Instagram learned to figure out Instapy?

[Tachenz]

When running Instapy, and trying to follow - it says “Action was blocked”. At the same time, being on the same wifi - I can follow all I want from my phone (being on the same network).

How in a world...

[anthonymartin]

Can you tell us more? Are you using a headless browser? What is your configuration? What is your follow/unfollow activity like? What has been your conversion rate leading to this block?

Also in the latest version of the code I don't see any language saying "Action was blocked" - can you print out the entire line?

[Tachenz]

I am not using headless browser, latest version if instapy. In a nutshell I like 1 photo every 120 seconds, 3 photos per user and follow 30% of the users I liked.

The problem is really scary. I don’t have any other explanation than instapy starting to ban web activity separately.

Basically I just watched the bot operating, and when bot attempts to follow - instagram is giving that “action blocked” (pop up). Same happens when I try to press “follow” button in the bot chrome window with my mouse.

The trick is - that if I try to follow from my phone (from under same IP, same account) - it follows without any problems.

So it is just like only web-follow got banned...

[anthonymartin]

You may have reached a monthly, hourly or daily rate limit threshold. Your algorithm is also pretty static. Perhaps you should relax your settings and give it a shot after giving it some time.

[Tachenz]

Nono - the point here is different. I know what to do.

But before - if I hit the block, it would be either IP block (e.g.) from that IP address I wont be able to follow neither from Instapy nor from phone-app. OR it would be account block. Eg - the account was not able to follow, regardless from where.

NOW - instapy is blocked from following, while I can still follow from my instagram app from the same IP address. That means...?

[IKDH]

I am facing the same issue. Are you running a lots of accounts on the same subnet ?

[Tachenz]

Not at all, just one. And I can still follow from the same subnet from my phone.

Instagram learned to tell when it is browser and when mobile, it seems...

[Ged91]

Same issue here, I can follow from my browser but not the one opened by Instapy. I have 1 account, ran on local PC.

[IKDH]

You can read this, you will have more information : https://mpsocial.com/t/instagram-follow-block-mega-thread-level-1-serious/68796/62 https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/instagram-actions-blocks-from-29-june.1133694/page-5#post-12214678

People are able to get rid of these blocks by switching from mobile API to embeded browser or by reseting device ID. It could be a device block which explain why you can follow with your phone or even with your computer but not from Instapy.

[Tachenz]

Aha! Thank you! Will research that one!

[Tachenz]

How do you switch to embeded browser using instapy? And HID reset - is basically reinstalling windows only?

[IKDH]

Instapy is already using embeded browser.

[Tachenz]

Right... and Device ID change - I think they are talking about "Jarvee" which is probably a software they are using...

[Tachenz]

OKAY> I was able to get rid of the block, by going to USERS/INSTAPY folder and deleting the cookie file.

Then insta sent me "Unusual login attempt" when launching the bot again, and now follow seems to work again. But of course will have to slow down - which is the separate issue entirely

[IKDH]

I did that but get follow block after few follows.

[JuanSpada]

how do i know if the proxy is working?

[IKDH]

Anyone else is having the same issue ? I would like to understand where does it come from. Are you guys able to follow with InstaPy and have no issue since the 29th ?

[Tachenz]

Well, after getting blocked and lifting the block (by deleting cookie file). It is all about the same old cleaning of the account.

Basically going to follow 1-2 people per hour for couple days. Then 5 per hour for about a week, and slowly work it up...

At about why the block has happened - I bet instagram keep decreasing the limits.

[sionking]

bot detection algorithm. mostly in Jarvee. Less in Instapy. but still exist.

New methods need to be implemented.

[IKDH]

@Tachenz, are your account still runing with your very conservating setting ?

[Tachenz]

Got blocked after 15 follows :(

[pmusolino]

Same here

[JuanSpada]

Iits working for me.

[mazi87n]

I changed my Instagram User Id then I run my script. Now it is working without any blocking messages.

To prevent blocking in the feature I edited page_delay in instapy.py to be 600 and this will limit the number of likes & follows to 60 each hour

[tzeiske]

I had likes, comments and follows blocked suddenly a few days ago. Was able to lift the block by changing proxy IP and deleting cookie but then after just three likes everything was blocked again. Instagram must have done something drastic on their side

[Ged91]

I changed my Instagram User Id then I run my script. Now it is working without any blocking messages.

To prevent blocking in the feature I edited page_delay in instapy.py to be 600 and this will limit the number of likes & follows to 60 each hour

By user id you mean the actual nickname? Or is there a numeric id associated with every account?

