Weird issue not connecting to FT.
 

My Mac (macOS Sierra 10.12.5) no longer connects to FT.com. I get a 'server not responding' in Safari, Firefox and opening a browser page in my RSS Reader (netNewWire) - although the article summaries download in the latter.

On my MacBook (also 10.12.5), all works fine. As it does on my 2 PCs.

DNS is working (I can resolve the name and IP address, yet entering the IP address also fails).

Any ideas what may be different and causing this?

are you using a VPN?

How's it working now? It could have possibly been a temporary site outage.

I was. I disconnected it for some other reason but didn't retry FT. I'll do so on Thursday after my current trip - thanks for this tip.

No, all other PCs were OK....

For whatever reason, and for a travel themed IBB, they do not allow you to access the website via VPN. There's a thread about it somewhere. PIA is certainly not going to work, if that's what you use.

<we've merged into that thread >

Thanks for the help guys! I'm back at home now and indeed it's working with the VPN off.

(And yes, it's PIA). :)

Unless IB unblocks PIA's IP range, it won't load. PIA customer service said that they're unable to do anything beyond us asking nicely to have their services work. I haven't tried a different VPN. But the thread listed above has a lot more information.

Flyertalk blocking work IP
 

Hi

I can't access Flyertalk at work. I've checked with IT and they say its being blocked at the Flyertalk end and not by work.

They say they use a cloud based proxy which may cause Flyertalk to block the IP address (I think all our traffic is routed via Singapore).

How can I go about getting our work IP being blocked by Flyertalk?

Thanks

Proxy IPs are routinely blocked due to their use by spammers. We suggest that you find a regular IP address to use instead.

Seems to be working now all of a sudden.

hate to resurrect a 2 yr old thread, but it said it's the consolidated VPN blocking thread from a search
I just installed ExpressVPN, a VPN for privacy as recommended by several tech advisor sites.
Suddenly FT is blocked. If I turn off the VPN, then it loads fine. There are threads on FT about recommendations to use a VPN when travelling, and yet FT blocks VPNs from accessing FT?
Puzzled. Any help someone can offer? I'll get the tech info for any mod who can help diagnose/fix, I just don't know what you need

PS my VPN is a personal account on a personal computer from my home, nothing corporate about it.

thx

While individuals on FT may recommend a VPN to circumvent certain countries' restrictions on access to sites or information, we do not allow access to FlyerTalk through a VPN for security reasons. Our VPN detector does not distinguish between corporate, personal, benign, or malevolent usage.

Which as mentioned before, is ridiculous for a travel forum to prevent access via a VPN when many of us use the site while at an airport and on a VPN.

can you elaborate on the "security reasons" that exist for the website that causes this rule?
As others have said, it's kind of ironic that using a VPN is recommended by posters on this site for protecting the posters, but that the web site that specializes in helping travelers bans their use.
Really have no idea what kind of problems could be created for this site by someone posting a message, vs our own devices being compromised. I've experienced buggy behavior of infected pages on this site with sudden redirects to "you won an amazon gift card!", although not lately, but seems like the site's users face more risk than the site operators.
What am I missing? Can this be revisited?

So I've gotten some new information from tech (received when I asked about security for LovePrunes). WE are not actively blocking any VPNs, but some VPNs are blocked globally through our security system (Cloudflare, a third party). So the VPN has to take this up with Cloudflare. However, we may be able to provide assistance. If you're having trouble with a VPN, please PM me the IP that VPN is attempting to use. We may have blocked that IP range locally for spamming, and I may be able to grant you access.

Thanks, IBJoel
For whatever reason it is now letting me access FT when using my VPN. I didn't do anything on my end, but hopefully it'll continue working.
I appreciate the follow up you did, thanks!

IB Address banned?
 

Were you on a public WiFi connection when you got this message?

Nope, I was on my home WiFi. I was also on the AA FL WiFi, and then a hotel's guest WiFi. I am admittedly not tech savvy.

Was this also posted from your home WiFi? If not, please PM me your IP address and I'll check it against our list of banned ones.

Yes, it was, but not from my iPhone. I was able to access the site from my iPad and laptop in the same place where I received the message on my iPhone.

ExpressVPN's standard US VPN servers are blocked, but other countries' servers aren't. Try the Canadian VPN server.

Sigh...

This seems a little heavy-handed.

Is use of FT via VPN in and of itself generally considered by IB to be an FT TOS violation? I have been assuming it isn't, but I like to make sure about the current status and the validity of my hitherto long-standing assumption.

It is not.

Why not filter by IP reputation?

I am sure Cloudflare supports that.

We do some of that too.

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/undefinedI sadly get the same error when using my VPN for AS16276 :(
Any chance of getting at least some IPs whitelisted if not the whole AS?

Weird. Same for me. US blocked on top ranked VPN provider, Canada not. Gotta love our neighbors to the north :)

NordVPN and Cloudflare error 1020 (access denied)
 

I've been using NordVPN for over a year now with absolutely no issues with FlyerTalk. Since yesterday, I can no longer access FT using my VPN, I get the message below. I have tried switching locations, but it's always the same result: I now need to deactivate NordVPN to be able to access FT. Any ideas?
https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...eb7b3f3afc.png

Is FT not available from your location? Try without the VPN, obviously.

Yes, in my original post I wrote "I now need to deactivate NordVPN to be able to access FT" ... my issue is that I have been using a VPN for over a year with no problems accessing FT, and suddenly since yesterday I can't access the site with this same VPN. I'd like to understand why.

I use a VPN when I’m trying to use a site that is restricted in the country I’m in, or perhaps if I’m using something that has sensitive data. I guess I don’t get what the need would be for doing that with FT.

I can guess why they are blocking VPN’s, but have no actual first hand knowledge. Likely they are trying to block DOS attacks made through VPNs. Shrug.

Some sites don't like you to hide. Cloudfare must have marked NordVPN IP addresses as hiding places for nefarious activity and put a block on them.

Could be, strange that it's worked fine for over a year until yesterday (with many different NordVPN IP addresses). I'm hoping someone from the FT Tech Team will chime in.

#metoo

Good to know I'm not alone, I guess 🤔 Thanks for posting.

me also. very annoying.
Interesting...Switching the protocol to OpenVPN made it work again. YMMV