Plugin not working anymore

The EU VAT Assistant is still working as it always did. The error message says “IP BLOCKED” in several places. That could mean that your server is blocking the connection to the remote VIES service. Your hosting provider should be able to check that for you, and remove the blocking rule.

Hello again,

So it turned out that my IP is in fact Blocked, I got the confirmation from VIES and a lengthy email (screenshot attached), they recommended this :

1. you perform 30k or less requests for VAT validations per day,
2. you perform up to 5 validations to a unique VAT number per day,
3. you avoid performing blank or null or white space or corrupted or invalid (syntax, length) validations
4. you perform validations preferably until 10:00 am CET and/or after 18:00 CET

What caught my attention is number 3, I wanted to ask you how many requests the plugin makes for one VAT validation ? because in the log file (attached below), I can see that it performs at least 4 actions for one validation ( check the time ) which VIES may consider as a form of server abuse.

My website is fairly new and I don’t get many orders at this time, when I see that my IP made 3906 request for 9 Validation, it’s strangely a lot.

More infos : VIES reply

Log : File

Thank you very much for your help

The EU VAT Assistant performs up to two validation calls for one checkout:
1. One validation on the checkout page, when the VAT number is entered. This is done to provide a visual feedback and to hide the self-certification field when the VAT number is valid.
2. One validation when the checkout is confirmed, just before the payment.

Notes
– No call is actually performed if either the VAT number or the country code is blank, null or white space. The log entry saying “Setting customer VAT exemption” is generated before such values are checked, but there is no actual call to the VIES service after. If a call were made, you would see a “VAT number validation complete” entry in the log.

Empty VAT number, no VIES call
[2019-02-08 00:05:13] wc-aelia-eu-vat-assistant.INFO: Setting customer VAT exemption. {“Country”:”BE”,”VAT Number”:””} {“process_id”:29454}
[2019-02-08 00:05:13] wc-aelia-eu-vat-assistant.DEBUG: VAT exemption check completed. {“Customer Exemption”:false,”Result”:0} {“process_id”:29454}

Non-empty VAT number, VIES call
[2019-02-08 00:09:18] wc-aelia-eu-vat-assistant.DEBUG: VAT number validation complete. {“Country Code”:”FR”,”VAT Number”:”78831888318″,”VIES Response”:{“faultcode”:”soapenv:Server.userException”,”faultstring”:”javax.xml.rpc.soap.SOAPFaultException: IP_BLOCKED”,”detail”:””}} {“process_id”:1573}

– If the VAT number is valid at step #1, the result is cached for one hour and used at step #2 (i.e. no further validation call is performed).
– If the customer enters multiple different VAT numbers (e.g. to correct a typo), each one generates a new validation call. The responses to validation calls that return an error are not cached. Any invalid number generates a new call, as such number must be validated.

In short, the calls to the VIES service are reduced to the minimum, to avoid overloading the remote service. I wouldn’t be able to say how your site managed to generate almost 4000 validation calls, as that would require an in-depth investigation on the affected site. From our side, I can tell that the EU VAT Assistant doesn’t make unnecessary extra calls, and that we haven’t received any report of such high volume of calls before. The VAT number validation logic hasn’t changed in over two years, the number of calls has always been the same.

Hello,

I have resolved my problem with VIES and they unblocked my IP, Thank you for your help.

I have some suggestions you may want to add to your roadmap for the plugin :

– Put a validation limit so clients can’t validate the same VAT more than 5 times/day
– Replace ajax validation with an actual button next to the field because in my opinion this is the main reason for validation abuse. If I start typing the VAT number and stopped for a few seconds, the plugin start the validation process which is going to fail and register as an attempt at the VIES server.
– In case of a successful validation, maybe show a barred VAT value instead of removing it all together.

Again thank you very much

• This reply was modified 6 years, 1 month ago by nemovich.

Thanks for the update. I will pass your suggestions for review and possible implementation in a future version of the plugin.

Quick update: we are going to introduce an extra check to skip the validation of VAT numbers that are obviously too short (the shortest EU VAT number is 8 digits, excluding the country code). This is a simple change, and it will reduce the amount of calls to the VIES service, when customers type a partial VAT number.

wow that was quick and it will definitely help with VIES calls. you guys are awesome thank you. 5 stars for you