vBulletin Mods

Good to hear it.

Actually, we have already been nominated :)

Did you vote on the poll yet? That is where your vote counts this month.

We only have a day left on the voting so we would appreciate anyone who likes this mod and has not voted yet to get their vote in now!

Cast your vote on the poll

Thanks for your support!

Using v1.2.7 with vb4.0.7.

Maintenance > Update Counters > Update User Titles and Ranks

Generates the error below.

Warning: session_start() [function.session-start]: Cannot send session cache limiter - headers already sent (output started at [path]/includes/adminfunctions.php:285) in [path]/includes/functions_ghsom.php on line 378

Hello, my vbstopforumspam have stop blocking spam registrations (Unverfied but allowed by policy) and i have seen from stopforumspam.com that you plugin is still supported. I decided to try it.

First of all I wanted to test to report spammer. I go to admincp - user profile and checked:
Remove user
Remove All Posts
Submit to StopForumSpam.com

Then I've got this error:
As you can see there is syntax error. Now I've got this error everytime I try to post something new. How to deal with that?
In spite of the error the post is completed.


After I install your plugin I've got 2 logs with "Unverfied but allowed by policy" but after this it seems to start working because I've got:
I will be happy if in log there are all registration attempts. I will see.

Thanks.

Instead of submitting from the admin cP, use "delete posts as spam" in the moderation tools and it will take care of what you are trying to do. The options in admincp are deprecated and no longer available in 2.0 which will be released in beta in a week or so.

Ok, I understand but can you tell me how to remove this query so I will no longer have database error screen?

Best!

What happens when you uncheck all the boxes?

I am putting up a version (hopefully the last one!) for the 1.x series.

1.2.8 should fix these problems for you guys and gals. I will have it up in about 2 minutes so by the time you are done reading this, it should be ready for you.

Remember, today is the last day to vote for this mod for mod of the month. It is still very close! Your vote counts.

http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=249712

Vote at the URL above. Thanks for your support!

lol, just installed the previous one. And a new one already. Updated. Thanks mate. This is a fantastic mod. Will see how it works, and nominate for sure if works!

Updated to v1.28 by uploading files, then importing XML ....

Installed Products list under "GlowHost - Spam-O-Matic" still shows v1.27 ...

With all these small iterative updates, it would help if the change log indicated which files have changed and whether a new XML needs to be imported or not...

Regards,
Badger

"Updated to v1.28 by uploading files, then importing XML ...."

That is what needs to happen every time. If something changes, it will be in the readme file.

Ok, so the product installed still shows as 1.27 because?

Regards,
Badger

Because line 6 of the xml file says this:

Block Disabled:      (Update License Status)
Suspended or Unlicensed Members Cannot View Code.

You can change it there or in the product manager in vBulletin to say 1.2.8

We hadn't planned on making any more releases for 1.x so we made a hasty release to fix some minor annoyances that some users had.... and forgot to change the version number in the xml file it would seem.

It's probably not worth uploading another version to vbulletin.org to fix the typo since it was just released. If for some reason we make another 1.x release I will make sure it is updated but most of our efforts are in the important code for the upcoming 2.0

Thanks for update. It works!
Congrats for winning the MOTM :)

Best!

Cool! And Thanks!

congratulation to win the MOTM

this hack is great

Amazing mod! I was getting 50+ spam bot signups and 50+ spam posts a day before. Haven't had one creep through for 2 days now.

once you download to site . does it work automatically or is there an on and off switch? sorry new to this thanks

Any Idea why all my RSS bots are being moderated even though their post count is WAY over the amount provided in the AdminCP??

I saw one post early on with the same problem, but the dev chalked it up to his problem, but If Im having the EXACT same problem, there has to be some sort of conflict.

Thanks,

I had the same problem and finally had to turn the moderated post function of this mod OFF to stop it from happening ... ;)

Regards,
Badger

I cant tell you why. I requested admincp logins to anyone who is having this problem so I can have a look. If I cannot duplicate it, it can't be fixed.

