**META** Soft bans - Try again spins / Pokemon vanishing

[Coburnss]

Edited by moderator:

Please keep all discussions about being Try again spins / Pokemon vanishing in this issue only, do not create new issues or they will be closed without warning.

At this stage it looks like softbans are occurring for some users (try again spins & Pokemon vanishing) while others are experiencing hard bans (being unable to log in - Server busy or offline)

Other current META issues:

3682 - META Server busy or offline issues

3308 - META Stuck between two forts / Moving to 2 forts at the same time / Constant Loop

3700 - META Soft bans - Try again spins / Pokemon vanishing

3746 - META Banwaves - Permanent Bans

[SilverDragon135]

Same here, but it my case it seems like soft ban fix works just temporally:

[SilverDragon135]

And sometimes bot stucks on:

[takenek]

I just get ban for IP address :-( Cant login to account :-(

[Coburnss]

Mine isn't a ip ban, nor a full ban that has been addressed because I can login to other accounts. Just the usual disappearing Pokémon, but I'm used to just spinning the Pokestops to remedy, which can no longer be done, at least by me.

[skywalker878]

looks like i have same issue

[maxprzemo]

Login successful.2016-08-12 10:57:54,550 [pokemongo_bot.api_wrapper] [WARNING] Server seems to be busy or offline - try again ban forever?

[Coburnss]

Seeming as though. But past full bans were addressed with a screen that told you just that. This seems like server issues, or a truly new soft ban. Guess time will tell.

[PierceJhuang]

I got the same issue in Taiwan, is it a server issue? but my friend still can get item from pokenstop...

[Coburnss]

My Google Account is working fine with the script. My Poke account however is not. So if it is server side it must just be Pokémon Go accounts.

[rickycc]

I just encountered this. Login with phone failed to see any pokestops nor pokemons.

[10:37:26] Pokestop Ancient Chinese Sculpture out of range. [10:37:26] Possibly searching too often, take a rest. [10:37:26] Moving towards pokestop Metro Theater - 0.09km [10:37:26] {'distance_unit': '', 'distance': '', 'current_position': (37.79756671816564, -122.43231646990498), 'last_position': (37.79760335969092, -122.43217462756321)} [10:37:30] Moving towards pokestop Metro Theater - 0.08km [10:37:30] {'distance_unit': '', 'distance': '', 'current_position': (37.79750192054127, -122.43247259938424), 'last_position': (37.79756671816564, -122.43231646990498)} [10:37:31] Moving towards pokestop Metro Theater - 0.06km [10:37:31] {'distance_unit': '', 'distance': '', 'current_position': (37.79745142750385, -122.43265642107315), 'last_position': (37.79750192054127, -122.43247259938424)} [10:37:34] Moving towards pokestop Metro Theater - 0.05km [10:37:34] {'distance_unit': '', 'distance': '', 'current_position': (37.797406834408584, -122.43283736090339), 'last_position': (37.79745142750385, -122.43265642107315)} [10:37:36] Pokestop Metro Theater out of range. [10:37:36] Possibly searching too often, take a rest. [10:37:37] Moving towards pokestop Collectors Cave - 0.05km [10:37:37] {'distance_unit': '', 'distance': '', 'current_position': (37.79742262424499, -122.43303676942789), 'last_position': (37.797406834408584, -122.43283736090339)} [10:37:40] Pokestop Collectors Cave out of range. [10:37:40] Possibly searching too often, take a rest. [10:37:40] Moving towards pokestop Original Temple, Vedanta Socie - 0.13km [10:37:40] {'distance_unit': '', 'distance': '', 'current_position': (37.79751969419062, -122.43316814837154), 'last_position': (37.79742262424499, -122.43303676942789)} [10:37:42] Moving towards pokestop Original Temple, Vedanta Socie - 0.11km [10:37:42] {'distance_unit': '', 'distance': '', 'current_position': (37.79761238161907, -122.43331114636779), 'last_position': (37.79751969419062, -122.43316814837154)}

[Waliers]

Try it on you phone on cellulair instead of wifi. If you see the pokestops when not on WiFi you ip is (soft)banned.

