My Theory on how bot devs can fix the soft ban

[faatnntaaf]

So recently Niantic has rolled out a new update for pokemon go, no surprise right?


Well with this update practically everyone and there mom thats been botting has been banned, but I think I figured out how all of us can get so easily banned by Niantic even though theres no real way they can detect us. Ie. I have a bot running a 30km/h with a VPN, and no teleporting/sniping, yet I am still getting banned how is this possible?

THIS IS HOW.... I think

So with the new update they added this little window.



Basically once you hit a certain speed limit (I believe about 20mph), Pokemon brings up a window saying "Pokemon Go should not be played while driving" and you have two options. One, click the "I'm a passenger" button and the window disappears. Option two, leave the window up.

My theory is this little sneaky, subtle implementation isn't there to help people to stop playing while driving, because most people are pretty damn aware that they shouldn't be playing pokemon while they're driving. My theory is the game detects if this window is up, and if they see you collecting pokemon/pokestops for "X" amount of time while this window is still supposed to be on your screen.. then the servers just assume your a cheater and hit you with a soft ban. Genius one Niantic.

This is just MY opinion. Keep that in mind. With the style of game that Pokemon Go is, implementations like these seem like the only way they can truly stop botters. Temporarily at least because honestly we can't be stopped

[zecofriend]

So recently Niantic has rolled out a new update for pokemon go, no surprise right?


Well with this update practically everyone and there mom thats been botting has been banned, but I think I figured out how all of us can get so easily banned by Niantic even though theres no real way they can detect us. Ie. I have a bot running a 30km/h with a VPN, and no teleporting/sniping, yet I am still getting banned how is this possible?

THIS IS HOW.... I think

So with the new update they added this little window.



Basically once you hit a certain speed limit (I believe about 20mph), Pokemon brings up a window saying "Pokemon Go should not be played while driving" and you have two options. One, click the "I'm a passenger" button and the window disappears. Option two, leave the window up.

My theory is this little sneaky, subtle implementation isn't there to help people to stop playing while driving, because most people are pretty damn aware that they shouldn't be playing pokemon while they're driving. My theory is the game detects if this window is up, and if they see you collecting pokemon/pokestops for "X" amount of time while this window is still supposed to be on your screen.. then the servers just assume your a cheater and hit you with a soft ban. Genius one Niantic.

This is just MY opinion. Keep that in mind. With the style of game that Pokemon Go is, implementations like these seem like the only way they can truly stop botters. Temporarily at least because honestly we can't be stopped

Nice theory the screen also stays open for a certain amount of time before you can actually hit the button to close it.

[pohtianhao]

people figured this out already

[omghaxla]

TBH to detect if you're a bot user or not they do not need these. It's not humanly possible for me to get from lvl1-lvl40 in 2 days or getting mr. mime in asia but yet i got it not to mention my account created 2 days ago and i'm getting all the rare pokemons? It's just that they are now busy with their servers and yet to implement a proper way to catch botters.

[abenz]

so now the question is: how to unban this?

[thesikaleon]

so now the question is: how to unban this?

thats all that matters now, how to unban?

[faatnntaaf]

Who did?....

[zeroknow]

nice theory, so i hope necro make script to execution pop up

[retali8]

so many noobs everywhere, none of these kids deserve high ranked accounts
but some cool elite kids amongst us,, helping too many noobs guys

[Fadelol]

I will copy paste what I wrote in the main thread because I am suspecting something similar:

Some background and conclusions from my part in regards to the different soft bans:

• Past few days I have botted on one account per IP-address do avoid soft bans
• A few hours ago I started observing some accounts having all Pokémon flee on attempting to catch but still obtaining experience from Pokéstops, an issue that has been widely reported since yesterday. Let's call if the "Flee-ban" softban for now in comparison to the "IP-ban" softban we have observed earlier.
• I then tried to login with a different user on the same IP that had received the new type of soft ban to see if the new ban was bound to my IP-address or to the account. A new account had no problems catching Pokémon.

