403 forbidden

Author
Discussion

Samjeev

725 posts

122 months

Tuesday 30th June 2020
quotequote all
I'm getting a 403 error when attempting to reply to my reader's car thread:

https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...

I was able to post a reply of a single character no problem but when posting the big reply it gives me 403, it's similar to all my other responses in that it's around a paragraph of text with a small bit of bold formatting, a youtube link and some pictures.

I did have a bit of text in brackets but even after removing that as i thought it might be the SQL Injection thing mentioned above it was still a no-go.

afrere_ph

48 posts

62 months

PH TEAM

Wednesday 1st July 2020
quotequote all
Hi Samjeev,

As you've gathered these types of issues do pop up rarely for certain inputs as the firewall we run (to keep the forums secure) can sometimes falsely interpret safe text as malicious. We do plan at some point to make this experience better, but for now it is a known limitation for a small percentage of posts.

That said, you can use the Preview function to gradually isolate the problematic bit in the block of text - e.g. for the text block, start with just the first paragraph and try Preview, if you see 403 you know the bad part exists within there and can go back and further filter it down.

It is a fiddly process, but given the firewall is a managed service and uses an industry standard ruleset to catch security risks, there isn't much else that can be done at the moment (without significant dev effort!).

Alternatively, feel free to post a screenshot of the text that's being blocked, or email info@pistonheads.com and we may be able to shed some light.

Cheers!

Samjeev

725 posts

122 months

Wednesday 1st July 2020
quotequote all
afrere_ph said:
Hi Samjeev,

As you've gathered these types of issues do pop up rarely for certain inputs as the firewall we run (to keep the forums secure) can sometimes falsely interpret safe text as malicious. We do plan at some point to make this experience better, but for now it is a known limitation for a small percentage of posts.

That said, you can use the Preview function to gradually isolate the problematic bit in the block of text - e.g. for the text block, start with just the first paragraph and try Preview, if you see 403 you know the bad part exists within there and can go back and further filter it down.

It is a fiddly process, but given the firewall is a managed service and uses an industry standard ruleset to catch security risks, there isn't much else that can be done at the moment (without significant dev effort!).

Alternatively, feel free to post a screenshot of the text that's being blocked, or email info@pistonheads.com and we may be able to shed some light.

Cheers!
Sorted it in the end, truthfully i've not a clue what it was as I eventually wittled it down to a single line of text but couldn't figure out what word in that line was causing the issue as it was just all text, no symbols or punctuation.

Reformatted it and changed some of my wording and it seemed happy with it in the end.

CAPP0

19,602 posts

204 months

Tuesday 7th July 2020
quotequote all
I'm now getting this error when I try to PM someone - they have the link available, I click on it and get the message window, type my message in but when I try to send I get the 403 Forbidden error. Tried several times today. Same browser/OS as I'm using here - macOS High Sierra, Safari v13.1.1

768

13,707 posts

97 months

Tuesday 7th July 2020
quotequote all
Probably something in the message text it doesn't like.

HiAsAKite

2,355 posts

248 months

Monday 28th September 2020
quotequote all
Getting the same issue on my attempt to post on the pihole thread https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...

Have tried from phone, laptop, using Chrome and Edge

HiAsAKite

2,355 posts

248 months

Monday 28th September 2020
quotequote all
Ok - problem solved.
In my case - it did not like me typing the command line command (typed here with extra spaces) " n s lookup "

I presume this is flagging under input validation against injection attacks or similar?

Tom Logan

3,227 posts

126 months

Monday 28th September 2020
quotequote all

Had this 403 message since Saturday, this is my first successful login since then.

Latest Firefox/W10 on laptop.

Hasn't happened with any other sites.

DRFC1879

3,437 posts

158 months

Friday 29th October 2021
quotequote all
Testing after getting a 403 error today.

EDIT: That's strange, I get a 403 error when trying to reply to the Dune thread in the P&P but not on here.

Further edit: It seems that the "Dune" thread is the only one to which I can't reply. Which is annoying as I saw it last night and it was EPIC!

Edited by DRFC1879 on Friday 29th October 10:15

Funk

26,300 posts

210 months

Tuesday 18th January 2022
quotequote all
Any ideas why I'm getting this when trying to post a reply? Everything else looks like it's working, I just can't post in a particular topic.

This one: https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...

Weirdly I've been able to post this here no problem.

Funk

26,300 posts

210 months

Tuesday 18th January 2022
quotequote all
Ok, bizarrely it was this sentence: "I can see how that might affect new hires."

I took that out of my reply, replied, then edited it back in which apparently it has no issue with. Slightly janky UX there tbh.

Edit: and even more strangely, it's had no issue with me posting that sentence here at all.

