Rapidshare - The truth at last

Hi everyone having Rapidshare problems.
At last the truth is out. It is all down to Rapidshare traffic shaping. What really makes me angry is that they have blamed everybody but themselves and given information blaming the ISPs. I would suggest that anyone having a problem contact Rapidshare and make their feelings clear. I am including my communication so far with Rapidshare in which they admit to traffic shaping.

Alan

To Rapidshare Support

My A/c login is XXXXX and P/W is XXXXX
Valid until 20 Dec 2007


For the last week I have been unable to Access Rapidshare.com. Every time I get the error message:

------------------------------

ERROR
The requested URL could not be retrieved

While trying to retrieve the URL: http://www.rapidshare.com/

The following error was encountered:

* Access Denied.

Access control configuration prevents your request from being allowed at this time. Please contact your service provider if you feel this is incorrect.

Your cache administrator is [email protected].

Generated Tue, 11 Dec 2007 17:07:31 GMT by squid.example.com (squid/2.6.STABLE15-20070903)

--------------------------

I have taken this matter up with my ISP and after much investigation, including an absolute mountain of complaints on several forums ( try http://thinkbroadband.com for just a sample) I finally changed my IP for the 6th time and connected immediately. At the same time I received an email from my ISP stating:

--------------------------------------------------------


You'll be glad to hear we have located the source of the problem. After some research on the internet (and pages and pages of complaints about the issue all affecting different ISP's) It turns out that rapid share in their infinite wisdom have decided that the best way for them to cope during times of high download activity is to blacklist recent IP ranges that have accessed the service until traffic levels return to a normal level (bear in mind, an IP range can house several thousand users).

Unfortunately this is something that we have no control over and cannot prevent from happening. I suggest you contact Rapidshare support as they are the ones performing the blocking.

---------------------------------------

This information is totally unacceptable to me as a paid up Premium account holder. If you are unable to support paid for users in the way that you advertise then please advise your customers of this. This also tallies with the general information and symptoms reported by many other of YOUR CUSTOMERS.

I am now reluctant to renew my subscription which is due in 1 week

Hi all

The latest and last on this subject. I guess I won a small battle in the end but it all leaves a sour taste in the mouth and I will think long and hard about renewing in the new year
Alan

******************************************************

Hi Rapidsgare Support

I am somewhat surprised that you say you block a premium user from
downloading any files. You advertise unlimited downloads and that is
precisely what I paid for. You are in contravention of your contract if
you block my access purposefully. There are no warnings about this on
your site that I can see. What assurance do I have that this will not
occur again if I renew my subscription. As a gesture of good faith you
could extend my subscription by one week to compensate me for the loss
of access. I also find it bad practice to present am error message which
points to the ISP as the problem.

As my ISP is dynamic I am unable to give you the actual ones blocked as
they have been replaced each time I switched off the router.

Rapidshare replied

Hello,


You can figure out your IP address by using the website:

www.whatsmyIPaddress.com

If we receive to many requests from a single IP than it gets blocked because
of security issues.


My reply a short time ago was:

Please read what I said in my email to you. I have tried to reconnect to Rapidshare on 7 occasions in the past week by switching off my router. This releases the IP back to the ISP as they use Dynamic IP addresses. When I reconnect I am allocated a new IP address from within the range allocated to my ISP. I know what my IP is NOW but I am not able to determine what it was over a week ago after several changes. As I tried on seven occasions (and therefore seven different IP addresses) before succeeding to connect, it follows that you must be blocking a whole range of IP addresses.

I should also point out that your web site says downloads "UNLIMITED" subject to a maximum of 25Gb over the preceding 5 days. I have not exceeded this total thus you are really in contravention of your stated terms under which I paid for premium membership. I again insist that you take appropriate action to extend my subscription by one week in compensation for the loss of service.

I also need your assurance that such practices will not be applied in future to my IP and the misleading and inaccurate message blaming my ISP for the problem will be withdrawn.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Response received from Rapidshare and my reply 14/12/07

RapidShare AG - Support Team wrote:
Hello,


Unfortunately we are not able to check if there are several users behind one
IP connecting to us or if it is one user that tries to brute force one account
or tries to take our servers down.

It is a security measure that helps our servers staying online to share them.

Please try again in a few hours.



Best regards,

RapidShare AG - Support Team

Hello again

You are not reading my emails correctly. I can not understand why you refer to "several users behind one IP". My understanding is that one user has one IP allocated by the ISP and that remains constant unless the router is switched off or re-set. Your download limit of 25Gb over 5 days should take care of overuse by one person and your Web site states that number of parallel connections is not limited for a premium account holder. So what have I done which is outside your publicised terms. You have again not commented on ALL the points I raised. Please do so.

