It's behaving exactly like an Intrusion Prevention System would. A new Snort installation, for example, comes with one heck of a lot of detection patterns and turning them all on would allow it to catch (and block) tons of things that aren't necessarily significant threats. Given that we gain access again after a certain amount of time it certainly feels to me like a security device that needs a little loosening.

If you think your IP is being unfairly banned, you should report it in the Comic Vine API forums, or maybe send an e-mail to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. But be aware that they don't use Comic Vine Scraper, and probably have no idea what the term "scrape" means. They think about your usage in terms of your repeated accesses to their web API (via Comic Vine Scraper) and their website (via your Browser).

Any IP ban that you're experiencing has been put in place by Comic Vine, not ComicRack, so there's not much anyone here could do for you other than commiserate.

Cyber-Wizard wrote:
Yeah, this issue crops up every once in a while, and then they seem to sort it out once people complain. Basically, their API needs to be an exception to whatever protection system they are running, and it seems like they sometimes forget to do that.

I replied to that thread you created the other day in the bug reporting forum asking what's going on. I also sent an email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. about ban(s) on my IP and why.

Looks like something is going on today. Not sure if the site is having problems or if I have been IP banned again. I have to leave the house for a while so I won't be able to look into it further at the moment but I thought I'd let y'all know.

yesterday had no problems was able to scrape like 30 titles. I'll give it a try and see if I'm having problems again

cbanack wrote: Hi,

I've been in an email conversation with someone from Comicvine/Gamespot about the API IP Bans. He's asking me for logs or additional information. Since all I've seen is the "Can't access online database" message after a ban has happened, I've been poking around looking for Comicvine logs and can't seem to find anything in Appdata or the Comicrack folder.

How can I get this guy some logs? I'm pretty technical so I can follow whatever instructions or ideas you might have.

It feels like they are running out of resources,
The site itself, and their forum is super unstable as well.

evilmarx wrote:
Unless their "ban" system works for the whole site, api and forum....

solidus0079 wrote:
I had tio dig to find it...

when you get the error message, press Ctrl-Shift-L. This will save an application log.