The VideoLAN Forums

When I try to open http://forum.videolan.org/ in Opera 9.64 I get this error:

Forbidden
You don't have permission to access / on this server.
Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.

If I change User-Agent string in Opera or switch to Firefox, everything is OK.
Why the forum hates my browser?

What is your IP ?

We deny access to many people, mostly spammers, in fact.
It might be a false positive.

Now it's 178.205.8.12, but changes once per day.
I think it's not the case because site works under Firefox and doesn't work under Opera at the same time and on the same machine.

Additional info on the issue. If I navigate to https://forum.videolan.org under Opera, site works, if I use http://... -- doesn't. Maybe this will help.

Why not updating your opera?
What is your full User-Agent?

Full User-Agent string is "Opera/9.64 (Windows NT 5.0; U; en) Presto/2.1.1"

Honestly, I'm afarid of upgarding. If something goes wrong, I'll lose all my bookmarks, wand passwords, site-specific setup (userjs, usercss). I know, it's silly, but I can't overcome myself. Eventually, I will upgrade, but I don't think it will happen soon/

When I try to open http://forum.videolan.org/ in Opera 9.64 I get this error:

Forbidden
You don't have permission to access / on this server.
Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.

If I change User-Agent string in Opera or switch to Firefox, everything is OK.
Why the forum hates my browser?

I have this exact same problem except using IE9. Access denied!

I can access using https:// but that involves huge amounts of manual labor having to always edit the url.

What's up?

I've noticed the same behaviour on wiki.videolan.org: "403 Access denied". Changing user-agent string or using https:// helps to workaround.

Yes, this is the same machine and the same anti-spam measure.

Would you fix this issue?

Maybe, if I find a solution.

I found a solution. Please report

Not working on my end, I'm still 403 forbidden

I'm having that problem with Firefox in Linux. No problem in Windoze.

Trying to access http://forum.videolan.org

This works:
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2.17) Gecko/20110420 Firefox/3.6.17 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729)

This doesn't:
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-US; rv:1.9.2.17) Gecko/20110420 SUSE/3.6.17-0.2.1 Firefox/3.6.17 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729)

Still doesn't work.
userAgent : Opera/9.64 (Windows NT 5.0; U; en) Presto/2.1.1

This works:
userAgent : Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.0; U; en; rv:1.8.1) Gecko/20061208 Firefox/2.0.0

I've upgraded to latest Opera and this bug doesn't affect me anymore. But I think you'd better to fix this issue. Who knows which user-agents are also blocked by mistake (links, elinks, dillo, w3m, GoogleBot, YandexBot, etc.) and which could be blocked in the future.

People who use these unlucky browsers think that problem is with server (as me for the first month before I tried different browser). Maybe it's better to change the error page to something "You've been banned for some reason, try different browser or mail us about this problem to [some_email]" instead of just "Permission denied"?

Hello,
I have the same problem with IE7 on my desktop when I try to access "forum.videolan.org":

403 Forbidden
You don't have permission to access / on this server.
Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.

I have no problem accessing from my laptop with IE8 or Chrome 13. Is there any workaround for IE7, other than a different or updated browser?

Thanks

Try https://

Sorry I didn't mention I had tried that also (after reading in this forum that it worked for some).
That doesn't work for me