If logins are not something you want to give, understandable but in that case I would need exact and extremely precise instructions on your RSS settings so that I can lug them into our test forum to see what the deal is.

how to get Spam-O-Matic API Key?? thru your forum??

When I mark post as "validate" (if it was incorrectly marked as spam), does spam-o-matic post it as ham to Akismet database ?

I'm having the same issue, where the post count of the set user in RSS Poster is not being honored. Letting you into the admincp would do little to help correct or debug this issue, but I'll dig through the code and see what I can find.

My speculation is that the RSS Poster Robot does not load any information of the set poster such as their post count.

The only work around that comes to mind is to modify Spam-O-Matic to verify the post count variable and if null, to get the post count from the userid itself.

Duplication is not hard...

1) Set up an RSS Feed with the following.
--- http://news.google.com/news?q=news&output=rss
--- Username: Anyone who has high post count and should NEVER be moderated.

2) In Spam-O-Matic Settings.
--- Auto-Moderation: Keywords -> Add "news"

3) Wait.. Anything with "news" in it will be put into moderation.

If this does duplicate the problem. Yay. Fix it.. :D
If not, let me know and I'll put up a dev forum and make sure that the problem is happening so that you can have full access and see exactly what is happening.

Spam-O-Matic doesn't have an API Key. Akismet and StopForumSpam have keys, you can get those on the associated websites.

No, that would not make a lot of sense I guess. If it does, it would be a bug to report. The only time users are submitted to Akismet is:

A) If you have submission enabled in your S-O-M settings.
B) If you delete posts as spam.

Thanks for the documentation. I will try to get this tested and figure out what the deal is.

Submitting spammer data to Stopforumspam.com won't work.
What to look?
thanks,

I'm having the same problem with all my RSS feed threads being moderated (all S-O-M versions including 1.2.8).

I have Akismet switched off in Spam-O-Matic.
RSS threads generated are being moderated on every occasion. Almost without exception, none of the words in 'Auto-Moderation: Keywords' appear in the thread.

Here are my settings for one of the RSS feeds:

Feed is Enabled: Yes
Title: BBC News Asia-Pacific
URL of Feed: http://feeds.bbci.co.uk/news/world/asia_pacific/rss.xml
Check Feed Every... 30 minutes
Maximum Items to Fetch: 0

Search Items for Words Only: Search Item Body: checked
User Name: (An Admin User with 500+ posts)
Forum: (A selected forum)
Allow Smilies : No
Display Signature: No
Convert HTML to BB Code: Yes
Title Template: {feed:title}

Body Template:Post Items as Threads: selected
Post Icons: (one icon selected)
Make Thread Sticky: No
Moderate Thread: No
Thread Action Delay (Hours): 0
Unstick Sticky Thread After Delay: No
Close Thread After Delay: No
Post Items as Announcements: not selected
(last two announcement options n/a)


Relevant Spam-O-Matic settings are:

Auto-Moderation: Enabled
Auto-Moderation: Minimum Post Count: 5
Auto-Moderation: URL Count: 0
Auto-Moderation: Post Action: Moderate Post


Hope that helps.

Regards

A separate issue and further suggestion:

In functions_ghsom.php, the modcp directory is hard coded twice:

Line 317: "../modcp/banning.php?do=banuser&u='.$user['userid'].'"
Line 562: "modcp/moderate.php?do=posts"


Many people opt to change the name of their admincp and modcp directories. Without altering the code above, they'll get 404 errors when the above lines are executed.

Perhaps 'modcp' should be replaced with something equivalent to:

{$vbulletin->config[Misc][modcpdir]}



Great mod by the way. Got my vote last month. :up:

Regards
Paul

Great mod.

Thanks for the detailed information maokaang

I have not been able to get any RSS hits on the 2.0 beta version that we are testing but I am going to plug your settings in there to be sure.

