XF 2.3 Can't register to my own forum. hCaptcha banned.

[TheMasso]

Hello,

After finishing most of the settings and theme customizations, I tried to register to my own forum from incognito mode but I can't register cause I get banned from hCaptcha. Also tried on my phone while cellular data is on but it was the same.

How can I resolve this?

 

[Rene_V]

Do you have access to the database? If you do, you can un ban your admin account from there by going to phpmyadmin and the very first thing to do is to make a backup of your database. As next step you can run these queries:

UPDATE xf_user SET is_banned = 0 WHERE user_id = x;

DELETE FROM xf_user_ban WHERE user_id = x;

A couple of things to keep in mind when running the aforementioned queries is to replace x with the actual if of your admin account that has been banned. I assumed that you are using xf_ as prefix for your database tables. If you are using a custom prefix you must replace xf_ with it. Hope it helps you in getting your account back.

 

[TheMasso]

Do you have access to the database? If you do, you can un ban your admin account from there.

What about future registrations?

 

[Rene_V]

What about future registrations?

First things first imo. I edited my previous post with the sql queries that will help you get back your banned account.

About future registrations, if your hCaptcha is banning users willy-nilly I think that it would be best to disable it and replace it with an alternative until you figure out why it's behaving that way.

 

[Chris59]

I had same issue with my 2 sites , hCaptcha service is abonded service now i guess
so i had to change reCaptcha for guests and other to Cloudflare Turnstile instead (its free but you need account)

Cheers

 

[smallwheels]

I had same issue with my 2 sites , hCaptcha service is abonded service now i guess

Just tried to register on my testforums and got this:



So it seems that hCaptcha has stopped the free service in the current form. Must have been very recently as I have been using it on my forums for new members and hat people register up until yesterday. I had even checked their homepage just recently as in the XF registration settings it reads:

No extra configuration is required for this CAPTCHA. But if you would like additional features, such as difficulty preferences and analytics, you should get your own API keys from https://www.hcaptcha.com/ and enter them below.

They still have a free tier after registration, however, the UX of their site is pretty horrible.

After registration you can generate a site key and secret, feed it into the XF ACP and it will work again. Seems they have stopped offering the service w/o registration/sitekey starting with Feb. 1st 2026 and - due to having no contact date from those using the service w/o sitekey/registration - they could not notify them proacively. At least this is my assumption asI could not find anything about that on their webpage.

 

[TheMasso]

Thank you guys!

 

[Rene_V]

Were you able to unban your admin account @TheMasso?

 

[Russ]

Were you able to unban your admin account @TheMasso?

You're not understanding the problem. If anyone is using hcaptcha without putting in any sort of API keys, the message shows that the "account banned, service suspended". It's not the forum account, it's the free version of hcaptcha without the API keys that is "banned" (from using hcaptcha)

You can still use hCaptcha for free, but you need to sign up and plugin the Site Key + Secret key.

 

[Rene_V]

You're not understanding the problem. If anyone is using hcaptcha without putting in any sort of API keys, the message shows that the "account banned, service suspended". It's not the forum account, it's the free version of hcaptcha without the API keys that is "banned" (from using hcaptcha)

You can still use hCaptcha for free, but you need to sign up and plugin the Site Key + Secret key.

I am aware of the hcaptcha problem, but it looks like I misunderstood the op's ban message. I thought/assumed that it was about the forum admin account. Thank you for clarifying it.

 

[Chromaniac]

ah. if this means fewer hcaptchas in the wild... it's a win i suppose.