OK, I find that it works with a new 4.2.1 installation. Did you enter anything for "Maximum Elapsed Time" or "Limit Notifications by Registration Time"? And what did you select for "Action". When you say it went ahead with the registration, did it actually create the user? If you chose "Stealth" for the action it will show you the message as if the user had been created even though it wasn't.

Edit: I'm sending you a PM...

Action is set to 'Show no permissions'
Minimum elapsed time is currently set to 30, have set it to 300 for testing myself.
Max Elapsed Time is set to 0
Limit Notifications is blank

Yes it created the user account and sent me the email verification email.

My assumption is that when this works the results of completing the registration form too quickly should be I get an error on the screen that displays the no permissions error, or if I select the return to reg page action it would display a message I enter in the box for them to see.

Those settings sound OK, and you're right, you should see the error if you turn off the button and register in less than 300 seconds.

Since I can do it without annoying too many people, I will remove everything, purge the database, and start from scratch. I only tried installing one other mod which was the spam hammer and it had issues with the php ini settings, which I have no control over. Didnt like the url get options or something. Anyway, will start fresh and see what that gets me.

That sounds like a good idea - I suppose it's possible that it didn't get fully uninstalled and is interfering somehow.

ETA: Thanks for letting me know (via PM) that after your reinstall this mod is now working for you.

Yep, since last night 104 have been blocked, and 0 new registrations have been successful. Thanks for the help and this great little antibot mod.

If you're getting that many blocked...

Look up each IP to find its IP range, then check to see if that range is a hosting company (ie, server farm where no legit users should be coming from). Block the range at the firewall level or using DENY in .htaccess. 2-3 weeks of doing this an the number of blocks you should be seeing will be a handful per day. The bonus is it will block a lot of other bad crawlers, decrease bandwidth the server users and result in faster site response time.

Thank you for a much needed addition to the arsenal or tools to combat those unwanted bots. I am also pleased as to how simple it is to use. Job well done!

Thanks, I'm glad you're finding it useful.

When I go to add this via products vBulletin is asking me to choose from a drop down list what hook to choose. Can I ignore that and just add the product?

I installed Spam-O-Matic the other day, which has been very successful, and when adding that program it didn't ask which hook to choose, so am confused now as I don't know which one to choose for SpamBot Stopper if any.

Any advice gratefully received.

vBulletin v4.1.3