IniLerm

Bonus Tip for Advanced Control (Example):

If you only want to block that IP range from specific areas (like the login page) instead of the whole site, you can use our Advanced Rules Engine:

1. Go to Security > Blocking Rules > Advanced Rules.
2. Click Add New Rule.
3. Name: Block Range on Login
4. Condition 1: IP Range Is 21.0.0.0/8
5. Click AND to add a second condition.
6. Condition 2: Request URI Contains wp-login.php
7. Action: Block (or Challenge if you want to give them a chance).

This gives you surgical precision that simple IP blocking lists can’t offer!

• This reply was modified 6 months, 3 weeks ago by IniLerm.

Hi @martje65,

That is a great suggestion for consistency. Since we added it to the Whitelist tab, it makes total sense to have it on the Blocked IPs tab too.

Why it’s not there yet (Complexity):
Importing a massive Blocklist is technically more complex than a Whitelist because it triggers many background processes:

1. We have to validate every IP.
2. We have to sync them to Cloudflare (if enabled).
3. We have to write them to .htaccess (if enabled).
   Doing this for 5,000 IPs at once via a simple text paste could timeout the server or hit API limits.

Current Solution:
As you know, you can use the main Import/Export tab (Security > Settings > Import / Export) and select “Export Full Backup”. This JSON file includes your entire Blocked IPs list, current configuration, and API keys (Important: Some API keys are unique to each site.). You can import this file on another site to transfer everything perfectly.

Future Plan:
We are working on a safe “Bulk Import” for Blocked IPs that handles these synchronizations in small batches to avoid crashing the server. Expect to see it in a future update (v8.9+)!

Best regards,

Advanced IP Blocker Team

Hi @cousineddie,

Thank you for reporting this issue! Yes, those 3 issues are definitely related.

We have identified a conflict where our new ‘Malicious Signature Analysis’ engine is intercepting background AJAX requests (which page builders like Elementor and our own Dashboard heavily rely on). If a specific browser fingerprint gets incorrectly flagged, the plugin tries to serve a JavaScript challenge inside the background data request, breaking the JSON response and causing the loading errors you experienced.

We consider this a high-priority bug and are already working on a hotfix (v8.8.5) that properly excludes all standard WordPress AJAX (wp-admin/admin-ajax.php) and REST API requests from the signature challenging engine.

In the meantime, as a temporary workaround so you can keep the plugin active, you can simply disable the ‘Malicious Signature Engine’ inside the plugin settings (under the Advanced Rules or Security Engine tab). The rest of the Firewall and AIB Network will continue to protect your site flawlessly.

Thanks again for the detailed report, we’ll get this patched very soon!

Thanks for sharing that resource, Greg! I am sure it will be very useful for other users.

For anyone needing to import these:
The list is available in XML format at https://www.uptimedoctor.com/en/network.php?type=xml. You can extract the IPs and paste them into our “Bulk Import” tool (Whitelist tab) using a simple online XML-to-Text converter.

Important Note:
According to UptimeDoctor’s documentation, this list may change without prior notice.
Since our Whitelist is static (it doesn’t auto-update from external URLs yet), I recommend checking that link periodically to ensure your whitelist stays up to date. If they add new monitoring servers, you might see new “403 Forbidden” errors until you add the new IPs.

• This reply was modified 7 months ago by IniLerm.

Hi @darkangel1,

Thank you so much for the detailed 5-star review!

It is great to hear that the plugin is performing well in your Multisite environment. Ensuring compatibility with complex setups like Multisite and Cloudflare is a top priority for us, so your feedback is incredibly validating.

We are working hard to make it “much more than an IP blocker,” as you noticed, evolving it into a complete security suite. Thanks for being part of that journey!

Hi @thewatchman3,

I have just performed a technical analysis of UptimeDoctor specifically, and I have some important findings for you.

The Problem with UptimeDoctor:
Unlike other monitoring services (like UptimeRobot or StatusCake), UptimeDoctor does not seem to provide a public list of IPs for whitelisting, and they use generic User-Agents that mimic regular browsers or even attackers.
In fact, our AIB Community Network has already flagged many of their IPs as “malicious” because their aggressive checking behavior looks exactly like a brute-force or scraper attack to most firewalls.

Why you see 403 Forbidden:
Since they behave aggressively, they are likely being blocked at the Server Level (Htaccess) or by the Cloudflare/Community Blocklist automatically.

Recommendation:
Since we cannot safely whitelist them without a specific User-Agent or IP list (opening the door to them would open the door to real attackers using the same generic methods), I recommend contacting their support and asking:

1. “Do you have a fixed list of IPs I can whitelist?”
2. “Do you use a specific User-Agent I can trust?”

If they cannot provide this, I strongly suggest switching to a more “firewall-friendly” service like UptimeRobot (which provides a clean text file of IPs that you can import with our new Bulk feature).

Best regards,

Advanced Ip Blocker Team

Until the new version 8.8.3 is released, reading recommendations:

example UpTimeDoctor.com monitoring service:

Official documentation (recommended reading):

https://uptimerobot.com/blog/new-uptimerobot-ip-addresses/

https://uptimerobot.com/help/locations/

Recommended formats for importing (One IP per line)

IPv4 (.txt)
IPv4 and IPv6 combined (.txt)

• This reply was modified 7 months ago by IniLerm.

Hi @tedraortega,

I am sorry to hear you are still locked out. Since you are seeing a generic “403 access restricted” message (and not our plugin’s custom HTML message), this strongly suggests the block is happening at the Server Level (via .htaccess or ModSecurity), not within the WordPress plugin code itself.

If you have access to the plugin, try this:

• Go to Security > IP Management > Blocked IPs.
• Select “Unblock ALL IPs” from the bulk actions dropdown. This flushes the database and attempts to clear Cloudflare/Htaccess rules.
• Go to Security > Settings > Login & User Protection and ensure “Whitelist Login Access” is UNCHECKED. (This setting is the #1 cause of self-lockouts on dynamic IPs).
• Add your current IP to the Whitelist in Dashboard > System Status.

If you still see “denied by modsecurity”, that is a hosting-level firewall completely separate from WordPress. You would need to contact your hosting provider to whitelist your IP in their system.

Let us know if this gets you back in!