Therefore we can conclude the following:

• There are currently three types of soft bans:
  
  • IP-ban which is based on activity/users connected per IP-address
  • Flee-ban which is based on user account
  • The original looting failed ban, i.e. logging in using coordinates too far between

Now to continue, on the first account that I received the new flee-ban on I had roughly these settings:

• WalkingSpeedInKilometerPerHour: 25 km/h
• DisableHumanWalking: False

As well as settings to catch every Pokémon which has yielded me higher exp/hour than anything else since sniping has been down.On the second account I started and has yet to receive the flee-ban on I have been using 5 km/h as the default WalkingSpeedInKilometerPerHour.

Now this leads me to believe that the new flee-ban is connected to the feature introduced last patch relating to driving or at the very least movement speed. In the app you will receive a notice if you are moving too fast that you have to accept. They might have introduced that at first, then a few days later turned on a feature which disables Pokémon catching unless you verify that you are a passenger/not driving.

---

And a few hours after posting this I started observing a new type of loot ban into IP-ban:

• Loot ban into IP-ban: This one which I have done more testing on is the one I started observing about two hours after the first one. Bots appeared to be running fine but got stuck in a loot temp ban loop where it would attempt to spin endlessly. Upon restarting the bot it would give me the no nearby Pokéstops error. Running a different account on the same IP yielded the same result.

After a lot of testing on the later of the two I have consistently gotten the following result:

• Spoof MAC-address to get a new IP-address
• Run a new single account with human like settings
• It then works fine for 3-4 Pokéstops and I am able to catch Pokémon during this time
• On the 4th or 5th Pokéstop I get the loot error loop again and upon restarting the bot I get the no nearby Pokéstops error.

I have reproduced this at least five times and it makes me believe that there is a new much stricter lootban which triggers an IP-ban. As for what triggers them I can only speculate. If I had a guess it could be related to the new windows that pop up when you launch the app and when you go to fast. If the app/servers has a way of detecting if you have actually pressed them or not it could temp ban users after x time or y actions for not doing so. It is a feature that has been in the game for a while but so was unknown6 before it was turned on.

[Kerei]

people figured this out already

pretty much this, it's been discussed in the sticky thread already.

[faatnntaaf]

I will copy paste what I wrote in the main thread because I am suspecting something similar:

Some background and conclusions from my part in regards to the different soft bans:

• Past few days I have botted on one account per IP-address do avoid soft bans
• A few hours ago I started observing some accounts having all Pokémon flee on attempting to catch but still obtaining experience from Pokéstops, an issue that has been widely reported since yesterday. Let's call if the "Flee-ban" softban for now in comparison to the "IP-ban" softban we have observed earlier.
• I then tried to login with a different user on the same IP that had received the new type of soft ban to see if the new ban was bound to my IP-address or to the account. A new account had no problems catching Pokémon.

Therefore we can conclude the following:

• There are currently three types of soft bans:
  
  • IP-ban which is based on activity/users connected per IP-address
  • Flee-ban which is based on user account
  • The original looting failed ban, i.e. logging in using coordinates too far between

Now to continue, on the first account that I received the new flee-ban on I had roughly these settings:

• WalkingSpeedInKilometerPerHour: 25 km/h
• DisableHumanWalking: False

As well as settings to catch every Pokémon which has yielded me higher exp/hour than anything else since sniping has been down.On the second account I started and has yet to receive the flee-ban on I have been using 5 km/h as the default WalkingSpeedInKilometerPerHour.

Now this leads me to believe that the new flee-ban is connected to the feature introduced last patch relating to driving or at the very least movement speed. In the app you will receive a notice if you are moving too fast that you have to accept. They might have introduced that at first, then a few days later turned on a feature which disables Pokémon catching unless you verify that you are a passenger/not driving.

---

And a few hours after posting this I started observing a new type of loot ban into IP-ban:

• Loot ban into IP-ban: This one which I have done more testing on is the one I started observing about two hours after the first one. Bots appeared to be running fine but got stuck in a loot temp ban loop where it would attempt to spin endlessly. Upon restarting the bot it would give me the no nearby Pokéstops error. Running a different account on the same IP yielded the same result.

