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-   -   ExpertFlyer Help Desk, Information and Updates Thread (https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/travel-tools/1297709-expertflyer-help-desk-information-updates-thread.html)

ExpertFlyer Voice Apr 19, 2018 9:28 pm


Originally Posted by Pocalypse (Post 29660774)
I've been getting the 'Suspicious activity detected' / 'Javascript required' pages more and more. It's as much as every 3-4 queries I run, multiple times within 5-10 minutes (and within minutes of me using it on a new day, so I don't think it's an anti-spam thing). And even more annoying, I often get just a blank white page with no message. If I try to refresh, or even close the tab and open a fresh expertflyer.com tab, I get the same white page with no info on it. It takes about 3-5 minutes of not doing anything for something to show up there (and it's the captcha page).

I'm using the same settings I have been for years, chrome 65 with javascript enabled, and ublock origin addon. It happens both at my office and home computers.

It's only started happening this often in the past few weeks, and I haven't changed anything on my end (except possibly updating chrome).

This is the result of your browser or a plug-in (most likely uBlock Origin) blocking our JavaScript. You can try a different browser/device or the private browsing/incognito mode and/or whitelist ExpertFlyer for any add-on that blocks scripts of a website (like uBlock). Nothing has changed on our end recently.

seaskybound Apr 23, 2018 4:41 am

I use VPNs as I travel often to China (but use it all the time for the privacy/security)

The never ending "captcha's" is killing expertflyer usability. Both on PC and smartphone!

I use same browser for all the other websites I use and except for a random captcha here and there (usually when paying for something) I don't have this problem. Hence I assume it is an EF policy not a my setup. Why should I switch browsers?

What is EF worried about? the capthca happens before you even login, that someone will abuse all the free info on your general homepage?

If someone is using your free service, then go ahead and use a captcha. Or your paid service, if over XX queries per hour if you are concerned it is a bot. But why before Login?

I don't use it in incognito mode so why can't you just read a cookie and see I am a paying premium subscriber? (yes the VPN will mean a different IP then usual

Even if someone is using a bot, and there are 5 queries a day (my guesstimated average, jumping to actual 25 a day when researching a flight) what does EF care?? I agree EF does not want full GDS type access for $99 a year nor DOS stuff (like every other website does not want that and does not push captchas, and double captchas and double double captchas at you*)

Frustrating to the highest level. A tool mean to de-frustrate our travel experience (and frankly the absolute most expensive online subscription I have. I guess if I had Netflix it would be 2nd)

* I have to turn a picture of a donkey right side up twice (we wouldn't want to make it easy for those bots that can figure out a donkey easily so have to do it twice) to pass, get in, login, and then a few minutes later, usually my first query, it happens again.

BobbySteel Apr 23, 2018 8:38 am


Originally Posted by Pocalypse (Post 29660774)
I've been getting the 'Suspicious activity detected' / 'Javascript required' pages more and more. It's as much as every 3-4 queries I run, multiple times within 5-10 minutes (and within minutes of me using it on a new day, so I don't think it's an anti-spam thing). And even more annoying, I often get just a blank white page with no message. If I try to refresh, or even close the tab and open a fresh expertflyer.com tab, I get the same white page with no info on it. It takes about 3-5 minutes of not doing anything for something to show up there (and it's the captcha page).

I'm using the same settings I have been for years, chrome 65 with javascript enabled, and ublock origin addon. It happens both at my office and home computers.

It's only started happening this often in the past few weeks, and I haven't changed anything on my end (except possibly updating chrome).

happens to me. i had to contact them directly.

ExpertFlyer Voice Apr 23, 2018 10:26 am


Originally Posted by seaskybound (Post 29673099)
I use VPNs...

We're sorry you're having problems, however a few things:

- The system that would show Captcha's sits in front of the website, it isn't part of it, so it has no idea if you are a free or paid member, logged in or not. It is designed to identify non-standard browsers or browsers that don't have JavaScript loaded or fast page loads to detect non-normal behavior to prevent data mining (yes, people have tried).

- This system has been in place for a couple years, and nothing has changed with it recently.

- Certain VPN providers use known abusive data centers as their VPN exit points so that alone will trigger a Captcha (again, as has been the case for a couple years).

- A large amount of quick page loads (of any page) may trigger a captcha.

