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MikeT
Posts: 4809
Joined: 11 Jun 2007, 16:17
Location: Christchurch, Dorset. UK
My Cars: 2005 C5restyle 1.6HDI 16v 110hp VTR Estate
2008 C5 X7 1.6HDI VTR+ Saloon
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Post by MikeT »

I just got this error after responding to a post

****
Could not connect to smtp host : 10060 : A connection attempt failed because the connected party did not properly respond after a period of time, or established connection failed because connected host has failed to respond.

DEBUG MODE

Line : 113
File : smtp.php
****
just thought you might like to know.
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Xaccers
Posts: 7654
Joined: 07 Feb 2007, 23:46
Location: Milling around Milton Keynes
My Cars:
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Post by Xaccers »

cheers, i've been able to connect to the mail server so it may have been a one off, so if anyone else is experiencing it, please let us know.
1.9TD+ SX Xantia Estate (Cassy) running on 100% veg
1.9TD SX Xantia Hatchback (Jenny) running on 100% veg for sale
Laguna II 2.0dCi Privilege (Monty)

DIY sphere tool
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CitroJim
A very naughty boy
Posts: 49526
Joined: 30 Apr 2005, 23:33
Location: Paggers
My Cars: Bluebell the AX, Polly the C3 Picasso, Pix the Nissan Pixo, Propel the duathlon bike, TCR Pro the road bike and Fuji the TT bike...
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Post by CitroJim »

:oops:

Guilty as charged m'lud :oops: I was playing around with the SMTP mail server settings and got it wrong. All restored now...

Sorry...

I had a reason for doing it and I'll have a technical word about it at some time Xac... It was an attempt to trap and delete at source the email that gets sent every time a spammer tries to unsuccessfully register.

There are several hundred a day from each forum. Persistent little ******** these spammers :twisted:

We should be able to do a code hack on the MOD to suppress the transmission of the emails. We need to do this in order that they don't clog up the admin account when we return to admin controlled membership approval.
Jim

Runner, cyclist, time triallist, duathlete, Citroen AX fan and the CCC Citroenian 'From A to Z' Columnist...
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spider
Posts: 3949
Joined: 05 Jan 2010, 14:28
Location: Derby.
My Cars: Soon, I hope...
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Post by spider »

A simple captcha mod will work reasonably well.

It does not have to be too complicated, anything that makes the registration process non-default 'will' stop a lot of these.

Why ? , because they use scripts to automate filling the reg form. Anything extra that's required to pass this will stop / slow them down, its not worth their time (spammers time) to manually visit each spam 'target' to register ;)

Q+A is reasonable but have to watch for maths questions as people may try both words and numbers. The simple "type in this number' (with an image of the number) will help (although advanced bots can read this) but because its not part of the 'default' phpbb2 setup it will stall them. You can easily make a tiny image with a few numbers in and change that once a month or so :)

I used to use a "Please type in this number, no spaces just digits only > Seventy Four" and that worked quite well a few years ago, it stopped most of them, the odd one will always get through but the trick is to find the balance between not putting of geniune people or making it too hard or too much trouble for them (they say if it takes more than 30 seconds to 'understand' the form its too much and you potentially lose that new member) , but make it too much trouble for spam bots.

My thoughts :)
Andy.

91 205D-Turbo, gone but still missed
02 106D, TUD5B, gone but not really missed apart from the MPG
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