Exetools Server options changes?

[MaRKuS-DJM]

well, this post doesn't belong to cracking or something else, but i found no other area to post.
i just wanted to ask if Exetools (Forum) http-access is now limited to one connection per IP. i tried in the past to open more than one forum or post and everytime i did that, the server didn't response anymore and i wasn't able to read/write anything for hours.

Hi MaRKuS-DJM,

I had similar problems recently which I PM'd JMI about. I had problems accessing ONLY the "Software Release" Forum page:
http://www.exetools.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=9

Where my firewall would go berzerk..
Invalid TCP/IP packets were sent to me from www.exetools.com and I also got WinCrash Trojan (port 4092) attempts from www.exetools.com(211.141.237.27) which my firewall NIS2004Pro blocked and then further blocked ALL communication with www.exetools.com for the default 30 minutes.

Things seemed to be fixed just recently, and I can also get mutiple forum pages open at one time. But from approx. 16-Aug-2004 to just a day or so ago 20-Aug-2004 I had the severe problems I mentioned at the start. After that my firewall would not "AutoBlock" but the exetools forum server would not respond to me after crashing on some pages (especially f=9).

I suggested the possibility of a rootkit exploit on the exetools server. I am not sure what has changed recently but things are working fine now for me. Perhaps there could just have been a problem with the exetools DNS name registration. I would be interested to know what (if anything) has been done with the exetools server recently, or if it was an ISP problem or otherwise.

I sincerely hope there was not a rootkit problem that had to be cleaned.

Regards,
nullz

[nuemga2000]

Interesting ...
... i had the same problems for some days; and now, it seems to work again

Kerstin

[MaRKuS-DJM]

i just wondered if i'm the only one with that problem. but now i see also others have this. at the moment, it works. i didn't look at my firewall, so i don't know what was going on. maybe i have some old log-files.

best regards

[JMI]

Hello fellow problem viewers:

I had similar problems as reported by nullz, but did not get any virus warning which he reported. After several days with the board freezing on me whenever I attempted to access threads in the Software Forum, and only there, I asked my fellow admin from the Woodmann Forum, dELTA, to take a look at the issue from a fresh perspecitve, because something was screwing up my efforts to even see the problem with either IE and Opera.

When he took a look at the Software Forum, he noticed something which didn't show on my browser, which was that there were "special" characters showing in several of the threads. He was also getting a notice on every page that he needed to download a language pack.

Putting two and two together, he concluded that these "special" characters might be screwing up the Thread Preview feature in some way. I was not seeing the "special" characters, because I've installed the Chinese language pack so I can look at the Chinese Area with a translator. I got tired of all the square boxes in place of the Chinese characters.

The Thread Preview is the feature which causes a box to open when you mouse over the Thread Titles and gives you a "preview" of the text of the thread. The default on the vBulletin installation is 300 characters, and for some reason, it was choking on the "special" characters, which seem to be related to those using Chinese language enabled machines. We've had a substantial increase in new members posting from China since the registration was opened and there appears to be something which are added when they type English that was causeing the "Preview" to fail and it was blocking the refreshing of the pages in the Software Forum, but, at least for me, not anywhere else.

Yesterday, I turned the Thread Preview function "off" in the vBulletin Options and that seemed to "cure" the problem. I haven't had the time to try some number of characters less than the default 300 yet, but will later, as time permits. At least for me, with it set a "0" I no longer have problems on that Forum. I will keep watching the issue and post on the vBulletin Forum and see if they can provide a solution to the issue.

Regards,

[Jay]

Hi JMI,
Don't know if its of any help just thought I would mention my problems with Software release section seem to be specific to the ArmPE thread. I can view threads before and after it no problem.

http://www.exetools.com/forum/showthread.php?t=4955