- When you do solve a Captcha, it should be good for at least 15 minutes. If you get a captcha more often than that, there is an issue with your browser or an add-on (as noted below).

- There is no such thing as a "double captcha". The issue you are describing is caused by one of your browser plugins blocking the cookies and/or JavaScript from our domain which will cause the captchas to happen more often.

- We know that uBlock Origin pushed an update that incorrectly is blocking more of our Javascript beyond ads, so please white-list "expertflyer.com" in uBlock or similar add-ons.

- ....... Plus also recently pushed an update that now has an "Block additional tracking" option. If enabled try turning that off. (We know that ....... normally does not interfere with ExpertFlyer).

- Some browser add-ons change the user-agent string of the browser, making it non-standard. This will also trigger the captcha. This should be turned off for ExpertFlyer.com (again, this has been the case for years).

- If you still need help after taking the above steps, please email us directly at [email protected] with your account information along with the exact trace string from the bottom of the captcha page, your IP address, your browsers user-agent string (What's my user agent?) and a list of browser add-ons you are using.

seaskybound Apr 24, 2018 3:01 am


Originally Posted by ExpertFlyer Voice (Post 29674204)
We're sorry you're having problems, however a few things:

- The system that would show Captcha's sits in front of the website, it isn't part of it, so it has no idea if you are a free or paid member, logged in or not. It is designed to identify non-standard browsers or browsers that don't have JavaScript loaded or fast page loads to detect non-normal behavior to prevent data mining (yes, people have tried).

- This system has been in place for a couple years, and nothing has changed with it recently.

- Certain VPN providers use known abusive data centers as their VPN exit points so that alone will trigger a Captcha (again, as has been the case for a couple years).

- A large amount of quick page loads (of any page) may trigger a captcha.

- When you do solve a Captcha, it should be good for at least 15 minutes. If you get a captcha more often than that, there is an issue with your browser or an add-on (as noted below).

- There is no such thing as a "double captcha". The issue you are describing is caused by one of your browser plugins blocking the cookies and/or JavaScript from our domain which will cause the captchas to happen more often.

- We know that uBlock Origin pushed an update that incorrectly is blocking more of our Javascript beyond ads, so please white-list "expertflyer.com" in uBlock or similar add-ons.

- ....... Plus also recently pushed an update that now has an "Block additional tracking" option. If enabled try turning that off. (We know that ....... normally does not interfere with ExpertFlyer).

- Some browser add-ons change the user-agent string of the browser, making it non-standard. This will also trigger the captcha. This should be turned off for ExpertFlyer.com (again, this has been the case for years).

- If you still need help after taking the above steps, please email us directly at [email protected] with your account information along with the exact trace string from the bottom of the captcha page, your IP address, your browsers user-agent string (What's my user agent?) and a list of browser add-ons you are using.

1. If you look above you will see the complaints are not just from me on this issue.
2. I surf the web all the time a lot, around the world, different wifi sources different VPN servers (though same VPN provider) and it is only your website "that complains". This happens on PC and Phone (same VPN provider though)

I realise you could have a mere $8 a month subscription and get huge amounts of data for that via bots, and that is a risk. But a risk easily mitigated post login (if too much data is asked for at a fast rate) not just because your scripts don't match

BobbySteel Apr 24, 2018 3:31 am

We've talked about this before EF. It's your Distil product that's throwing a false positive. You have fixed it for me, but it would happen regularly when clicking fast on a mobile browser. This guy is not crazy.

ExpertFlyer Voice Apr 24, 2018 8:31 am


Originally Posted by seaskybound (Post 29677231)
1. If you look above you will see the complaints are not just from me on this issue.
2. I surf the web all the time a lot, around the world, different wifi sources different VPN servers (though same VPN provider) and it is only your website "that complains". This happens on PC and Phone (same VPN provider though)

I realise you could have a mere $8 a month subscription and get huge amounts of data for that via bots, and that is a risk. But a risk easily mitigated post login (if too much data is asked for at a fast rate) not just because your scripts don't match

1. Like we said uBlock made some changes that cause the JS from our site not to load, this will trigger the captcha. This is an easy fix, just whitelist ExpertFlyer. There are different reasons someone could get a captcha, don't confuse more than one person saying they saw a captcha with it being for the same reason.

