Being hit by spam bots, posting as Anonymous - How-to and Troubleshooting - wpForo 2.0

RE: Being hit by spam bots, posting as Anonymous

Pieter — Sat, 21 Oct 2017 16:17:18 +0000

Posted by: Robert
This is the first time I see such strange problem. I have no clue for you. You should delete these topics from database. cPanel > phpMyAdmin > Wp Database > open these tables
_wpforo_topics table
_wpforo_posts table
Browse those and find the rows related to these posts and delete. Then delete wpForo cache and check it.

Thanks. That worked.

RE: Being hit by spam bots, posting as Anonymous

Robert — Wed, 18 Oct 2017 19:42:20 +0000

This is the first time I see such strange problem. I have no clue for you. You should delete these topics from database. cPanel > phpMyAdmin > Wp Database > open these tables

_wpforo_topics table
_wpforo_posts table

Browse those and find the rows related to these posts and delete. Then delete wpForo cache and check it.

RE: Being hit by spam bots, posting as Anonymous

Anonymous20 — Wed, 18 Oct 2017 19:40:59 +0000

Posted by: Pieter
Deleting all wpForo cache multiple times doesn't get rid of those last two spam posts.

Pieter, could you try to EDIT it (empty it actually) first and then delete it ?

RE: Being hit by spam bots, posting as Anonymous

Pieter — Wed, 18 Oct 2017 19:38:21 +0000

Deleting all wpForo cache multiple times doesn't get rid of those last two spam posts.

RE: Being hit by spam bots, posting as Anonymous

Robert — Wed, 18 Oct 2017 18:55:15 +0000

Please delete wpForo cache in Dashboard > Forums > Dashboard admin page.

RE: Being hit by spam bots, posting as Anonymous

Pieter — Wed, 18 Oct 2017 18:50:08 +0000

Thanks. While that helped me bulk delete most of the spam, there are two posts that still cannot be deleted and are NOT listed in the Published tab, even after purging cache a couple of times.

Top post at http://welcometotwinpeaks.com/discuss/twin-peaks-part-12/

Top post at http://welcometotwinpeaks.com/discuss/twin-peaks-part-13/

RE: Being hit by spam bots, posting as Anonymous

Robert — Wed, 18 Oct 2017 18:35:00 +0000

I don't see any spam protection tool on register/login form. Please install reCAPTCHA or something like this. There is no way to do a guest posting in wpForo. All your spam is made by registered users. If you protect your registration there will not be any spam.

https://wordpress.org/plugins/search/recaptcha/

RE: Being hit by spam bots, posting as Anonymous

Robert — Wed, 18 Oct 2017 18:30:49 +0000

You can delete any topic post in Dashboard > Forums > Moderation > Unapproved or Published tab.

I recommend you install Akismet it works well with wpForo Spam Control in Dashboard > Forums > Tools admin page.

RE: Being hit by spam bots, posting as Anonymous

Pieter — Wed, 18 Oct 2017 18:25:13 +0000

Any way to delete all 'Anonymous' posts?

And so far, I've encountered one post I simply cannot remove manually. See the top Chinese topic:

http://welcometotwinpeaks.com/discuss/twin-peaks-part-13/

I've deleted all caches over and over, without effect.

RE: Being hit by spam bots, posting as Anonymous

Robert — Wed, 18 Oct 2017 17:58:09 +0000

There is no way to post as Anonymous. When post author is removed by antispam plugins or manually wpForo shows the post author "Anonymous", it doesn't mean post has been made as "Anonymous" it means the author of this post is removed.