I am also at a loss to understand your last comment about trying again later. If you read the ticket file fully you will see that I have a connection at this moment in time. I am concerned that if I renew I will again be caught up in this IP blocking whilst keeping within your published terms.

You have also chosen to ignore my request for an extension of one week. Please respond as this would be interpreted as a gesture of good faith on your part.

Yours Alan Wood


Hello

Please read what I said in my email to you. I have tried to reconnect to Rapidshare on 7 occasions in the past week by switching off my router. This releases the IP back to the ISP as they use Dynamic IP addresses. When I reconnect I am allocated a new IP address from within the range allocated to my ISP. I know what my IP is NOW but I am not able to determine what it was over a week ago after several changes. As I tried on seven occasions (and therefore seven different IP addresses) before succeeding to connect, it follows that you must be blocking a whole range of IP addresses.

I should also point out that your web site says downloads "UNLIMITED" subject to a maximum of 25Gb over the preceding 5 days. I have not exceeded this total thus you are really in contravention of your stated terms under which I paid for premium membership. I again insist that you take appropriate action to extend my subscription by one week in compensation for the loss of service.

I also need your assurance that such practices will not be applied in future to my IP and the misleading and inaccurate message blaming my ISP for the problem will be withdrawn.

Regards

Alan Wood


RapidShare AG - Support Team wrote:
Hello,

We are sorry for about the security measures you are facing off.

We have extended your account for 11days so it is valid till Mon, 31. Dec 2007
00:49:16 CET.

Have nice holidays and contact us whenever you are facing a problem with our
service.

Best regards,

RapidShare AG - Support Team

Hi Alan.

You are not alone.

I've had this very same problem since 11th November, and have had lots of interaction with Pipex and Rapidshare.

Last week I used "VisualRoute2006 Business Edition" to do a graphical traceroute to RS and it showed that they are using a server running "squid/2.6.STABLE6", which also appears in the "access denied" error message I receive. So I confronted RS with this info. Once again they asked for a traceroute so they don't really know what they're doing.

I then asked Pipex to spoof my IP address (I have a static IP) and attempt to connect to RS. They agreed (which surprised me) and reported that the blockage was actually being done at a server on the telia.net network. It looked like the port number was being invalidated before the HTTP request was forwarded to RS. That would make sense I guess.

I passed this info onto RS and they've now washed their hands of the matter, saying that they're not responsible for TeliaSonera.

I have asked for my Pipex account to have a dynamic IP address, but from what you've said that will make no difference.

So, all I can suggest is to do what I do now, and that is force your RS request through the SSL layer, which actually works ok but takes a few seconds longer to start.

Copy your RS file link and change the HTTP into HTTPS, then accept the "invalid certificate" message. You can then get your file, at roughly 5% slower than you might expect.

Good luck mate.

ShamblesX.

(following my previous post)..

In fact, to prove that it is indeed telia.net, try these innocuous links to RSPCA-type websites

http://www.felinegroovy.itgo.com/

http://www.rspcahavering.4t.com/

http://uk.geocities.com/hornchurchcats

http://www.geocities.com/cats_sanction_shelter/2ndchance

They all traverse the telia.net route, and a tracert shows a timeout as they hit telia.net.

Edited by ShamblesX (Fri 14-Dec-07 18:28:59)

Hi

All I can say is that changing my IP for the 6th time worked immediately. Rapidshare seem to be blocking a range of IPs so dynamic allocation might not work initially as the new IP might still be within the blocked range. I agree that using the https route got through. I had already tried it some days ago but that was inconvenient when following someone else's link. In any case why should we put up with shoddy service after paying for it in advance.
Maybe there are two problems going on here as Rapidshare use Tellia as a data store anyway. It is one of the servers of choice when downloading.
Alan

Hi
As I say above there may be two problems here but it is still up to RS to sort it out not just ignore it or in most cases deny it and blame another party ie your ISP.
Alan

Hi again
I just tried all the links you gave and got through within a couple of seconds to every one
Alan

Hi there

None of the links I supplied worked for me, so you are right in that there may be more than one issue to discuss.

I have to admit it is inconvenient to copy and edit URLs to access a paid-for service (I pay for 6 monthly subs to RS) but at least you get the goods, eventually. I also find that placing "rs28." after the protocol (http://rs28. etc) gets files quickly, most of the time.

Do RS really use TeliaSonera as a datastore? I thought that French company only provided routing; my sister says her world of warcraft gaming is often interrupted by Telia problems and their emails back to her indicate that they do network stuff and are suffering a few bandwidth problems. Maybe they do more, I don't know for sure.

An award for persistance in the face of barefaced pretence of ignorance. Well done to you sir.

Go to www.rapidshare.com and log in. Then go toPremium Account/ Account options. There you will find Tellia as a mirror site so Rapidshare must be using them. Try selecting another preference and maybe it will help.
Alan