[sionking]

Does anyone that got blocked are using the same chromedriver official ? @Tachenz please contact me I will provide a chromedriver, then tell me if it works or not (on the same setup)

[Paris704]

Having the exact same problem as @Tachenz , no problems when I login myself. I can like, follow, comment, etc... If the bot does it, I get a message from instagram saying “Action was blocked”

[IKDH]

@sionking I am using this version of chromedriver : Driver info: chromedriver=2.36.540471

[jtrieuDev]

Same here, I tried to delete the cookies from Chrome but doesn't work..

[SeoMinbong]

I deleted the cookies and it works but after following about 13 people following is temporary blocked....

[octavius-1]

How do you guys reset your device ID?

[mazi87n]

I changed my Instagram User Id then I run my script. Now it is working without any blocking messages. To prevent blocking in the feature I edited page_delay in instapy.py to be 600 and this will limit the number of likes & follows to 60 each hour

By user id you mean the actual nickname? Or is there a numeric id associated with every account?

Yes I mean the nickname

[Tachenz]

@sionking lets do it! how do I contact you?:)

[sionking]

@tachenz juat add Gmail to my nickname

[x225am]

I have same issue as well. looks like Instagram is blocking web browser activity more and more!

[masto182]

I have the same issue but by this stage, I'm sure it is confirmed

[jtrieuDev]

@SeoMinbong where is the cookie file please?

[blacksn0w13]

Cookie file is in logs folder. That doesn’t fix much though.

Seem to be a way bigger problem with instagram cracking down on automatisation! Look at the links posted above, literally hundreds of people have those problems.

Summarising what I read so far:

there might be a limit of 6000 follows (interactions) in 30 days, at least a lot of indicators pointing in that direction (meaning people controlling hundreds of accounts looking at their stats)

But also new accounts and accounts with <6000/30 are banned, this seems to indicate that there’s a separate mechanism by which IG flags/bans a bot based on behaviour.

The app seems not to be affected, even if using same IP

Known fixes: Delete cookies Reset PW (human takeover action) -> this only restores basic usability, you can get banned again really quick!

There seems to be no known way of completely restoring previous usability. Best confirmed results were made by waiting for the actions of last 30 days to cool down below 6000 and start with a strict 6000/30 rule

[Tachenz]

yeah, I was going way slower than 6000 per month. Averaging 100-130 follows a day on the well established account (no blocks for half a year).

I am afraid that number may be closer to 3000 now, IF there is a monthly limit at all of course.

But the real question here - is there a way to mask bot activity as an app activity? @timgrossmann @sionking @uluqulu what do you guys think? I remember there was a way to run “as on mobile”?

[blacksn0w13]

Yes, Instapy seems to be an easy target for that algorithm, I get blocked after 20-30 actions using it. I guess the AI detects it by behaviour.

Since Instapy is using chrome, I don’t think there’s an easy fix. The complete behaviour would need an overhaul.

For now one could switch to a different bot that uses the API instead of web interface, I’ve read if you play by the rules, at least it lets you do things over API.

Different approach would be to use mobile proxy or mobile hotspot as gateway, there are also reports that mobile IPs are less likely to get banned, but maybe just in combination with API.

This is really bad :/

Am 04.07.2019 um 11:36 schrieb Tachenz notifications@github.com:

yeah, I was going way slower than 6000 per month. Averaging 100-130 follows a day on the well established account (no blocks for half a year).

I am afraid that number may be closer to 3000 now, IF there is a monthly limit at all of course.

But the real question here - is there a way to mask bot activity as an app activity?

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[riccardovalente]

I don't think IP addresses are an issue (unless they're known datacenter/cloud/VPN/proxy providers). My mobile device is nearly always on wifi both at home and the office, and it was never blocked. Browser-based activity is more likely to be the cause.

I've got a block on a test account yesterday, but my two main ones seem to be unaffected. All of these use my office IP address.

[Tachenz]

I just remember there was a way to launch chrome “as for mobile” or something like that (and there was even a way to select smartphone model). Ah, i can’t describe it right. It popped up on the forum about half a year ago for similar reasons

[Tachenz]

Yeah, called mobile emulation: https://groups.google.com/forum/m/#!topic/google-chrome-developer-tools/Irgy50jyR3o

[AKwoKWH]

The trick is - that if I try to follow from my phone (from under same IP, same account) - it follows without any problems.

@Tachenz

Interesting, so this is not related to IP. Then probably 1 of the below explanations: 1) Instagram figure out how to separate Instapy from real human activities. (I doubt, it's hard) 2) Instagram just block your access on chrome, given the request sent using chrome browser is too much.

Can you try one thing? Without turning on any bot script, just launch chrome browser on yr computer normally and login manually like what a normal user does. Try to like and follow, see if you are blocked. If they blocked you, then probably the block based on whether you use app or browser

Also, you can try to do the same on your phone's chrome browser this is to further test if they block actions by machine

[AKwoKWH]

I don't think IP addresses are an issue (unless they're known datacenter/cloud/VPN/proxy providers). My mobile device is nearly always on wifi both at home and the office, and it was never blocked. Browser-based activity is more likely to be the cause.

