Randem Systems Support Board

When Google first came on the screen they had a moniker, "Don't Be Evil". Now I think they are amongst the most evil in the market today. They suck all the data that they can about you to use or sell to others.

I was forced to try Google Messaging due to Samsung not supporting Samsung Messaging past July on my Samsung phone that Google owns the OS to. Let that sink in for a minute... I decided to give it a try before being forced to use it, who knows it may not be a big change... Wrong, Google takes some of the most simplest things about texting and now you may need a class to use it.

I don't know who they got to test this system (besides Google employees), but here are some of the most simple parts of texting that Google engineer difficulty into:

• Messaging Screen to Busy:
  
  The texting area is so much smaller than I am used to and you can almost miss it because the screen has all these other things in the way like emojis and such. When I go to text, this is all that I want to do, Emojis and such things should be secondary and not the primary focus of texting.
  
  
• Cut & Paste:
  
  I tried to cut and paste from one message that I had already sent to apply it to a new text message with a few changes. I use to be able to bring up the old message press and hold on the message then select copy go to the new message the press and hold then select paste. it. This no longer works in this simple way. When you press and hold either Google will pick out some numbers in the message for you to copy or emojis pop up. None of this is useful to me, I cannot copy the message at all. This is so simple how did they screw this up...
  
  
• Group Texting:
  
  This is a real nightmare, I regularly group text members weekly and so I sent out the first group text. To my surprise I got an individual copy of the text message that I sent to each member on my group. This clogs up my messages so that I cannot find anything anymore. I sent out one group text to 19 people and got 19 copies of the text messages back to indicate that Google had sent the message. This is even though I have read receipt unchecked. How is cluttering up my message box helpful? One text with the names of everyone who the text was sent to would be acceptable but this is not. Who thought this was a good idea?
  
  
• Group Text Lists:
  
  I am really confounded by this one. Once I placed people on the group text list, I cannot remove anyone... This is utterly ridiculous, I will have to spend time to create yet another group text list missing one name. In the past all I had to do was to remove a person from the group and proceed to text. again Google engineer complexity where it was not wanted or needed. I read that because Google is using RCS messaging, that is one person in the group does not have RCS, I cannot remove them from the group. How stupid is that? They have to stay on a group text list that I created and cannot manage... BTW, if you make one mistake, hit the wrong button in creating the new group text list the whole list is lost and you have to start over again. Nothing but a time suck...
  
  
• Gemini:
  
  This one I cannot explain. The text messaging app keep asking you to use Gemini, Google's AI creation. If you read the disclosure it clearly states that Gemini may make up things about people. Now who wants that in your texting, auto-correct is enough without your app creating lies about the people you are texting then sending it out to who knows... Why is this good and who wants this?

After this fiasco, I immediately switched back to Samsung messaging and will wait until July or until I can find another text messaging app that has no ads in it and doesn't want me to pay to text... Maybe it's time to go iPhone...

For more information see Uninstalling BotBanish

It is recommended that BotBanish is run with "Record Only Mode" (which will be renamed to "Redirect Only Mode") checked in the settings. This is the default in version 7.1.06. Running without it checked will result in all users using the same IP address to be locked out if one user using that IP address violates the BotBanish Rules. This can lock out whole companies or households. In some cases this is needed, like running on a private in house website. You can list another company's IP address to be whitelisted or blacklisted allowing limited access to services.

If you attempt to use some admin function and get redirected to Google, it is most likely one or more of these reasons.

• The IP of the device your are using is not listed in the whitelist table. Go to BotBanish->Settings-Whitelist->IP to place your IP in the table.
  
  
• The IP of your device is listed in the blacklist table. Go to BotBanish->Settings-Blacklist->IP to place your IP in the table.
  
  
• Cache on the server as well as the computer must be cleared. On the computer hold the Control key and Press F5 three times. If running a cache system such as NGINX, you need to clear the cache of the account you are using. If not the the cache system will remember your device being sent to Google and will continue to do so. A quick and dirty solution would be to add ? and some random characters after the redirected query to override the cached response. Ex. https://yourdomain.com?asd this will override a cached redirected query of https://yourdomain.com
  
  
• You may need to access the BotBanish Session table in phpMyAdmin to search for your IP and remove it.
  
  
• You may need to access the BotBanish IP_Bad table in phpMyAdmin to search for your IP and remove it.
  
  

There are some instances when BotBanish will not uninstall or you cannot access the forum because it redirects to Google. This can be handled in two ways.

• Empty the session table. Then delete in the bad_url table the entry in "url_part" for ".js". Then uninstall.
  
• Download the BotBanishCleanup script and read the ReadMe.txt file for instruction on how to automatically remove all BotBanish tables, folders and files.
  Download from here

Due to the change in  the BotBanish naming nomenclature, the update feature of WordPress will get confused and hang the system. The only way to get back in is to manually delete the BotBanish folder from the plugin directory, login and install BotBanish version 7.1.04. Versions prior to 7.1.04 need to be deactivated and deleted in the WordPress Dashboard, then Version 7.1.04 can be installed and activated. Future version will be able to be updated via the WordPress dashboard.

If you cannot log into your SMF forum after installing BotBanish. To solve this issue, access the database via phpMyAdmin to delete the following data from the SMF Settings table.

Search for the variables then remove the associated values then save:

variable	value
integrate_register	BotBanish_SMF_CheckUserRegistration
integrate_login	BotBanishClient_UserLoggedIn

You will now be able to log into the forum as normal.
This will be corrected in BotBanish version 7.1.04.

These values can also be deleted with no significant loss of functionality:

variable	value
integrate_preview_post	BotBanish_SMF_CheckUser
integrate_post_start	BotBanish_SMF_CheckUser
integrate_pre_log_stats	BotBanish_SMF_CheckUser

NOTE: We also have a script that can totally uninstall BotBanish if you should run into trouble.

Ok, make sure he knows NOT to re-install SMF. Only regain access to the site from the hosting company.

It's sorted. Just spoke to my friend on the phone, he's taking care of it. He wasn't angry.
He might join the thread. The guy is a genius.
He programs online banking for various banks and is a very good musician.

No, not restart the forum, the VPS server. That is where the issue lies. The forum is fine. access to the server is blocked. The VPS server is blocking access to the forum. You do have a VPS server yes? It could just be an SSL issue. Your hosting company will know why it is blocking access to the forum.