Thanks for the vote and kind words. I will also look into those hardcoded modcp URLs.

Any word on release of 2.0? Very interested in trying this mod, but I was going to wait until its' release.

1.x is bomber. Try it out.

...or what?

Should I release 2.0 very buggy beta?

I would like to.

Does anyone want this unsupported mod?

One way for us to try it out. lmao. and for those who dare to install it.

OK, thanks for the feedback. I am considering release of SOM 2.0

I would like to call it SOM 2.0 VBB

Who wants it?

Hello,

Thank you for a wonderful product. It's reduced my workload tremendously.

One issue: the reporting function does not seem to be working. I have reported 10-12 spammers using the reporting function in the admin panel, and none of these have showed up on my reported spammer listing on StopForumSpam.org. I have double checked my API key and it is correct.

I'm running vBulletin 4.0.7.

Get this fixed and I'll give you 10 thumbs up and 5 stars! :)

Lisa Ridley
MWUsers.com

AFAIK that is a bug on the SFS site. The data is making it into their database from what I have read. You might ask them on their forums why you do not see it in your profile on their web site.

this seems to e an excellent mod , except pending on external website is so risky , what if the website is down ? then nobody can register ?

If their website is down you can choose what the script should do, which is either block the registration or allow it per the settings in your Spam-O-Matic admin.

I love your plugin but there should be an option which can ignore Auto-Moderation for admin's and moderator's threads and replies. I'm using the vbulletin's rss import option which imports rss feeds to forums and I have created a username "rssrobot" and asigned to those imported feeds. Your plugin send those posts to moderation because of those posts have links in it.

'rssrobot' username have administrator privilliges and it still being sent to moderation.

We need a fix for this problem so I can re-enable your plugin and enjoy. :)

Sorry for my bad english. :)

Great addon, I just have 1 question. I currently test this on vbb 4.0.5; I try to use 1 of the spammer e-mail to register. How comes I still able to register?

The RSS thing is fixed in 2.0, your English is perfect. :)

Sounds like you need to have a look at your settings, something is misconfigured.

Thanks for replying my message so fast. I re-look (lol) the settings; e-mail checked against stopforumspam database is being able. I dont know if that is the misconfiguration you looking for? And just fyi, many spammers have failed to register when I check the statistic.

So you have an email address that you found on stopforumspam.com, and you try to register with that address, and then it lets you register? What does the log say about that?

It says "Passed StopForumSpam checks. Sent to vBulletin Registration System."

Well, if the email check is enabled and it passed, then it probably means the email is not in the SFS database.

Do the logs show any other spammers that were tagged by email?

yes, there are emails and ips fail to register.

I am not sure what that would mean then, perhaps SFS is not responding to your request and you have "allow registration" set if the communication fails.

Yes, "allow registration is abled. But whatever, it stops tremendous spammers on my board now. Thanks anyway. Marked as install.

You might test if your server is able to communicate with SFS by setting the option to disabled then trying to register with a spammer address. I just tried [email protected] on our forums and it was blocked.

2010-10-21 16:27:20 xx.xx.xx.xx yutryutryutrutrtr [email protected] Spam-O-Matic Tagged email - [email protected] - Spammer Found and rejected.

Working fine on 4.0.8

Installed this on 4.0.7 and I tried to do the old fashion ban and delete thread and it now says:

Warning: require_once(includes/functions_ghsom.php) [function.require-once]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in [path]/includes/class_dm_user.php(1853) : eval()'d code on line 3

Fatal error: require_once() [function.require]: Failed opening required 'includes/functions_ghsom.php' (include_path='.:/usr/lib/php:/usr/local/lib/php') in /home/canibea1/public_html/forum/includes/class_dm_user.php(1853) : eval()'d code on line 3

vmail (confirm email before registration) was also a real live saver in regards to spam and fake accounts being created. It prevents many fake registrations on my boards.
Unfortunately this hack is not available for vb4.