Scrump

22,073 posts

159 months

Tuesday 18th January 2022
quotequote all
Glad to hear you got it sorted.
thumbup

judas

5,992 posts

260 months

Wednesday 26th January 2022
quotequote all
Getting this error posting something innocuous to the Homes & Gardens forum.

WTF?

Edit:
This is what I was trying to post:

me said:
With the Simplisafe system there are three modes: off, home, away.

Sensor behaviour is configurable for each mode, ie disabled, secret alert [sends an sms/email if triggered, but doesn't trigger the alarm] or alarm.
I had to change round brackets to square brackets to get it to post. The 403 trigger seemed to be
alarm)


Edited by judas on Wednesday 26th January 10:33

mikeiow

5,385 posts

131 months

Wednesday 26th January 2022
quotequote all
I'm getting it trying to reply to the "enjoying retirement" thread....
Removing the bits I'm quoting, my words are these: no idea what PH is grumbling about here?


"
Bit confused by this!

You are planning to leave the kids around £1M (in todays money) when you pass away? Or have I misunderstood you?

If you assume you'll be early-mid 80s (average life expectancy), how old will your kids be then?

We've tried to help ours start their savings journey, & likely they will get a reasonable chunk when we peg out, but frankly they likely will be in their late 40s or early 50s by then, & perhaps won't have such need for it then.


That sounds totally reasonable. Certainly all we've seen from older relatives is spending drops significantly after 80 (& perhaps also around 65-70).
In a couple, I guess you also need to think if the 'survivor' will be comfortable enough if the first passes earlier....

"

eta - yet weirdly my words are just fine here.

There is definitely something buggy going on!

Ben Lowden

6,063 posts

178 months

PH Marketing Bloke

PH TEAM

Thursday 27th January 2022
quotequote all
Funk said:
Any ideas why I'm getting this when trying to post a reply? Everything else looks like it's working, I just can't post in a particular topic.

This one: https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...

Weirdly I've been able to post this here no problem.
I've just merged your thread with this one. And to surface Alex's post up from above:

afrere_ph said:
As you've gathered these types of issues do pop up rarely for certain inputs as the firewall we run (to keep the forums secure) can sometimes falsely interpret safe text as malicious. We do plan at some point to make this experience better, but for now it is a known limitation for a small percentage of posts.

That said, you can use the Preview function to gradually isolate the problematic bit in the block of text - e.g. for the text block, start with just the first paragraph and try Preview, if you see 403 you know the bad part exists within there and can go back and further filter it down.

It is a fiddly process, but given the firewall is a managed service and uses an industry standard ruleset to catch security risks, there isn't much else that can be done at the moment (without significant dev effort!).

Alternatively, feel free to post a screenshot of the text that's being blocked, or email info@pistonheads.com and we may be able to shed some light.
Sorry that we can't be any more specific right now but hopefully this is helpful if you get stuck again in future.

anonymous-user

55 months

Tuesday 8th November 2022
quotequote all
I have started getting this message all the time now when trying to post.

It is extremely annoying!

Griffith4ever

4,288 posts

36 months

Friday 11th November 2022
quotequote all
Hi - I'm getting it on the Books & LIterature section but no where else. Can't preview , can't post. 403 forbidden.

I've posted in there previously

Ahhh - update - got it.

I had to remove "waking gods", and retype it. Bloody odd! (they are books btw)

"Sleeping Gods and Waking Gods"

Edited by Griffith4ever on Friday 11th November 10:15

LunarOne

5,220 posts

138 months

Saturday 12th November 2022
quotequote all
I'm getting this when trying to post an innocuous reply in The Lounge. Very odd. Let's see if I can even post this...

ecs0set

2,471 posts

285 months

Monday 21st November 2022
quotequote all
Redirected here because the phrase "soak" "and" "sleep" triggers this issue. Not aware of this combination being an obvious trigger for SQL Injection or Cross-Site Scripting but perhaps I'm a bit behind on my security training?

2.5 years of this being a known issue with poor user experience and no fix? Is this a Microsoft 3rd party firewall?! laugh

Raising obvious false positives with the 3rd party sounds sensible? At the very least, improving the error message shown to end users would seem to be a reasonable aim.

beer

TonyRPH

12,977 posts

169 months

Monday 21st November 2022
quotequote all
It's also worth checking if the hot water pre heat function [if present] is disabled.

I can post the above sentence with square brackets - but posting with normal brackets results in a 403 forbidden error.

That's a serious bug in your filtering PH.



Posting the above line (anywhere in the forums) results in a 403 forbidden error.

EDIT: It must be the words "if present" causing the issue, but only when wrapped in brackets!

But yet it works here (if present) for some reason?

EDIT (2): I found it. The filtering doesn't like the use of the word 'function' followed by a bracket.

Edited by TonyRPH on Monday 21st November 20:55


Edited by TonyRPH on Monday 21st November 20:57