Can't Log In on Kindle

[captainlee]

Getting error message: Forbidden You don't have access to this resource. Additionally a 403 forbidden error was encountered while trying to use an error document to handle the request.
The Kindle is working perfectly on all other sites, just this one. I have logged in now on my laptop,no issues.
Maybe a problem with the Kindle?

[J-Melt]

I think Panhead John in his attempts to stop the bots diy style decided you are also a bot!

[captainlee]

I texted him this morning about the issue and he seemed quite innocent.

[Panhead John]

I’m doing good to spell bot, much less wreck havoc on anyone….🤓

[PGH_RAM]

The bots may be getting their revenge!

[Panhead John]

One of the best movies ever!

[Mosca]

What version of Kindle? Some older Kindle browsers don’t support some recent security protocols. I have a couple that are only good for reading what’s already on them.

[captainlee]

Kindle Fire OS8.3.3.4 It runs perfectly other than this site. All updates are current.

[Mosca]

All mine are older. A Fire 8 is supported for a while yet.

[Donw]

Well Ray has been working on trying to prevent all these bots from slowing down the server. I know he has been returning a 403 forbidden if he detects a bot trying to improperly access the site. Maybe his recent code change is somehow mistaking your Kindle for a bot. Just a thought.

[captainlee]

sounds logical, I'm really not a bot I think.

[RAYMBO]

This is exactly it issue. A false positive somewhere in the 2000+ that are on the block list.

[RAYMBO]

For sure the anti-bot directives are blocking kindle. Not sure why. I searched the list of blocked bots (2000+) for anything that might cause a false positive.

The real problem with using the user-agent string is that it is not some kind of absolute parameter. The browser (of any other system the does an HTTP request) sends this information. You can easily change it. I use to mask my Firefox browser as IE (internet explorer) back in the day when sites would block no IE access for all the stupid reasons.

captainlee I need to know the user-agent string of your kindle/browser. The easy way to get that is to visit this site on your kindle.

https://whatmyuseragent.com/

Copy and post that so I can figure out the cause of the blocking.

[RAYMBO]

Update! I think I found it. Kindle has this text in its user-agent string: Silk-Accelerated

There was a block for ".*silk.*" - that is regex for match the string "silk" anywhere in the string. I removed that one.

I would still like to see the kindle user-agent string.

https://whatmyuseragent.com/

[RAYMBO]

Update. I have opted for a more strategic solution as my original block list efforts were... overkill.

So just setting the blocks to the top 30 or so AI bots.

I also added the AI bots to the robots.txt file. Good bot will honor that and stop scraping the site.

As always, I will be monitoring.

[captainlee]

Thanks, it opened right up problem solved.