Please consider to add this function to Spam-o-matic.

AFAIK vBulletin does not need a mod for email confirmation, its already part of the basic install.

Had an extremely quick browse through this thread, there seems to have been 1 or 2 problems especially when the mod was newer. Is it more stable now? What current bugs/conflicts are there? Does it work with 4.0.7?

This could be the answer to my biggest vB problem! Looking forward to your replies

I am running it on 4.0.8 and it works great for me.

I am having an issue, where an Administrator with thousands of posts is having his posts put into moderation mode for having too many url's in it.

I have my moderation settings set to:

Auto-Moderation Minimum Post Count = 5
URL Count = 0

Don't know why the issue. I tried it from my account and my post was also put in moderation.

Any ideas?

Does it affect all admins or just this one?

The difference is that the usergroup 'members awaiting email confirmation' has two different functions:
1) in the registration process. These members can be spammers or real members.
2) members that have already confirmed their email in registration, but their email account became inactive. These members are not spammers.

Problem 1: PM spam
Group 2 can have difficulty with their account and you want them to be able to contact staff to ask for help.

Group 1 should not be able to send PMs, because then they may send spam by PM.

Problem 2: Profile spam
Then there is the issue of profile spammers. Allowing users to register an account, without confirming their email address (vbulletin does allow registration even when the email confirmation function is on) in fact allows those same users to fill in profile fields, website link, and signature. So in short: profile spammers do not need a valid email address to add links to your site.
This is why there are so many vbulletin profile spammers.

You can solve this by changing the registration process and let users go trough email validation first, before they register an account. If the email is not validated, no account is created and users do not have the possibility to spam their profile, signature, website field or send spam PMs.

I installed your mod but it seems to need more checks IMO.

I was hoping to find some way to stop bots or a custom check, but didn't at all......

This mods only checks against a database, but would be cool to check the time it takes for the registraton, like "if registration time is less than 15 secs then deny".

I had this with Stop Bots Registration mod but it doesnt work on actual versions... would you consider adding some filter in the registration process?

Thanks a lot

Nothing, error.

@alpha1 if you have profile spam for users who are part of the group that is pending activation (e.g. those bots that did not click the email link) then permission them with lower options in that group so that they can do basically nothing. We don't allow such things especially signatures unless they are a member of the registered user group.

That stuff is all part of vBulletin, not this mod.

@JorgeX yes I can add it if it becomes a popular request sometime in version 2.

Why are these errors occurring? the registrations are stopped, but I am getting these dB errors for some of them....

Block Disabled:      (Update License Status)
Suspended or Unlicensed Members Cannot View Code.

Block Disabled:      (Update License Status)
Suspended or Unlicensed Members Cannot View Code.

vBulletin 4.0.8, no other dB errors exist except these. Additionally, should there be an index on the glowhostspamomatic_remotecache table?, as there is none after install.

That is an error generated by the MySQL server not the script itself. The most common reason for the MySQL server has gone away error is that the server timed out and closed the connection.

You can read more about this problem and ask your host to increase the timeout if it is set too low. There can be other reasons as well. Here is a link that explains the error.

http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/gone-away.html

As for the index, probably I will look at it a little closer later today and add it into the 2.0 version if its not there already.

My database is highly tuned, and there are no timeouts that occur on anything except this mod. I have a deep DBA background and have tuned as much as can be on MySQL dB. This is not a shot at you, by any means, however, I am quite sure my dB parameters are all in proper order, and considering the tables for this mod are very small, a simple insert or select should not induce the classic "MySQL has gone away errors". The question remains as to why this is only occurring against tables for this mod. None are crashed, however, I will re-analyze & check to ensure I am correct.

Thanks for your response, along with this mod, it is quite effective.

<<update>> I increased the wait timeout too see if that addresses the issue, and will refine from there if it does.

