Problem with usps site. Did USPS component caused it? I cannot think of anything else

Configuration
1

My USPS component stopped working. After a few days of waiting, I decided to double check my settings on usps.com, but found that I cannot access it. I received Access denied message.
image
I checked and I could not connect to usps.com from any computer in my house, but I can connect to usps.com from any other network.

I emailed their support and they asked me for my address, IP address and some other information. After I replied them, I received the following:

Your IP Address was initially blocked from using the USPS.com web page due to the activity level for web scraping surpassing our acceptable threshold.

They said that it is cleared, but warned me that it could be blocked again. Now I am not sure if I should enable the USPS component again.

2

I saw a post about this a few weeks ago where another guy had the same thing happen. I’d stop using the component, otherwise you’ll get blocked again.

3

I am experiencing the same issue. The logs are saying that my sessions expired and then there is a log in failed error.

For anyone else stumbling upon this thread there is a ticket open reporting this issue and another thread talking about it. You will see something similar to the log entry below if this is affecting you.

This issue also seemed to affect other websites for me, other forums point this possibly being that the block is at a cdn which affects other sites using the same cdn service.

e[33m2018-04-18 01:21:53 WARNING (MainThread) [homeassistant.components.sensor] Updating usps sensor took longer than the scheduled update interval 0:00:30e[0m
e[31m2018-04-18 01:21:54 ERROR (MainThread) [homeassistant.helpers.entity] Update for sensor.usps_mail failse[0m
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/Volumes/ServerHD/Hass/server/lib/python3.6/site-packages/myusps/__init__.py", line 207, in wrapped
return function(*args)
  File "/Volumes/ServerHD/Hass/server/lib/python3.6/site-packages/myusps/__init__.py", line 237, in get_packages
response = _get_dashboard(session)
  File "/Volumes/ServerHD/Hass/server/lib/python3.6/site-packages/myusps/__init__.py", line 198, in _get_dashboard
raise USPSError('expired session')
myusps.USPSError: expired session

During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/Volumes/ServerHD/Hass/server/lib/python3.6/site-packages/myusps/__init__.py", line 180, in _login
WebDriverWait(driver, LOGIN_TIMEOUT).until(EC.title_is(WELCOME_TITLE))
  File "/Volumes/ServerHD/Hass/server/lib/python3.6/site-packages/selenium/webdriver/support/wait.py", line 80, in until
raise TimeoutException(message, screen, stacktrace)
selenium.common.exceptions.TimeoutException: Message: 


During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/Volumes/ServerHD/Hass/server/lib/python3.6/site-packages/homeassistant/helpers/entity.py", line 204, in async_update_ha_state
yield from self.async_device_update()
  File "/Volumes/ServerHD/Hass/server/lib/python3.6/site-packages/homeassistant/helpers/entity.py", line 327, in async_device_update
yield from self.hass.async_add_job(self.update)
  File "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.6/lib/python3.6/asyncio/futures.py", line 332, in __iter__
yield self  # This tells Task to wait for completion.
  File "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.6/lib/python3.6/asyncio/tasks.py", line 250, in _wakeup
future.result()
  File "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.6/lib/python3.6/asyncio/futures.py", line 245, in result
raise self._exception
  File "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.6/lib/python3.6/concurrent/futures/thread.py", line 55, in run
result = self.fn(*self.args, **self.kwargs)
  File "/Volumes/ServerHD/Hass/server/lib/python3.6/site-packages/homeassistant/components/sensor/usps.py", line 106, in update
self._usps.update()
  File "/Volumes/ServerHD/Hass/server/lib/python3.6/site-packages/homeassistant/util/__init__.py", line 319, in wrapper
result = method(*args, **kwargs)
  File "/Volumes/ServerHD/Hass/server/lib/python3.6/site-packages/homeassistant/components/usps.py", line 87, in update
self.packages = myusps.get_packages(self.session)
  File "/Volumes/ServerHD/Hass/server/lib/python3.6/site-packages/myusps/__init__.py", line 210, in wrapped
_login(args[0])
  File "/Volumes/ServerHD/Hass/server/lib/python3.6/site-packages/myusps/__init__.py", line 182, in _login
raise USPSError('login failed')
myusps.USPSError: login failede[0m
4

I am trying to use this USPS Mail Notifications with inline attachments with Node-RED

5

@armdan That setup uses just the email that is sent to you, it doesn’t scrape the USPS.com website, so it would not be affected by this issue.

6

I know that. The same thing happened to me and it’s not because of USPS but because of Akamai Service.
You will be banned from any website who uses Akamai Service. More info here ->
https://community.akamai.com/thread/5253-can-you-lookup-reasons-for-access-denied-directly-on-akamai 8.
Here is my post about it -> Do not use usps component

that is why I am trying to find other ways.

1 Like