I've got a block on a test account yesterday, but my two main ones seem to be unaffected. All of these use my office IP address.

@riccardovalente I am thinking the same "Browser-based activity" might be the root cause or "computer-based activity"

think how you use instagram daily (I mean the real usage, not the bot) you like, follow, using your phone on the app how often you will turn on yr comp and browse it on a web browser. Ya, sometime might be, but not all the time or majority of the time. the time you spend on yr phone should be much more than that of comp (say, when taking a bus, you wont browse instagram on a laptop but you will browse it using your phone)

[blacksn0w13]

I agree with everything, but I think it’s harder than switching on a different user agent in Chrome. There’s a bigger difference between app usage and chrome! One would need to try bowser usage on phone to compare. The app uses the API.

People reported better results when connecting from IPs that where from mobile networks, that’s what I meant. The ban is not IP based, but different IPs seem to get different rates.

I don’t think it’s that hard to catch Instapy, the behaviour is hardly human! For example: it gets all the posts from one # first, then visits each post directly from the last one. There’s no way a human could do that, one would need to remember the urls and put them in manually from one post to the next. I would catch it within 1 minute of watching. Can’t be that hard for AI.

Am 04.07.2019 um 20:24 schrieb AKwoKWH notifications@github.com:

I don't think IP addresses are an issue (unless they're known datacenter/cloud/VPN/proxy providers). My mobile device is nearly always on wifi both at home and the office, and it was never blocked. Browser-based activity is more likely to be the cause.

I've got a block on a test account yesterday, but my two main ones seem to be unaffected. All of these use my office IP address.

@riccardovalente I am thinking the same "Browser-based activity" might be the root cause or "computer-based activity"

think how you use instagram daily (I mean the real usage, not the bot) you like, follow, using your phone on the app how often you will turn on yr comp and browse it on a web browser. Ya, sometime might be, but not all the time or majority of the time. the time you spend on yr phone should be much more than that of comp (say, when taking a bus, you wont browse instagram on a laptop but you will browse it using your phone)

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[anthonymartin]

I may be affected by this as well however I'm curious if I isolated the cause - it'd be good to get more data points on this.

I had a like campaign set to grab 500 users at a time and it was performing swimmingly all day long. Today I set the value to 10,000 users and immediately I after one like I was blocked and received the message, "You are have a BLOCK on likes!"

My question is what values do others have for the amount parameter?

[blacksn0w13]

Well if I get u right and you tried extracting 500/10k pics from one hashtag, YOU are part of the problem. Those numbers are insane! No human would ever come near that! And mind that the bot skips the filtered ones without break, so if you don’t catch that with server calls, it can easily watch/skip 20 pics within 10 seconds, even more in headles!

Am 05.07.2019 um 13:10 schrieb anthonymartin notifications@github.com:

I may be affected by this as well however I'm curious if I isolated the cause - it'd be good to get more data points on this.

I had a like campaign set to grab 500 users at a time and it was performing swimmingly all day long. Today I set the value to 10,000 users and immediately I after one like I was blocked and received the message, "You are have a BLOCK on likes!"

My question is what values do others have for the amount parameter?

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[tzeiske]

I have several accounts that are all experiencing this issue. Deleting cookie and changing IP helps indeed but the limits seem to be lower now. Blocks seem to affect all actions (follow, like, comment) for all accounts. If I change IP for one account it helps but I can also use the same blocked IP with another account so my best guess is that the blocks are per IP and account but for all actions.

[spikeyhair]

My observations are:

1. When I get follow banned for 15 days, after release I ran the bot a few days later and much slower. It was safe, run properly. After a few days, I started to see the follow ban issue. Then I stopped the bot for a few hours, ran again. This time I got the ban again 1 day later. Then stopped the bot for a day, ran again. This time a few hours later I get banned. It looks like the limit is getting lower.

2. I tried to change IP but it doesn’t resolve the follow ban issue. I tried to follow a user and I got the action blocked error.

3. I tried to delete all the browsing history including cookies (without changing IP). Login manually, immediately I can follow, like and comment without issue. I tried to turn on the bot and it works for a very short while only, ban again. I repeated the steps to clear all history and cookies, the ban was lifted immediately. And this keep repeating.

I didn’t change my username and password.

Now this frequently ban with very low limit has resulted me to completely stopped the bot, can’t use the bot anymore.

Another observation, if I tried point 3 from a cloud server, very fast I get banned. If I tried with my home pc, It takes a longer time to get banned. So it looks, like IP address is also part of the reason. Whenever the ban happen on the cloud server, I can still do following on my pc browser and phone without issue.

Whenever the ban happened on the pc or cloud server, I can still use IG app on my phone without problem.