If geoplugin.net was responding perfectly, then stopped, then you have gone over the free lookup limit of 120 requests per minute.

We automatically block all requests coming from an IP or a domain name if the number of requests exceeds 120 lookups per minute. This is explained in our Acceptable Use Policy. This block comes in the form of a ”HTTP/1.1 429 Too Many Requests” reply from geoplugin.net

This block is automatically removed 1 hour after the last time your server stopped sending more than 120 requests a minute.

If you excessively spam our free service as outlined in our Acceptable Use Policy, you will be banned at our firewall and receive no response. Removal from the firewall block is manual and requires a Premium Subscription.

To circumvent these problems, if your site has more than 120 visitors per minute at peak periods, then you can whitelist your IP using our premium service.

You can verify your IP using:

https://www.geoplugin.com/ip_status.php?ip=x.x.x.x

replacing x.x.x.x with your server's IP

Upload this simple PHP script to your site and call it in a browser:

<?php
	echo file_get_contents("https://www.geoplugin.com/ip.php");
?>

This will give the IP as seen by geoplugin.net

More often than not, this happens when people's sites get spidered by search engine crawlers, which can very quickly take a site's geoplugin.net lookups to over 120 in a minute.
To protect against this, we advise to use the following regular expression to detect search engine bots, and if a bot is detected, not to call geoplugin.net. Instead, you can provide default values for the IP geolocation lookup, thereby preventing search engines inflating your per minute lookups rate and taking you onto the blacklist.

$botRegexPattern = "(googlebot\/|Googlebot-Mobile|Googlebot-Image|Google favicon|Mediapartners-Google|bingbot|slurp|java|wget|curl|Commons-HttpClient|Python-urllib|libwww|httpunit|nutch|phpcrawl|msnbot|jyxobot|FAST-WebCrawler|FAST Enterprise Crawler|biglotron|teoma|convera|seekbot|gigablast|exabot|ngbot|ia_archiver|GingerCrawler|webmon |httrack|webcrawler|grub.org|UsineNouvelleCrawler|antibot|netresearchserver|speedy|fluffy|bibnum.bnf|findlink|msrbot|panscient|yacybot|AISearchBot|IOI|ips-agent|tagoobot|MJ12bot|dotbot|woriobot|yanga|buzzbot|mlbot|yandexbot|purebot|Linguee Bot|Voyager|CyberPatrol|voilabot|baiduspider|citeseerxbot|spbot|twengabot|postrank|turnitinbot|scribdbot|page2rss|sitebot|linkdex|Adidxbot|blekkobot|ezooms|dotbot|Mail.RU_Bot|discobot|heritrix|findthatfile|europarchive.org|NerdByNature.Bot|sistrix crawler|ahrefsbot|Aboundex|domaincrawler|wbsearchbot|summify|ccbot|edisterbot|seznambot|ec2linkfinder|gslfbot|aihitbot|intelium_bot|facebookexternalhit|yeti|RetrevoPageAnalyzer|lb-spider|sogou|lssbot|careerbot|wotbox|wocbot|ichiro|DuckDuckBot|lssrocketcrawler|drupact|webcompanycrawler|acoonbot|openindexspider|gnam gnam spider|web-archive-net.com.bot|backlinkcrawler|coccoc|integromedb|content crawler spider|toplistbot|seokicks-robot|it2media-domain-crawler|ip-web-crawler.com|siteexplorer.info|elisabot|proximic|changedetection|blexbot|arabot|WeSEE:Search|niki-bot|CrystalSemanticsBot|rogerbot|360Spider|psbot|InterfaxScanBot|Lipperhey SEO Service|CC Metadata Scaper|g00g1e.net|GrapeshotCrawler|urlappendbot|brainobot|fr-crawler|binlar|SimpleCrawler|Livelapbot|Twitterbot|cXensebot|smtbot|bnf.fr_bot|A6-Indexer|ADmantX|Facebot|Twitterbot|OrangeBot|memorybot|AdvBot|MegaIndex|SemanticScholarBot|ltx71|nerdybot|xovibot|BUbiNG|Qwantify|archive.org_bot|Applebot|TweetmemeBot|crawler4j|findxbot|SemrushBot|yoozBot|lipperhey|y!j-asr|Domain Re-Animator Bot|AddThis|YisouSpider|BLEXBot|YandexBot|SurdotlyBot|AwarioRssBot|FeedlyBot|Barkrowler|Gluten Free Crawler|Cliqzbot)";

