Hi there,
I'm a brand new user here and at my wits end. I've decided to post because I found some other blackcats posts here. I hope I have posted this in the correct spot.
I have a long story, and require help, but due to the (rightfully) secure status of blackcats I am unable to do anything about my problem. In addtion, none of my friends on blackcats are prepared to post my issue in the forums there due to there being a number of threads where members have posted their friend's issues and they have been banned straight away as a result. I understand their actions.
Here is my story, the first bit below is the message I asked a friend to post in the forums.
Part 1:
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Hi There,
I've been a blackcats member for almost two years now (I think), I don't have any hit and runs, and on my average adsl connection I've managed to keep a ratio in excess of 2.0 for a long time now.
My problem,
Around the 12th of Feb 2009 utorrent was showing that some of my old torrents had a an 'incorrect password' error and had stopped downloading so I went to log in to blackcats to check my seeding details. Unfortunately the 'Your Company Page' just kept reloading after putting in my Key Word and correct name and password.
I decided to use the password recover function. That appeared to go well, and I was emailed my new details, but I am still faced with the same problem. Using the new Key Word (username and password boxes pop-up correctly) and password I still cannot log in.
I have tried different browsers, firefox and IE (ugh), different operating systems (I am using xp, but I booted in linux and tried through there) to no success.
I have ensured that adblocking etc are off and that cookies for blackcats are enabled. I even tried with full cookies enabled.
I have even tried changing DNS servers (this was an issue with my ISP and blackcats in the past, using opendns was suggested by a user on the blackcats forums and worked wonderfully) and I have also tried to log in using the TOR network (which worked in the past before my ISP solved the DNS issue).
Can you please let me know if there is an issue with my account?
My user name is: catbrown
Apparently my details are still there because I have used the recover password process a few times in the last few days and my details are sent to the correct email address.
I am a long time user, with a healthy ratio and no hit and runs
(except for maybenow since the few torrents I was downloading when this issue began have stopped seeding).
Cheers,
catbrown
Part 2:
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I was briefly able to see the forum login, but it told me I had the wrong IP address, which is weird becasue I have a static IP. I couldn't access any of the forum threads, but did find the forum admin email address and posted my above explanation. No response. But then again, I guess that address gets lots of spam from people who are trying to gain access.
So I asked a friend to post my problem on the blackcats forums, but just before he was going to he found a thread where a member got banned for posting a question about a friend of his that suddenly had no access.
He also found a thread for people to reply to if they were having wrong IP address issues (or something like that, sounded like that could be me too) but the explicit instructions were to reply in the thread, not to post your IP address.
Something I could not do, because I could not log in. And my friend did not want to break the rules.
What my friend did tell me was that my account (catbrown) was disabled. This surprised me. But alas, I was also not able to ask why, because I couldn't log in.
Another web search got me the address of the help channel in irc. I went there and copied and pasted the above message into the channel... those of you who are familiar with the channel (and the rules... remember, I had no access to the rules because I couldn't log in to the forums) or have used IRC more recently than me (ie I used it a lot back in uni, but not in the 10 years since) would recall the flooding limit.
And seriously, the instant I pasted my message and saw it taking multiple lines I remembered/knew what was going to happen. I got IP banned from the help channel for flooding. I won't argue with it, but I know that it occured because I was keen to get back into blackcats after being disabled, and was excited that I had found the channel - but I was too keen the think straight.
Part 3
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So this is where I am at:
1) It has been two weeks since I have tried to do anything about the issue.
2)I cannot ask for help on the blackcats help channel.
3)I cannot get into the forums to ask for help.
4)I cannot get my friends to post this in the forums because they follow the rules and don't want to get banned.
5)I know my account is disabled, but also that I always followed the rules, had no hit and runs, and am a 2yr member. So I am doubly confused.
Can anyone help me? Either by pointing me in the right direction or by asking someone in the know, or by replying to this thread?
Thanks in advance if anyone can help me.
catbrown
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EDIT
I'll just post the updates from the thread here to make it easier for the blackcats mods to keep track.
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Thanks for the vote of confidence.
Except I didn't leave anything out. I had one person I offered an invite to (in real life, not electronically) when they first opened the invites for testing. My brother. And when he said he wasn't sure he'd be able to seed back as required then I never followed through with it as I knew it could have an impact on my membership. Then the invite trial stopped and that was that.
As for ratio cheating, I don't even know where I would start, except for the fact that I didn't need it because I had a healthy ratio for pretty much my whole time on blackcats (except for the first few weeks). And by healthy I mean over 2.0. I was never online enough to be a mega seeder, but I enjoyed ensuring some of the older torrents I had were seeded for newer users.
I was without a computer for two weeks in January (my motherboard failed) so I did no seeding for two weeks, but as soon as I had a new computer I was seeding again.
To everyone in thread who has replied positively, thanks. I gave myself a two week cooling down before posting this thread, I plan to be patient and hope for the best.
catbrown
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Dear stoi,
Thank you so much for replying.
If you have the time (or inclination), please search for my few posts in the blackcats forums as proof for what I write below.
You will find a discussion of the DNS problems I had a few months ago, along with a post of the report my ISP sent me about DNS issues and some real problems with the blackcats domain setup in relation to internet wide consistency (I thought I was doing well by the community and admins by posting the blackcats DNS inconsistencies that my ISP reported).
One of the only ways I was able to access blackcats in that time was to use TOR to log in. This was before a helpful blackcats user informed me of the success of OPENDNS.
When I had the most recent login issue a few weeks ago (and after a password reset did not seem to work) I tried the TOR method again (as it had worked previously, and at first I assumed it was my ISP having DNS resolution problems again) - I'm sure logs can be checked to confirm this.
I would be happy to come into the blackcats irc help channel, but last time I tried (a week ago) it said I was still banned. The ban was automatic as a result of a flood post (me being excited after finally finding an avenue for help) after I simply cut and pasted my story into the channel, not thinking that it would flood more than five lines. A stupid mistake on my part.
I have learned from that. I have a static IP. Can you advise me if I will have any luck trying to get into the channel?
Thanks again,
catbrown.
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Sincere thanks.
It is very late here, so bed time for me. All I hoped for was for someone to have a good look at my situation as a whole.
I am happy to wait patiently while this happens.
Thank you once again,
catbrown
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