I seem to be getting a lot of excess hits to my database from reported spammer IPs who are not logged but have a lot of page views this is causing long delays for legitimate users , will this mod address that ? As small as my forum is I hate to go to a virtual dedicated server to accommodate spammers. Or should I just blame Network solutions for their poor service since April .

Sorry, I am not following. Can you describe in more detail what you mean about hits to your database from reported spammers? Do you mean they are being blocked but still are looking at your site which is overloading it?

Why not block the IPs using .htaccess or if NetSol is that terrible, I know of a great host...

Having the same issue. Actually, similar. The submit button does nothing when you click on it... doesnt appear to be "pressed" or anything.

VB 4.0.6

Spam-O-Matic has caught and nailed about 50 fake spammer registration attempts since I installed it. I could not be happier. I am running 4.0.8 and since I have installed the mod, not one phony spammer has gotten through, yet not one legitimate participant's registration has been blocked.

Thanks for the great spam-roller!

+1 Great work!

hi, is there a feature to scan the current database and remove spambots before the mod was installed?

There is a path error when checking the log

http://forums.fedoraforum.org/adminc...e.php?do=posts

It has a extra modcp in the path

I do not have any blocking Agents installed however like you said they are looking at the site and overloading the already over sold network solutions database. .
basically what I was asking is if this mod did the .htaccess function or would help to make it. I am still enough of a noob to not know how to do that yet.

I have turned my blog off because of the lack of mod tools and it attracts spammers like flies.

I think I read this before starting this comment but I also want to Know if there is a feature that will alert me to spam registered IPs with current members so I can go back and delete them.

yeah what he ask ?

You forgot to change version number to 1.2.8 in xml file.

just added this, hope it works :)

/me clicks install

No, because on very large boards that would mean submitting one query for each existing user to StopForumSpam.com. They have a 5000 query per day limit so that would end up getting the larger boards banned from using their service. Unless, we built in some queue mechanism to send batches of users for checking against their database, but that is a bit out of the scope of what we want to do with this mod, plus it is not nice to submit huge batches to a service like SFS.

That has been addressed in the upcoming 2.x series.

Yes, that was addressed a few posts ago, but thanks for the reminder :)

This mod does not alter htaccess or ban any IPs. it checks a remote database for known spammers and prevents them from registering.

Permanently banning IPs is not usually a great thing since you can end up blocking legitimate traffic to your site.

Thank you, I didn't really think banning Ips was a great Idea but there are certily blocks that have no business on my local site.

It would be nice to have the ability to scan several users Far under the 5k limit, for example I currently have 256 users I suspect about 70 of them are bots. Perhaps there is a seperate tool that might do that.

You could create another usergroup in vBulletin and give that group low permissions like inability to do anything other than post, move those 70 users to the new group, then use the promotion system to change them to the regular registered members group after 10 posts or so that way you will be able to tell if they are doing anything bad or not because the only way they would get full permissions is by making legitimate posts. And I don't think many spammers or bots will waste their time writing 10 legit posts because it is easier to just find another forum to spam from.

The 2.0 version of this mod actually does that part automatically for new registrations. But no plans for making it process existing users as it is generally pointless to try to go back in time and out if old registrations even exist on the blacklist anymore, which they probably do not.

In my experience, in general your bot registrations are going to not be doing much of anything if you do not see spam from them within the day or so after they register.

thats true, and It puzzles me as to why they bother, they just become these old sleepers that skew the statistics and inflate the membership numbers.

1.2.7 works well on 3.8.6 Patch Level 1 with renamed admincp and modcp directories.

I downloaded 1.2.8 but my admin cp reports 1.2.7 installed.

Not all bots are spambots. Some are there to spread malware. That is why they are quiet.

Ahh, I do know that some malware misdirects google ads to display the smiley central banner, I hate that Ad HELLLLLLLLLLO

I read something on google today says that it does work, posted by you :)

Can you confirm for the rest of us that you like it, or it has helped, or is useful in some way?

