Lancia Motor Club

Can anyone please shed any light on a recurring problem I have on this site .  I can log in and open any page but very often if I try to move to another page , topic or section I will suddenly get the following mostly blank page with :---
"403 FORBIDDEN   Access is forbidden to the requested page .  www.lancia.myzen.co.uk/forum/index.php?board=28(port 80) or (port 443)"
This has happened on numerous occasions and once it has appeared I cannot log in again for several hours or , more usually , the next day .
I know that I do not possess the best computer skills but it has never happened elsewhere .  I think it has been mentioned before but I cannot find the thread ; So please , does anyone know if is it a glitch in the site or my computer , and is it fixable ?

You are not alone. I have been battling this problem for over a year and it almost completely prevents me from posting material of my own. I can usually read a few posts and possibly make a couple of responses but no more. I can log in again after a few hours but may only be able to look at a couple of things.

I get it to a lesser extent on Betaboyz forum.

Thank you and thank goodness I am not alone .  If anyone else has experienced the same problem , please reply or advise as to solution

Hi Derek and Frank

The error is related to your login authentication I believe. Given that this is not seen by many folk, I suspect this is an issue with your specific broadband supplier/ browser and system versions. Can you confirm what you use to view the forum.

As to Betaboyz being similar, this is not a surprise as the two are very similar and hosted by the same company I think.

Peter

I have sent this message to Steve Pilgrim. It happens on my win10 pc running chrome. Also running edge.

Yes Tim , I am running the same and have reported it to Steve in the past .  It even happened again this evening when I tried to view your reply and has only just re-opened.

Hi Derek

So Win 10 with Chrome?

Peter

Peter

Also club banner has been missing from my forum presentation using chrome. It is fine on edge and ipad. This has been for a long time now....

Tim

Like others have the same problem using windows 10 and Chrome.
Problem varies some days can remain on site for 20-30 mins with no problems.
Other days view 3 posts and get error message locked out.
Its been like that for 18 months or so.
Also note that web address is listed as not secure!
Is Norton an issue?

Hi All

So, my setup is Windows10 and Chrome with McAfee ... I don't get the 403 error ( page not found ) so I am unable to replicate the problem nor shed any light on it.

Betaboyz Forum is the same software so if you experience it there then I guess it is not specific to the LMC forum.

One thing I do suffer from is the missing banner ( as mentioned by Tim ) and only on the PC with Chrome. I guess this is a problem from the PC getting the banner from the website ( so they are always aligned ). What I will do is copy a banner onto the forum server so there is no lookup to another host and maybe this will also cure the 403 problem?

The missing banner should now be fixed, I have uploaded a new banner and updated the copyright to be 2021. So, let us know if there are any further 403 problems.

Hi

At least we have some consistency, looks like starting point is on Win 10 trying a n other browser for the forum and see if the problem is still there which would sort of point into an issue with Win 10. One question is are you all updating Win10 and Chrome to the latest version?

Peter

It is!!!

OK , I do have the banner back , but when I just tried to reply the 1st time , I immediately got the FORBIDDEN page again , this time with :---"www.lancia.myzen.co.uk/forum/index.php?action=post;topic=12158.0;num_replies=13 (port 443) "

I managed to get back in by deleting my old log in method and starting again via Google search but I know it will happen again

My windows 10 is up to date as is Chrome and I do not have Macafee or Norton ;   I do realise that the problem is with me and not the site , I simply do not understand why or know how to fix it  , it is so infuriating .  Any other suggestions please ?

I would recommend installing Mozilla Firefox. If you have to have Chrome then keep that for when its necessary.
Firefox is cross-platform so it works on PC and Mac, although the latter has Safari as its default/built-in browser and likewise that has no problems. It - Firefox - also has Facebook Container which you can add on; this prevents facebook from tracking your activity on other websites, should you have to use that abomination ;D.

Hi

Maybe it is the problem with the forum operating as a secure site ( hence port 443 and not port 80 ) ( this is a good thing as it means our connection from PC to Forum is encrypted).

It is however not something that we have configured our side, it may be something Zen is doing ( who provide the hosting site ). So I reckon it is an issue with your PC connecting to a secure site and I don't know the answer as your setup seems similar to mine and I haven't really done anything on my PC and there's nothing special about the LMC forum.

It's really hard to find 'solutions' for this browsing the internet - one suggestion is the time on your PC - is it correct ? ie: set automatically using the internet time clocks ?

Hi Steve in doing your mod have we lost the rolling banner??? I know its the Lambda centenary but I like the other cars as well!?

Hi

We haven't had the rolling banner for the past year - in 2020 it was the new regalia banner. That's what it is on the website/database at the moment

This is the first time I've been able to engage again so here goes with what I understand of my set-up. I'm using:

Windows 10 (I think)
BT Broadband
Microsoft Edge for internet
Microsoft Defender Antivirus
Windows Firewall
BT Web Protect
BT Virus Protect
BT True Key
I always do the updates on everything when prompted.

I do use the dreaded Facebook and I've tried going in through a fresh internet search for LMC but that doesn't make any difference.

Given the problem is with authentication, and occurs on multiple sites, I wonder if it's how your cookies are working?
If you click the padlock next to the url, it should give a menu showing Certificates, Cookies, and Site Settings.
The Certificate is issues by cPanel for both sites, has a 3 month duration and seems fine.
The Cookies - This site has a PHP one and a site one which expire in years - the BetaBoyz site has the same, plus a bunch of PayPal stuff.
The Site Settings show how Chrome deals with all sorts of different permissions.

Next time you get a 403 error, have a look and see if your cookies are working properly.  I guess it's possible that anti-virus or something is cleaning up the cookies in such a way that it's lost your authentication, though in that case I would expect you to be able to log in again. Edit - I checked and if I delete the LMC cookie the it just logs me out, and if I delete the PHP cookie then it gets recreated when I refresh the page, so that seems fine.

Do you visit any other fora that run cPanel?

My system shows:

Certificate is “valid”.
Cookies is 2 (as it should be).
Site Permission are all set to “default”.
Tracking prevention is set to “strict”. Is that a problem?
Trackers shows 1 blocked.

The only forums I visit with any regularity are this and Betaboyz. I occasionally dip in to military history forums during research.

Does anything there look like a problem?

That all seems reasonable, but I don't know what Tracking Prevention is (I don't see that in my Chrome settings). Maybe it's worth setting it to the next level down for a day or 2 (or even when you next get a 403) and see if your 403s go away?