Re-captcha has "stopped working" on registration

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david0058
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Re-captcha has "stopped working" on registration

Post by david0058 » Wed Nov 14, 2018 9:06 am

Just noticed large numbers of spam user registrations on our site, and on digging a bit further the Captcha has disappeared from the registration page. I don't know when this happened but looking at the user records, probably weeks ago ... I estimate I have about 6000 spam users :(

Everything is configured as I'd expect - plugin enabled, same keys as ever, Captcha/Recaptcha enabled in Global Configuration and User/Manage/Options but it just doesn't appear on the registration page.

J3.8.11
Plugin v2.0
Template is YooThemes Nano3

Any ideas ?

David

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Re: Re-captcha has "stopped working" on registration

Post by Webdongle » Wed Nov 14, 2018 9:50 am

It probably disappeared when you installed the Template? Test with Protostar.
http://www.weblinksonline.co.uk/
https://www.weblinksonline.co.uk/updating-joomla.html
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Re: Re-captcha has "stopped working" on registration

Post by david0058 » Wed Nov 14, 2018 1:55 pm

I built a copy website and tried it with Protostar as you suggested but still the same - no captcha on the registration page ... everything looks OK in the configuration.

Anything I can look for in the page source to indicate a problem, or any ideas what I might try to do to troubleshoot it ?

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Re: Re-captcha has "stopped working" on registration

Post by ribo » Wed Nov 14, 2018 2:57 pm

david0058 wrote:
Wed Nov 14, 2018 9:06 am
J3.8.11
You are out of date. The latest version now is 3.9.0
chat room spontes : http://www.spontes.com

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Re: Re-captcha has "stopped working" on registration

Post by david0058 » Thu Nov 15, 2018 8:24 am

Thanks :) You think that might fix my problem ?

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Re: Re-captcha has "stopped working" on registration

Post by ribo » Thu Nov 15, 2018 8:41 am

david0058 wrote:
Thu Nov 15, 2018 8:24 am
Thanks :) You think that might fix my problem ?
If you are hacked wich is possible only the update is not sure that will fix your issue. For sure this way viewtopic.php?f=714&t=946026 will fix your issue
chat room spontes : http://www.spontes.com

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Re: Re-captcha has "stopped working" on registration

Post by david0058 » Fri Nov 16, 2018 9:37 am

No, no sign of anything being hacked, all looks secure.

I've also checked the plugin settings, all keys are correct. This has to be a template problem of some sort but I'm not sure where to even start with this one ... I'd expect to see some broken HTML or something in the page source but even that all looks OK, though there's no code to render the captcha.

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Re: Re-captcha has "stopped working" on registration

Post by ribo » Fri Nov 16, 2018 7:22 pm

If it was issue of template then it should work with protostar. Update your joomla first
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Re: Re-captcha has "stopped working" on registration

Post by sozzled » Fri Nov 16, 2018 8:38 pm

david0058 wrote:
Wed Nov 14, 2018 9:06 am
Just noticed large numbers of spam user registrations on our site, and on digging a bit further the Captcha has disappeared from the registration page. I don't know when this happened but looking at the user records, probably weeks ago ... I estimate I have about 6000 spam users ... Any ideas?
A few off-the-top-of-my-head observations. If you've "just noticed" 6000 spam users then this has probably occurred over a long time. It means that you've not often checking your website; you're not being vigilant about who is creating new accounts, when they're creating them and how often new accounts are being created. Seeing that this problem occurred over several "weeks" (or months, more likely), and that you're using J! 3.8.11 (which was released four months ago) I believe that my observation about an somewhat laissez-faire approach to website management on your part is probably the reason why you're now experience problems.

Website management, in particular website security, should be uppermost in people's minds.

CAPTCHA is, for the most part, totally ineffective in preventing fake account registrations. While it would be good to have CAPTCHA working, it's only a small hurdle for someone to bypass if they deliberately want to put your site at risk.

david0058 wrote:
Fri Nov 16, 2018 9:37 am
No, no sign of anything being hacked, all looks secure.
So you say but the facts speak otherwise.

david0058 wrote:
Fri Nov 16, 2018 9:37 am
I've also checked the plugin settings, all keys are correct. This has to be a template problem of some sort but I'm not sure where to even start with this one ...
It depends on what problem you're trying to fix, doesn't it? Do you want to fix the problem with the "missing CAPTCHA" (that may or may not be related to the template) or do you want to prevent fake account registrations? We may be able to help you with one or the other but not necessarily with both.

Can you tell us which of the two issues that I've just referred to is the one that you want to address and we can move on from there. Thanks.

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Re: Re-captcha has "stopped working" on registration

Post by david0058 » Mon Nov 19, 2018 1:03 pm

Thanks, but this is a part-time role for a charity.

Just to add some facts to your observations, normally we'd have a few hundred or so new registrations per year so I don't generally bother to worry about this sort of thing. Checking the registration timestamps there were a hundred or so of the 6000 users created in the middle of October but almost all of the rest were created in several batches of hundreds at a time in a couple of minutes over a period of under 24 hours.

I can't see any evidence of any hack activity, but if you could indicate which of the facts speak otherwise I'd be very grateful and eager to check.

Your observation that there are two possible problems we could address is accurate. I'd like to get the CAPTCHA working as I hold the view that actually it does put off the script kiddies - the velocity of account creation suggests this is an automated (or highly labour intensive) activity.

My maintenance window for the site is Christmas, I'm not a "push the update to 3.9.0" kinda guy any more ;) Once I've sorted out the upgrade to the latest OS, and the requirement to move to PHP 7.0 and tested that everything works with that then I'll be happily upgrading to 3.9.0 and on we go :)

Thanks for your comments.

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Re: Re-captcha has "stopped working" on registration

Post by leolam » Mon Nov 19, 2018 6:02 pm

Nano3 is working fine on Joomla 3.9. Did you upgrade the template to latest version 1.0.16? Nano itself or Warp does not influence Captcha!

Next your Google keys.... Reorder them at Recaptcha and re-enter. Did you check the global config for recaptcha?

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Re: Re-captcha has "stopped working" on registration

Post by david0058 » Tue Nov 20, 2018 9:36 am

Hi Leo,

Thanks - good ideas :)

Just checked and the last version I upgraded to is yoo_nano3 1.0.16/Warp Framework 7.3.36 so good to know I'm up to date there. I've checked the global config too - I went through the setting up tutorial (https://docs.joomla.org/J3.x:Google_ReCaptcha) to check the different config options and all looks good.

I also deleted the old key and generated a new one at https://www.google.com/recaptcha/admin, then updated the plugin parameters but still no captcha on the registration page.

Maybe it's one of the other plugins on the site - I'll try disabling them all and if that works re-enable one by one ...

David


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