XF 1.5 Member reporting ban message but I don't see anything

[dethfire]

I have a member who is reporting they see a ban message when they login, but I don't see the member in the banned user list. I logged in as the user and didn't see the message. Is this something that could be stored as a cookie?

Furthermore, it appears banned users are not able to log out.

 

[Mike]

Do you know what the message says specifically? The only other potential option is an IP ban. The ban state isn't stored as a cookie.

(Banned users not being able to use the logout link is intentional.)

 

[dethfire]

Do you know what the message says specifically? The only other potential option is an IP ban. The ban state isn't stored as a cookie.

(Banned users not being able to use the logout link is intentional.)

Error: You have been banned for the following reason: ...

The user is not in banned list (or in db table), no banned IPs. I think the ban cookie is stuck on their computer (he was temp banned years ago). The problem is this user is in his 80s and not savvy. Is there anything else I can do on my end to free his account?

 

[Mike]

If there's a reason in there, that reason is definitely coming from the database. There isn't any client-side caching here -- that reason specifically gets pulled from the DB.

I can't really think of any other causes and if you can't reproduce it while logged in as him, it certainly makes it difficult to make any suggestions as to what would cause it. I suppose add-ons are always a possibility.

 

[dethfire]

Could I create a new user and merge it with the original account? Would that change his ID and free him? I suppose I'd still need to get him to clear the cookies.

 

[KawaiiHannah]

Could I create a new user and merge it with the original account? Would that change his ID and free him? I suppose I'd still need to get him to clear the cookies.

In theory yes it should would cause the new account would have a new Id but for him to be able to login he'd have to clear his cookies and cache

 

[Mike]

Given that I have no idea what would cause something like this (where you can't reproduce it when logged in), it's hard to say definitively, though if you merge into the new user, it's quite possible.

Not to focus a point, but are you 100% sure he's logged in as the user you're testing? At this point, crossed wires in communication are really the only thing I can see. I suppose if you have the reason text, you might be able to search for that exact text in the xf_user_ban table (if it's unique) and that would confirm some details.

 

[dethfire]

hmmm the member claims to have cleared cookies but says the message remains. I have merged the account into a new username. Guess nothing more can be done.

 

[Mike]

If you did the merge, then the old "banned" user wouldn't exist any more, so there is literally nothing else that can be done within XF. The only other thing coming to mind is some very extreme -- and completely incorrect -- caching happening some where on the path between them and your server. We send headers that indicate this shouldn't happen though. That'd be essentially impossible for us to resolve though.