[Coburnss]

I'm not IP banned. I have switched from cellular to wifi, and haven't used the bot since it started its shit.

[fari-99]

maybe this related issue will bright you up

3308 #3394 #3475 #3646 #3692 #3700 #3711 #3721 #3722

[k4n30]

@fari-99 steal my thunder :p

[danielsdian]

Im able to enter the game thru bluestacks, walk around, spin forts, battle gyms, but the pokemon keep vanishing.

[cnoekkii]

Any solutions yet?

[danielsdian]

I tried reducing walk speed to 4 and increased the wait times. Didnt change anything. I spinned the pokestops 40 times too.

[YvesHenri]

That unban trick seemed, to me, to have been fixed a long time ago. I got banned for teleporting and manually tried to unban myself, but it did not work. That's been like 2-3 weeks ago. I don't really know what's happening, though. Been botting for a month, on 2 accounts, and unfortunatelly last night they got full of pokemons and couldnt catch anymore (known bug, I know). I turned them off untill I got at work and, for my surprise, one of them seemed to have been softbanned. I did not switch locations and both accounts use pretty much the same config, although the one that got 'softbanned', crashed a little ago, with a SSL error (this maybe why?). Also, I tried botting with my snipping account and it worked just fine, on the very same IP.

[danielsdian]

Wild guess: Maybe they are trying to match our location by IP and GPS?

[cnoekkii]

@danielsdian I was farming at central park NY, but I live in Belgium. I've used a VPN from the US, still not fixed/working

[k4n30]

No that's not realistic, my ISP connection is made 500km away so that should result in a ban. Also, I use a VPN on top of that which terminates in a different country. They can't ban users (or try to ensure GPS matches IP locations) for using VPNs

[izanagi1995]

I think it's more complicated than that. Before unknown6 they got a lot of data about how bots move. I think they got the trick to detect "abnormal" moves.

[k4n30]

From PokemonGoDev Team:

Due to the large influx of people claiming problems with their accounts and devices, we'd like you to fill out this Google Form: https://goo.gl/forms/tjilsa8OApcjuhj82

This will help us try to pinpoint where and why the problem is happening, try to find a pattern in the problem and maybe find a solution if one exists. To see the results of this pool, you can either click See results on the Google Form once finished or by following this link: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScNVX6a5AkVGxyNo3kmiNIG3lHeI3dFXLa_E0F0yCOhL7C4dA/viewanalytics?usp=form_confirm

If you wish to see the answers directly, go here to see the Google Sheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Xq_W1mDxrQ8k1lXA-idv7029eOsY8PUsGcrTCrYySrE/edit?usp=sharing

Thank you

[p1n9]

Here is my little test : I made a teleport to be softbanned, I can't spin pokestop then the usual unban trick unsoftban me. Now I can spin pokestops usually, I can also do battles in arena and hatch eggs. But I can't catch pokemon, they always vanish.

I use a google account, and the symptoms are both through the bot or the app (android)

Perhaps a new type of ban, after the last niantic's api update the devs that have cracked it says they found a potential flag about cheating players.

Wait and see....

[p1n9]

@k4n30 IT'S A TRAP !

[YvesHenri]

This is the last thing I got before this situation: http://pastebin.com/CUPprGeg. After retrying, it got banned.

[qinidema]

I think this is really IP(ISP)-based. Experienced a soft ban yesterday (no pokemons, no pokestops, just an empty map). Then changed network connection to 3G provider and voila - all goes just fine. Another 2 cents to this theory - ISP check is easily implemented server-side. Consider that you want to detect cheaters. You can do it the hard way: 1) Remember last N previous coordinates, then build the pathway to detect movement anomalies 2) Remember last looted pokestops to detect "hey, this guy just goes from one fort to another and collects all the items for the matter of milliseconds" 3) Calculate successfully caught pokemon rates per hour (we also need to remember all tries and catches for the last time) 4) etc. OR "we just do a quick ISP-by-IP lookup with small library and ready-to-use collected database at any time of gameplay" So, which method is easier implemented, works faster (server-side) and requires less memory on already overloaded servers? I think that the answer is obvious. Additionally, that would help to reduce server load for legitimate players.