Everyone who recently saw a captcha because of the recent uBlock change solved the issue by whitelisting ExpertFlyer.com. Your issue is because you use a VPN that has an end point in a known bad data center. That has always resulted in a captcha (which is good for at least 10 min) and always will.

2. Not many sites use services to block data harvesting like we do. But again, it's not new. Yes we do usually only show a captcha if too much data is asked for at a fast rate as you suggest, however if your browser isn't properly loading javascript then that will trigger the captcha no matter what as that is a tell tale sign of a bot (which has always been the case). All sites require their JavaScript to load for the site to work, we are no different. Again, just whitelist ExpertFlyer.com in your browser add-on if it applies to you.

As noted before, if you do whitelist and still have issues, then contact us directly with the additional information mentioned in our last post so we can look up exactly what triggered a captcha for your browsing session. That is not something we can troubleshoot via FlyerTalk as we need the other data to look up the details of your session and as such we won't be responding here further on this issue, thanks.

lairdb Apr 24, 2018 8:53 am

Someone recently reminded me about married segment availability on AA -- how can I create an award space alert that performs a multi-segment search?

ExpertFlyer Voice Apr 24, 2018 9:19 am


Originally Posted by lairdb (Post 29678241)
Someone recently reminded me about married segment availability on AA -- how can I create an award space alert that performs a multi-segment search?

Multi-segment Flight Alerts are not available at this time.

LoveHateRelationship Apr 28, 2018 4:44 pm

Not sure what's happening. My EF keeps timing out and making me do the CAPTCHA for "suspicious activity"

I'm running Firefox with Privacy Badger, HTTPS everywhere, canvas, and uBlock Origin. The CAPTCHA doesn't let me spin the ball until it's the right way up without timing out.

Tried this in an inprivate window and a regular window. It's all doing this. It's basically made the site next to impossible to use for more than one query.

ExpertFlyer Voice Apr 28, 2018 11:35 pm


Originally Posted by LoveHateRelationship (Post 29694196)
Not sure what's happening. My EF keeps timing out and making me do the CAPTCHA for "suspicious activity"

I'm running Firefox with Privacy Badger, HTTPS everywhere, canvas, and uBlock Origin. The CAPTCHA doesn't let me spin the ball until it's the right way up without timing out.

Tried this in an inprivate window and a regular window. It's all doing this. It's basically made the site next to impossible to use for more than one query.

As noted in our previous post above, uBlock Origin and/or Privacy Badger is causing the issue by blocking our JavaScript. Whitelist ExpertFlyer.com in both those tools.

If you still have issues after whitelisting then, as also noted above, please email us directly at [email protected] with your account information along with the exact trace string from the bottom of the captcha page, your IP address, your browsers user-agent string (What's my user agent?) and a list of browser add-ons you are using.

lairdb May 1, 2018 1:03 pm

Very disappointed -- no alert?
 
Why has this alert
https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...686bbb94ff.png
not fired?
https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...7aadd1d3df.png

Super disappointed -- this alert is the principal reason I paid for the service, and it hasn't worked.

ExpertFlyer Voice May 1, 2018 2:47 pm


Originally Posted by lairdb (Post 29704077)
Why has this alert
https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...686bbb94ff.png
not fired?
https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...7aadd1d3df.png

Super disappointed -- this alert is the principal reason I paid for the service, and it hasn't worked.

It will, the alerts check several times a day, not every second. If you want to make sure that on next check of the alert you will be notified, just click the Quick Check icon (the magnifying glass) icon next to the alert.

If you have further questions about how alerts work, you can email us directly at [email protected]

Sisyphus1carus May 3, 2018 8:34 am

Showing wildly incorrect data for award space DOH-UTP on QR.
Shows flights on days there are no real flights and isn't even aware of flights happening on the correct days :-(

eg: QR828 on 17th June.

ExpertFlyer Voice May 3, 2018 9:09 am


Originally Posted by Sisyphus1carus (Post 29711070)
Showing wildly incorrect data for award space DOH-UTP on QR.
Shows flights on days there are no real flights and isn't even aware of flights happening on the correct days :-(

eg: QR828 on 17th June.

As ExpertFlyer doesn't show award space for QR, it's not clear what it is you think you are seeing. QR isn't listed in the Award & Upgrade search, which is the only proper way to see award inventory.


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