webawoowoo

Just to update and stay still not working for me. I have had Hostgatgor look into this, and they have said basically there are two choices – either move my websites to VPS or dedicated hosting account – or find another host.

They do also suggest asking you the plugin developer or going back to Mailchimp and asking them to unblock the IP my site is on (which is a shared server)

But to confirm this issue is as you say Mailchimp blocking certain servers – and of course if you are on a shared server, like my site is, then you stand a risk of another user getting your server blacklisted

here’s the response from my host (Hotgator) if useful to anyone

Hello,

It looks as though the server’s main IP, 192.185.2.19 has been blocked:

[~]# curl -I –interface 192.185.2.19 https://us2.api.mailchimp.com/2.0/
HTTP/1.0 400 Bad Request
Server: AkamaiGHost
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/html
Content-Length: 297
Expires: Mon, 19 Oct 2015 21:00:20 GMT
Date: Mon, 19 Oct 2015 21:00:20 GMT
Connection: close

However, other IPs on the server don’t appear to be affected:

[~]# curl -I –interface 192.185.3.28 https://us2.api.mailchimp.com/2.0/
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Server: nginx
Content-Type: text/xml; charset=utf-8
Vary: Accept-Encoding
Date: Mon, 19 Oct 2015 21:00:05 GMT
Content-Length: 0
Connection: keep-alive
Set-Cookie: _AVESTA_ENVIRONMENT=prod; path=/

[~]# curl -I –interface 192.185.3.5 https://us2.api.mailchimp.com/2.0/
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Server: nginx
Content-Type: text/xml; charset=utf-8
Vary: Accept-Encoding
Date: Mon, 19 Oct 2015 21:01:17 GMT
Content-Length: 0
Connection: keep-alive
Set-Cookie: _AVESTA_ENVIRONMENT=prod; path=/

This is relevant because no matter what IP an account is on, it will by default use the server’s main IP to send external requests. Because of this, one possible solution in this case would see to be if the MailChimp plugin can be altered to send from one of the un-blocked IPS. This is also important because it means changing an account IP will not help in this situation, because again outbound traffic by default goes from the main server IP, which appears to be the blocked one.

If you are unable to change the settings for that Mailchimp for WordPress plugin to use any IP other than the main server IP, your only recourse will likely be to consider migration to a VPS or dedicated server. The reason for this being that those type of hosting packages are not shared with other users, and therefore IP reputation will be dependent on the activity of you and your users alone.

You are quite correct that this entails any account on this server will have the same problem, unless the application can be configured to bind to one of the non-blocked IPs. Getting a dedicated IP will not help in a shared hosting context either for this same reason.

So to sum up, the options you have as I see them would be to see if MailChimp can help you send requests from a different non-blocked IP on the server, or else consider migrating to a dedicated or VPS server in which the IP reputation won’t be affected by other users.

If you have any further questions or concerns, please let us know.

Best Regards,

Dale M,
Linux Administrator

Just thought you might like an update on this. Still not working – and I have had this response from Hostgator – although basically they are saying “yes the Hostgator server your sites are on are blacklisted, either deal with it, or move to VPS/Dedciated”

Which is not very good customer service on their part in my opinion. Surely they should focus on users that are causing the server to be blacklisted, and not just telling their good customers to move off it if they’re not happy ?

Anyway, here is the response from their engineer

It looks as though the server’s main IP, 192.185.2.19 has been blocked:

[~]# curl -I –interface 192.185.2.19 https://us2.api.mailchimp.com/2.0/ HTTP/1.0 400 Bad Request Server: AkamaiGHost Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/html Content-Length: 297 Expires: Mon, 19 Oct 2015 21:00:20 GMT Date: Mon, 19 Oct 2015 21:00:20 GMT Connection: close

However, other IPs on the server don’t appear to be affected:

[~]# curl -I –interface 192.185.3.28 https://us2.api.mailchimp.com/2.0/ HTTP/1.1 200 OK Server: nginx Content-Type: text/xml; charset=utf-8 Vary: Accept-Encoding Date: Mon, 19 Oct 2015 21:00:05 GMT Content-Length: 0 Connection: keep-alive Set-Cookie: _AVESTA_ENVIRONMENT=prod;

[~]# curl -I –interface 192.185.3.5 https://us2.api.mailchimp.com/2.0/ HTTP/1.1 200 OK Server: nginx Content-Type: text/xml; charset=utf-8 Vary: Accept-Encoding Date: Mon, 19 Oct 2015 21:01:17 GMT Content-Length: 0 Connection: keep-alive Set-Cookie: _AVESTA_ENVIRONMENT=prod; path=/

This is relevant because no matter what IP an account is on, it will by default use the server’s main IP to send external requests.

Because of this, one possible solution in this case would see to be if the MailChimp plugin can be altered to send from one of the un-blocked IPS. This is also important because it means changing an account IP will not help in this situation, because again outbound traffic by default goes from the main server IP, which appears to be the blocked one. If you are unable to change the settings for that plugin to use any IP other than the main server IP, your only recourse will likely be to consider migration to a VPS or dedicated server.

