How the Heck am I being Banned? I'm an admin!
 

I just noticed I couldn't subscribe to any threads in my own forum and I kept getting this Vbulletin message:

You have been banned for the following reason:
None

Date the ban will be lifted: Never

I then went into admincp and "View Banned Users" option and noticed I am on the permanent ban list including 2 of my other admins. How could this be? I tried lifting the ban on myself and the other 2 admins and it would change me into a registered users and lock me out of the control panel. This sucks cuz, I have to use my tools.php..just to get back in.

Anybody ...Please Help me out!

-ant

did you create the forum?

I might be wrong, but in config.php you define the 'main' admin, and this user can't be banned or deleted. If you were made an admin and didn't start the forum, then you can be de-admined, banned, deleted, etc

as I said, i'm not 100%, but thats what I think...

if you did create it and you are the leading admin, then I have no idea what happened...

Yup I created the forum, I'm a little new to VBulletin...so I don't know by default all admins are suppose to be on the permanent ban list? I just can't subscribe to a thread without getting a message...saying i'm banned?:confused:

Check your config.php file in the includes directory and make sure you are set as the superadmin there.

Yup checked it already and everything is set to "1" which is my userid. Still can't subscribe to a post.:tired:

1) I disable all pluggins to troubleshoot. No luck

2) Checked my usergroup settings and set everything to "yes" for Admins. No luck

what about checking the forum permissions??

Checked there too..and still no luck:tired: The permission for Admins..are all set to yes for forum permissions.

what happens when you click on "lift Ban"???

It removes me as an administrator and locks me out of the admincpanel. This is when I have to use the "tools.php" to get back in and reset everything. Weird huh?????:confused: :confused:

ok create a dummy user and make them an admin with full privillages log in with that username you create and un ban your username and set your original username ant0nio back to admin, worth a try

seems you may have created a secondry usergroup for admins if lifting a ban puts you back as a registered user

I've tried that already and it would put me back into the permanant ban list. Anyone with Admin powers seems to only be effected and not any of the Mods.

the only thing I can suggest part goes off what Rickie3 said

Create a dummy user, BUT set them as superadmin and all the rights via the config file... hopefully that will allow you to get back in as the dummy user and unban admin

That happened to me a year ago using PHP Nuke, before I decided to change - the site got hacked (SSH).

Sounds like you have been hacked. They may have gotten in through some other application on your server.

Gosh..I hope my site didn't get hacked. I just started Vbulletin last month. Maybe I added some bad hacks, that changed the architecture of vbulletin codes????

Anywayz..Rickie3 is going to look into this for me. I'll keep you guys updated, since this may have happened to others.

I had this happen to me when i first opened my site go into the usergroup the edit one and way one the bottom under usergroup opitions
make sure this part is set as NO

This Usergroup is a 'Banned' Group
(This setting allows you to specify which of your user groups contain 'banned' members. Your moderators will be able to 'ban' users into this group if you specify 'Yes' to this setting)

I just tried that and it didn't work. I made sure it was set to "NO"

Is there any advanced coder or master coder on vbulletin.org that can help out? It seems no one has a solution.:tired:

Is your primary group Administrators, or is it only a secondary group?

Everything is all fixed now. I feel stupid, the problem was in my admin settings I had set the admins part of the banned group. oooops :p

Special Thanks to Rickie3 for helping out and solving the issue. Now, I think i'll go hide in the corner lmao! :p

Glad you got it worked out. Still, to be on the safe side, unless you have a need for it, disable SSH to your site. :)

How do you do that? ;)

@ ant0nio, what did you do to fix it?

I don't actually understand what you mean here, can you explain.

Usergroups have an option 'Is Banned Group', setting that to yes means that every member in that group is banned

i'm pretty sure that is what they mean

Not sure of the results coz of the conflicting 'Is Banned' and 'Is Administrator'

1. Restore yourself as an administrator.
2. Make sure you are listed in $config[...uneditableusers] in your config.php.
3. Make sure you do not have any admin that does not necessarily have to be an admin.
4. Make sure that you are the only admin that has permission to edit users.
5. Make sure your password is hard to guess.

Exactly, under the usergroup settings, "Admins" I had selected "yes" and every admin was banned in the group.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...T0B/banned.jpg

Check to make sure that the Admin Group is not a Banned User Group in the Admin Group Settings.

OOPPPS... Sorry for duplicating this...i didn't read page two.

But how did you get access to change it if you were banned?

that's what I was wondering :confused:

so was I! LOL...

I had a Rickie3 that saw this post and helped me out on my board. I temporarily made him an admin for my site and he helped fixed everything.

I guess I'm lost here. If it was happening to Admins, wouldn't making someone an Admin cause the same problems for them? ;)

The reason I'm asking is in case anyone else runs into this it would ne nice to know how you fixed it so thery can follow the same procedure. ;)

You could change your group ID via the SQL datbase.

That's what I thought but if you did that, you wouldn't be an Admin and wouldn't be able to get in as Admin and change anything. Almost like a catch-22. ;)