After a lot of testing on the later of the two I have consistently gotten the following result:

• Spoof MAC-address to get a new IP-address
• Run a new single account with human like settings
• It then works fine for 3-4 Pokéstops and I am able to catch Pokémon during this time
• On the 4th or 5th Pokéstop I get the loot error loop again and upon restarting the bot I get the no nearby Pokéstops error.

I have reproduced this at least five times and it makes me believe that there is a new much stricter lootban which triggers an IP-ban. As for what triggers them I can only speculate. If I had a guess it could be related to the new windows that pop up when you launch the app and when you go to fast. If the app/servers has a way of detecting if you have actually pressed them or not it could temp ban users after x time or y actions for not doing so. It is a feature that has been in the game for a while but so was unknown6 before it was turned on.

Very interesting, looks like you guys beat me to it haha.

[Pompom98]

I think niantic can know we are botters from our account history wich we can see in our profile. They can see the abnormal activities from our account, thats more effective than using that little window :confused:

[kurniawan]

I will copy paste what I wrote in the main thread because I am suspecting something similar:

Some background and conclusions from my part in regards to the different soft bans:

• Past few days I have botted on one account per IP-address do avoid soft bans
• A few hours ago I started observing some accounts having all Pokémon flee on attempting to catch but still obtaining experience from Pokéstops, an issue that has been widely reported since yesterday. Let's call if the "Flee-ban" softban for now in comparison to the "IP-ban" softban we have observed earlier.
• I then tried to login with a different user on the same IP that had received the new type of soft ban to see if the new ban was bound to my IP-address or to the account. A new account had no problems catching Pokémon.

Therefore we can conclude the following:

• There are currently three types of soft bans:
  
  • IP-ban which is based on activity/users connected per IP-address
  • Flee-ban which is based on user account
  • The original looting failed ban, i.e. logging in using coordinates too far between

Now to continue, on the first account that I received the new flee-ban on I had roughly these settings:

• WalkingSpeedInKilometerPerHour: 25 km/h
• DisableHumanWalking: False

As well as settings to catch every Pokémon which has yielded me higher exp/hour than anything else since sniping has been down.On the second account I started and has yet to receive the flee-ban on I have been using 5 km/h as the default WalkingSpeedInKilometerPerHour.

Now this leads me to believe that the new flee-ban is connected to the feature introduced last patch relating to driving or at the very least movement speed. In the app you will receive a notice if you are moving too fast that you have to accept. They might have introduced that at first, then a few days later turned on a feature which disables Pokémon catching unless you verify that you are a passenger/not driving.

---

And a few hours after posting this I started observing a new type of loot ban into IP-ban:

• Loot ban into IP-ban: This one which I have done more testing on is the one I started observing about two hours after the first one. Bots appeared to be running fine but got stuck in a loot temp ban loop where it would attempt to spin endlessly. Upon restarting the bot it would give me the no nearby Pokéstops error. Running a different account on the same IP yielded the same result.

After a lot of testing on the later of the two I have consistently gotten the following result:

• Spoof MAC-address to get a new IP-address
• Run a new single account with human like settings
• It then works fine for 3-4 Pokéstops and I am able to catch Pokémon during this time
• On the 4th or 5th Pokéstop I get the loot error loop again and upon restarting the bot I get the no nearby Pokéstops error.

I have reproduced this at least five times and it makes me believe that there is a new much stricter lootban which triggers an IP-ban. As for what triggers them I can only speculate. If I had a guess it could be related to the new windows that pop up when you launch the app and when you go to fast. If the app/servers has a way of detecting if you have actually pressed them or not it could temp ban users after x time or y actions for not doing so. It is a feature that has been in the game for a while but so was unknown6 before it was turned on.

I guess so something like this. Thanks for pointing out

[zerospec0]

Permanent ban is upon us, appeal your ban here

Submit a ban appeal – Pokemon GO

I don't understand why no one can accept a permanent ban is here alongside a soft ban.