Why I Couldn't Access My Own Site (But My Phone Could): A Cloudways Auto-Ban Story
I sat down to work on Rev6 and couldn't load the site. Not a slow load, not an SSL warning — nothing. The browser just spun until it gave up. My first assumption was the usual suspect: the server was down. Then I checked my phone, on the same Wi-Fi. Rev6 loaded instantly. That one detail sent me down a much longer rabbit hole than I expected — and the actual cause had nothing to do with my…
The writer encountered an issue where they could not access their own website, despite the site loading perfectly fine on their phone using the same Wi-Fi connection. This led them to investigate the problem more thoroughly. Upon checking their website's hosting provider, Cloudways, it was revealed that their IP address had been automatically banned due to a CAPTCHA failure.
The issue was not related to their laptop, router, or ISP connection as initially suspected. The writer discovered this by testing their connection from a different network. The root cause of the problem was that Cloudways' automated bot protection feature had inadvertently banned their IP address for a week. This incident highlights the importance of verifying the path through which internet traffic is routed and the potential consequences of automated security measures on managed hosting platforms.
Written by urgent.news from Dev.to's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
