I haven’t been able to access my blog for a long time now because of a 403 error. Every time I tried to log in, I got this message:

We’re sorry, but we could not fulfill your request for /wp-login.php on this server.

Your Internet Protocol address is listed on a blacklist of addresses involved in malicious or illegal activity. See the listing below for more details on specific blacklists and removal procedures.

I also know that some people had been blocked from leaving messages too. So after freaking out completely and foreseeing the end of this blog for ever, I took some very deep breaths and tried to work out how to fix it.
And I did it.

Here’s how, if you are having the same problem with your wordpress blog. The error was with the Bad Behavior, the spam plugin many of us use. This is the explanation from the BB blog

All users should update to Bad Behavior 2.0.11 immediately to prevent being blocked from your own site.

Within the past two days users have found themselves blocked from their own sites while using recent versions of Bad Behavior. A third party blacklist which Bad Behavior queries recently began sending false positives for any IP address queried, causing everyone using Bad Behavior to be blocked. This issue is fixed in Bad Behavior 2.0.11.

Download Bad Behavior 2.0.11 now!

P.S. Yes, Bad Behavior is still in development. More news coming soon.

Update: Some people have asked for more details on what exactly happened. In brief, yesterday I moved all of my sites to a new dedicated server. In the process, I decommissioned an old blacklist I was running which I thought wasn’t being used, not realizing that Bad Behavior was still set to use it. Shortly afterward, I found myself locked out of my own blog, just as you all did. So therefore, this release.

What do you do after download ?

Get the patch from above and unzip it to your computer

Copy the files contained in the patch over-top of your other Bad Behavior files in the wp-content/plugins folder

That’s it !

I’ve learned something from this latest blog panic.
Don’t panic !
There’s always someone out there who can help.

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