The reason for this being that those type of hosting packages are not shared with other users, and therefore IP reputation will be dependent on the activity of you and your users alone.

You are quite correct that this entails any account on this server will have the same problem, unless the application can be configured to bind to one of the non-blocked IPs. Getting a dedicated IP will not help in a shared hosting context either for this same reason. So to sum up, the options you have as I see them would be to see if MailChimp can help you send requests from a different non-blocked IP on the server, or else consider migrating to a dedicated or VPS server in which the IP reputation won’t be affected by other users.

If you have any further questions or concerns, please let us know. Best

Regards, Dale M, Linux Administrator

@2bearstudio @dannyvankooten

I have had some response from Hostgator – as per below. I have provided them the info they have requested, and await to see if this works.

This response I have recieved below from Hostgator may be useful for anyone else who hosts their sites with Hostgator and are having same issues with the Mailchimp API blacklisting them.

(i’ve edited out some additional into blurb which was about the delay in their response to my ticket, rather than the issue itself)

STARTS>>

Thank you for contacting Hostgator support for assistance with your account.

I deeply apologize for the delay in answering your ticket…..

….Some sites may require whitelisting of certain mod_security firewall rules to allow the connection for the MailChimp API. However, on Reseller servers, this is whitelisted on a per domain basis.

Additionally it may require the additional whitelisting of SMTP authentication, which is done on a per cPanel user basis as well.

If you could kindly reply to this email with a list of the affected domains, we will gladly investigate this further and activate any safe firewall rules to allow MailChimp to work for your sites.

If you have any further questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to let us know.

David N.
Triage Administrator

<<ENDS

@2bearstudio @danny van Kooten

Okay – this makes more sense. Yes I have updated the plugin and yes now can see the error message

” The MailChimp API server returned the following response: 403 Forbidden. “

So I need to go back to Hostgator to ask them if there is a way to change my IP to a clean one. however I am on a shared hosting plan, so guessing this problem could be widespread on Hostagtor, as one bad apple on a server could get it blacklisted for the rest of us

I am continuing to have NO CONNECTION to my API, and have updated my other thread with my current situation. I am hosted with Hostgator.

The last Mailchimp sign up I got through MC4WP was 11 Oct, and it has lost connection to the API since then.

If anyone has any ideas, solotions, workarounds – please share

openssl version

Not sure if I have ‘command line access to my server’ ???? – but happy to try this if you can explain how I would know and where to use it/type it.

I have Cpanel and WHM access to manage my hosting – and I also have access to my host space via Dreamweaver – so can i use any of these with the openssl version command in any of those ?

I am Hostgator

And bascially hostgator keep telling me that they haven’t changed anything.

They are refusing as of now to update the cURL – although they said they would consider doing so as part of their general ongoing upgrade programme (but they didn’t offer any indication of timescale.)

Nothing seems to indicate I have been blacklisted/blocked by Mailchimp itself – although not sure how I would know??

This still leaves me without access to my MC4WP sign up using the API method.

If of use in your research – the last sign up I received through the MC4WP form on my site was 11 October – so for me the issue began sometime shortly after this date.

I am guessing a lot of other people affected just haven’t realised yet.

It won’t be until they start to see a drop in sign ups, or happen to open up the plug in settings page and see its no longer connected, will they realise there’s an issue

I realise this issue not caused by your plugin, and I would love to continue to use your plugin as it has served me well up until now, but as of now, for me it’s just incompatable with my Hostgator hosted websites it appears.

So I need to find a temporary solution, as it’s impractical for me to migrate my entire site to a new host as I have a reseller account with Hostgator, and I have dozens of sites under my reseller account.

Please keep this thread updated if you do find a solution. Cheers

Thanks for feedback – Well up until now the API has just connected fine But I noticed it suddenly saying it is Not Connected

So doesn’t matter which computer I use to login in to WordPress, or how many new API’s from my Mailchimp account I try, I just get the ‘settings saved’ message but still get the grey box saying Not Connected – as shown in the screenshot below.

https://i950.photobucket.com/albums/ad342/admiralanson/MAILCHIMP.jpg

I have even tried using the API from a totally different Mailchimp account/list – and still same issue.

This is also happening on another website I run, which is also hosted with HOSTGATOR.

To clarify, this plugin used to work totally fine on the same website/same host – and only begun to stop working in last week or so

I have raised a technical issue with my host, but they claim they have not changed anything on their servers at their end.

I am not seeing any HTTP errors as such ? Where would these appear ?

Just to say that this is still not working for me.

Was working fine, but now this plugin will simply not connect to the API

My site is https://www.staffordshirearts.co.uk (sign up is in the footer, and in the sidebar of any of the post pages)

I think it must be HOSTGATOR that is causing the issue – but with them being such a big hosting company, I am sure this must be affecting lots more people ?

If anyone can shed any light, much appreciated?