So running fine here (so far). No teleporting, realistic speed (lower that 5 km/h), short distances (below 15 km per run) - and you should be going just fine to my mind.

[charleschzh]

I switched to my real phone device and using Pokomon Go App. Tried to throw away (not hitting pokemon) 45 pokeballs and the the pokemons still got vanishing. Manual unban methods does not work for me.

[nujabse]

Maybe the server has a problem?

[YuMan-Tam]

Yes, doesn't work my real phone after 3-4 hours either. But I can still log in. Just seeing nothing on my phone using LTE network.

[YvesHenri]

@GitPupper why did you reference another issue ("Duplicates will be deleted without warning.")?

[YuMan-Tam]

Oh wow. Mine was actually a soft ban that cannot be fixed by the bot's "soft ban" algorithm. The Pokestop show up again after 4 hours. All seems fine for now...

[YvesHenri]

@YuMan-Tam Can you tell us what exactly happened to you, since the banning (I'm assuming youre just another)?

[danielsdian]

I really think we should put a warning in the Project page and in Slack. People is going crazy after answers and the reply is the same.

[YuMan-Tam]

@YvesHenri : Yes, I think I am just another. I was running the Pokemon Bot for the past 48 hours without problems until this morning. At around 6 a.m, the bot started displaying exactly the same log as @rickycc (see above - I do not know how to reference the particular post, nor did I saved my log). Usually, the bot would correctly identify a softban and then fixed itself, but not this time.

I tried to restart the bot, or use my cell phone network instead. I could always log in but the same log happened. I kept trying until 11 am when it suddenly works again on my cell phone. I will need to check the bot later today after I get home from work.

I always set the health information on so hopefully the developers will see a wave of same errors and figure something out!

[skywalker878]

Any Update here? How can we fix the soft ban ? Looks like my account in soft banned more than 12 hours.

[Coburnss]

Honestly it's looking like a waiting game for us "Soft Bans". Thus far nothing has changed for me. I think we just need to consider ourselves lucky that we haven't gotten the email solidifying the fact we are perma'd.

[Magamar01]

After playing through the bot and having everything vanish I exited and played through the app. My softban unfolded in stages over 6 or 7 hours. -At first I couldn't catch pokemon or spin pokestops -About 2 hours later I could catch pokemon but couldn't spin pokestops -A few hours after that I could play normally.

Anyone else experience something similar?

[Coburnss]

I have experienced that in the past. Seems like a standard soft ban. However I've been "Soft banned" for over 12 hours, but now it's accompanied with a Try Again Later message at every pokestop.

[kipperjx2]

I have the spin later and catch flee. I can see everything. I can fight in gyms... Is this a soft ban? Like you said will it go away incrementally?

[Coburnss]

If I were you I wouldn't use the Gyms, I haven't even checked if they work for me, I just immediately stopped the bot once I seen it malfunction. Seems to be a easy place to round up scripters and take them out.

[Coburnss]

I can confirm it was a new version of the Soft Ban, all is functioning 100% with my account at the moment. Let's all stay away from Gyms and quit teleporting to Japan and what not and I think we will be fine.

[jnnck]

Same here, could spin but all pokemon vanished... Now 100% working again! New type of softban!

[danielsdian]

Its working for me now too!

[kipperjx2]

I'm back in as well

[TCB13]

@danielsdian and @jannickv I'm running into the same problem you did. I CAN spin stops but all pokemon just vanish.

[LongweiDeng]

My Softban (can collect item but pokemon flee) has just turned into Hard ban (cannot login).

Interestingly, it happened as soon as I deleted the ios app and re-install then login. A few mins ealier (before I reinstall the app), I was able to login.

[kipperjx2]

Dang, rip

[YvesHenri]

I've been following this since this morning. I'm one of those who had stuff fleeing all the time, but it looks like it is 'fixed' (everything back to what it used to be) now. Gonna bot again. lol

[kipperjx2]

Your gonna risk getting banned!? Just stick to spoofing!? Jeez living dangerously..