Feedback here is what drives this mod.

Everyone, Let us know what you think please :)

Since I've installed this mod my spammers have gone to zero. Not one have gotten past the registration much less a chance to post.

Cheers and thanks for sharing this great mod with the vB community. :):up:

Since spamers are using almost standard emails i put only to search email and in that way until now (100 spamers) didn't break into forum...

And if someone break I have 10 messages without able to post URL. That should be enough to remove them.

Thnx for good work

Installed on 4.07 ...amazed at how many spambots it has stopped in less than a day

but noticed in the logs a lot of email addresses which don't include an "@" symbol
yet they still get passed on to the vB registration system
is this normal?

Edit: never mind found answer in your previous post - hey i'm a noob :)
http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showp...9&postcount=92

Additionally
Is there a way to get as good a log from the Vbulletin Registration system
as this mod provides?

I am getting this:
"Spam-O-Matic Tagged ip - 95.67.80.146 REMOTE_ERROR: Unverfied but allowed by policy"

It still seems to be allowing the registration though it's a known spammer on stopforumspam.com

Any ideas as to the problem. I have both my akismet api key and my stopforumspam api key set in the configuration.

This Mod is not working for me. As far as I can tell, I've got everything configured correctly. I'm close to uninstalling as the StopForumSpam mod worked well for me before.

Does anybody have any info on the REMOTE_ERROR posted above?

Thanks!

Spammers are getting in so I had to uninstall. Was hoping for great things.

If that process would log what the error is and not just that there WAS an error it would be more helpful. I found the code where the error is getting thrown but I don't know enough about the expected contents of the call to stopforumspam.

I have the vbStopForumSpam standalone installed now. I had it before and it was working great, so I'll go back to it for now until I hear some feedback.

Is there a way to have individual minimum postcount settings for keyword vs URL moderation?

It appears both are tied to this one setting:
Minimum postcount required to avoid keyword and URL moderation

ie: I would like to auto-moderate All user's posts for keywords
but only auto-moderate new member's URLs who are under minimum post count

In your settings for either mod, you have it set to allow registrations if your server cannot connect to stopforumspam.com. You can disable registrations if you cannot connect to stopforumspam.com but then you probably will have no registrations at all.

My guess is your site is firewalled by the stopforumspam.com site itself, or your server is blocking stopforumspam.com

Ask your host to help you figure out why your server cannot connect.

keyword moderation only works onusers who have not met the postcount minimum.

Thanks GlowHost.

I posted my findings to this issue over on the SFS thread.

Here is a link for anyone who'd like to read on.

http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showp...&postcount=240

I will be reinstalling S-O-M for its extra features.

You are welcome, thanks for posting your results. S-O-M should not be affected by this problem as this setting is not an option. Though the SFS option is supposed to not rely on this option if CURL is not available. Perhaps something changes at the SFS site that requires CURL.

Request for a new feature!
Can this flag a thread for spam IF ...
A new user creates a link in his signature ... and then posts.
OR
A new user adds a html link but doesnt post.

Auto-moderation does this already.

Really ... it doesnt seem to be working for me.

The test I ran was :
1) create an account
2) post
3) change sig to include a link.

JUst upgraded from 1.2.4 to 1.2.8 and I'm getting the error:

Warning: require_once(includes/functions_ghsom.php) [function.require-once]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in [path]/register.php(333) : eval()'d code on line 4

Fatal error: require_once() [function.require]: Failed opening required 'includes/functions_ghsom.php' (include_path='.:/usr/lib/php:/usr/local/lib/php') in /home/*MYACCOUNT*/public_html/*MYPATH*/forum/register.php(333) : eval()'d code on line 4


A user reported it when going through resgistration and I got it on the admin CP user page. Any ideas? I 1st tried to overwrite the original install then I uninstalled and reinstalled but still get the error. I have now disabled and the error has gone.

Any ideas what's going on? I can't live without this mod!