Last night I get a message saying abnormal download data has been detected on my account and I have been suspended from redeeming points. (I don’t have much to redeem anyway) That said, I don’t download much of anything. I print my own models and share stuff that’s about it.
I do use a VPN on my home PC but I have split tunneling enabled so only some apps use the VPN adapter. Not sure if that is causing some issue and I’m waiting for support to reply with more guidance. Has anyone else run into this?
According to my analytics the highest download total I have EVER had was 151 in a day. Which did happen on 2/19 but then dropped back to 135 on 2/20. I cannot fathom how that level of download would trigger a 30 day suspension. This system is broken.
Admittedly it did jump from around 35 per day to 100+ over a few day span. But I posted a model that got a little buzz and made it to the trending page. So it seems like a totally natural traffic increase.
Problem is this sort of increase can be totally legitimate, a simple link to a model in social media can get attention and hence downloads. Not talking 5.8k over a few weeks type interest, but the metric would align with Prints I’d say not entirely linear though.
I’d imagine it’s related to your VPN. You’d need to verify, but I bet you’re hitting Makerworld from multiple IP’s in a short amount of time and their system might automatically flag for it. I’ve seen others complain of similar issues, especially users that use ISP’s that hide their users behind a CGNAT. Since you’re downloading and printing your own models from Makerworld, they are probably more apt to flag you for something like “abnormal downloads”.
Well I don’t actually print my own files from Makerworld. I have everything stored in my OneDrive and open them from there. I didn’t want any chance of my account information appearing repeatedly in my own download history.
Really the only interaction I have with Makerworld is uploading and the occasional download/print of other peoples stuff.
The part that is most concerning is that I appealed and they “reviewed” and said it’s valid. That was very early this morning so the analytics data for 2/20 wasn’t available yet. I figured I must have gotten hit by a bot or something… then the data for 2/20 was refreshed and it was only 135 downloads which is wild.
So either the analytics are wrong or they think < 200 downloads is enough to warrant a 30 day suspension. Either way it is worth being looked into.
My bad, I read that as you print your own models from Makerworld. Not pointing fingers about printing your own upload, I’ve printed mine after uploading to verify they work as intended.
Did they happen to give any additional information after they “reviewed” your appeal? Curious what exactly they are seeing, especially if it’s some kind of bot out there downloading models. Someone earlier posted about an account that has almost 6k downloads on a model they uploaded a week ago, you’d think that’d be flagged in a hurry, so I don’t much understand how they determine “abnormal downloads”.
I have a theory that it may not be bots, but you have uploaded a model that users may want to print often and they are seeing this as “bot” behavior. No way to know that if they aren’t telling you the exact reason and for which model(s) they are targeting.
It’s a guess on my part, as I don’t know how they are alerting on user activity. My speculation is that their automated systems are looking for “abnormal” traffic and if a user is coming from multiple IP’s in a short span of time, it’d classify that as abnormal. Many bot type systems will come from multiple source IP’s, typically leveraging a VPN, in an attempt to evade detection or traffic limiting. I see it all the time in my job which is why I wouldn’t be surprised that they are using similar detection methods to establish “bot” activity via monitoring where individual accounts are sourced from.
So far they have not. I think support might only be working overnight (for me) hours. They denied my request saying that abnormal download data was detected and my suspension is upheld. I replied and told them there is absolutely no chance I personally did anything that would constitute abnormal and told them I can provide any logs necessary to expedite their review.
It would be so much easier to comprehend if they gave any details at all beyond a copy and paste of the user guidelines. (which cover basically everything a person should not do online)
I did ask them about the VPN as well. I have split tunneling enabled so they shouldn’t be getting any traffic from me via the VPN. The only thing that should be using the VPN adapter is my Emby server, newgroups and bittorrent.
The VPN is just a red herring. I’m probably just reading too much into it as I had also mistakenly thought you were downloading your own models. Those two things put together could have been a plausible explanation for “abnormal downloads”.
