 months ago by pcullum.

Hi Peter – sorry, but any further word on disabling the block on my client’s specific IP? I need to get my client’s IP unblocked!

Bueller? Bueller??

Just to sum-up again – my client’s IP address is blocked, but nothing I’ve tried seems to be able to unblock it. Nor can I seem to find their IP in the wf Tables anywhere.

How can I re-enable my client’s IP address from a WordFence perspective? (adding it to the ignore lists in the settings made no difference)

Hi @bluebearmedia,

Please can you send me a diagnostic report for the site to wftest @ wordfence . com? You can find the link to do so at the top of the Wordfence Tools > Diagnostics page. Then click on “Send Report by Email”. Please add your forum username where indicated and respond here after you have sent it.

Without already seeing for myself whether I can also get myself blocked (as I’m still getting a totally blank page for your domain), or that your IP detection settings might be incorrect, it sounds on the face of it strange that they would still be blocked without appearing on any block lists or when you try to allowlist them specifically. However, are they definitely receiving the Wordfence branded block page? Sometimes if a firewall on your host is getting there first they might see a more generic page from the server.

If they are seeing the Wordfence blocking page, it could be worth another check to get them visit the site while you’re looking at whether their IP appears in Wordfence > Firewall > Blocking. As you’ve probably tried, you can manually unblock their IP from here to allow them access to the site again but attempting in real-time will confirm whether they are ever caught by this.

Thanks again,

Peter.

It IS strange – I’ve never experienced this before…

I sent the diagnostic to the email address. There is geo-blocking enabled on that site, so depending on where you’re located, that could be why you aren’t seeing the site directly. Let me know your region and I can enable it.

This is the text of the error they’re seeing:
——————————————————–
Your access to this site has been limited by the site owner
Your access to this service has been limited. (HTTP response code 503)

If you think you have been blocked in error, contact the owner of this site for assistance.

If you are a WordPress user with administrative privileges on this site, please enter your email address in the box below and click “Send”. You will then receive an email that helps you regain access.

Block Technical Data

Block Reason: Exceeded the maximum number of page not found errors per minute for a crawler.
Time:Wed, 4 Aug 2021 18:18:04 GMT

About Wordfence

Wordfence is a security plugin installed on over 3 million WordPress sites. The owner of this site is using Wordfence to manage access to their site.

You can also read the documentation to learn about Wordfence’s blocking tools, or visit wordfence.com to learn more about Wordfence.

Click here to learn more: Documentation

Generated by Wordfence at Wed, 4 Aug 2021 18:18:04 GMT.
Your computer’s time: Wed, 04 Aug 2021 18:18:31 GMT.
——————————————————–

Any other ideas? This is still an issue!

Hi @bluebearmedia,

I have been searching high and low for your diagnostic but can’t find it. Did you include “bluebearmedia” in the subject line? I’ve been receiving others so not sure if there’s an issue around the username, or the mail send functions from your site. Please enable UK (or European region) for me to view your site for myself if possible. Unfortunately though with the free support service I cannot request credentials to view your admin area.

I am slightly stumped on why this customer/user would be detected as a crawler but our bot detection depends on an extensive IP blocklist and JavaScript to detect whether they are human based on site activity. Having JavaScript disabled or console errors that might stop this script loading properly could have an effect. If they’re using a VPN, Tor or some other method of browsing that might obscure their identity that might see them caught by one of the IP blocklists if they share part of a range included there.

Is your IP detection working correctly, also? If you look up your public facing IP address at: https://www.whatsmyip.org/ and visit Wordfence > Dashboard > Global Options > General Wordfence Options > How does Wordfence get IPs, does your current IP match what the site is reporting? If not, cycle through the options, do any of the values match your IP address? If so, make sure to click SAVE CHANGES if you have to alter this.

Thanks again,

Peter.