and a PHP example of how to use the pattern:

function is_bot($user_agent) {
 
    $botRegexPattern = "(googlebot\/|Googlebot\-Mobile|Googlebot\-Image|Google favicon|Mediapartners\-Google|bingbot|slurp|java|wget|curl|Commons\-HttpClient|Python\-urllib|libwww|httpunit|nutch|phpcrawl|msnbot|jyxobot|FAST\-WebCrawler|FAST Enterprise Crawler|biglotron|teoma|convera|seekbot|gigablast|exabot|ngbot|ia_archiver|GingerCrawler|webmon |httrack|webcrawler|grub\.org|UsineNouvelleCrawler|antibot|netresearchserver|speedy|fluffy|bibnum\.bnf|findlink|msrbot|panscient|yacybot|AISearchBot|IOI|ips\-agent|tagoobot|MJ12bot|dotbot|woriobot|yanga|buzzbot|mlbot|yandexbot|purebot|Linguee Bot|Voyager|CyberPatrol|voilabot|baiduspider|citeseerxbot|spbot|twengabot|postrank|turnitinbot|scribdbot|page2rss|sitebot|linkdex|Adidxbot|blekkobot|ezooms|dotbot|Mail\.RU_Bot|discobot|heritrix|findthatfile|europarchive\.org|NerdByNature\.Bot|sistrix crawler|ahrefsbot|Aboundex|domaincrawler|wbsearchbot|summify|ccbot|edisterbot|seznambot|ec2linkfinder|gslfbot|aihitbot|intelium_bot|facebookexternalhit|yeti|RetrevoPageAnalyzer|lb\-spider|sogou|lssbot|careerbot|wotbox|wocbot|ichiro|DuckDuckBot|lssrocketcrawler|drupact|webcompanycrawler|acoonbot|openindexspider|gnam gnam spider|web\-archive\-net\.com\.bot|backlinkcrawler|coccoc|integromedb|content crawler spider|toplistbot|seokicks\-robot|it2media\-domain\-crawler|ip\-web\-crawler\.com|siteexplorer\.info|elisabot|proximic|changedetection|blexbot|arabot|WeSEE:Search|niki\-bot|CrystalSemanticsBot|rogerbot|360Spider|psbot|InterfaxScanBot|Lipperhey SEO Service|CC Metadata Scaper|g00g1e\.net|GrapeshotCrawler|urlappendbot|brainobot|fr\-crawler|binlar|SimpleCrawler|Livelapbot|Twitterbot|cXensebot|smtbot|bnf\.fr_bot|A6\-Indexer|ADmantX|Facebot|Twitterbot|OrangeBot|memorybot|AdvBot|MegaIndex|SemanticScholarBot|ltx71|nerdybot|xovibot|BUbiNG|Qwantify|archive\.org_bot|Applebot|TweetmemeBot|crawler4j|findxbot|SemrushBot|yoozBot|lipperhey|y!j\-asr|Domain Re\-Animator Bot|AddThis|YisouSpider|BLEXBot|YandexBot|SurdotlyBot|AwarioRssBot|FeedlyBot|Barkrowler|Gluten Free Crawler|Cliqzbot)";
 
 
    return preg_match("/{$botRegexPattern}/", $user_agent);
 
}
 
if ( !is_bot($_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT']) ) {
 
// ....code for the call to geoplugin.net
 
}

If you've done all this and still getting 403 Denied responses, then this suggests that you are on a shared server and someone else on that server is also using geoplugin.net.
While a shared server may have unlimited incoming IPs, there will only be a single outgoing IP, and that is the IP seen by geoplugin.net. Thus, if someone on the shared hosting server is performing >120/minute lookups, then this is at the detriment to all users on that server using geoplugin.net.
The only solution to this is either your shared hosting provider or yourself whitelist the server's IP for premium use, removing the limits for your server.

You can cancel any of your PayPal pre-approved payment plans to geoPlugin at any time through PayPal's “Pre-approved” or “Automatic” payments page”. Clicking this link will take you to it: Unsubscribe Here

1. Quickstart User Guide
2. In-depth User Guide
   1. About geoPlugin
   2. To register or not register?
   3. geoPlugin web services
      • SSL Requests
      • Javascript
      • PHP
      • JSON
      • XML
      • ASP
      • CSV
      • geoPlugin Currency Converter
        • Free IP Geolocation Currency Conversion
        • A full Currency Converter API
      • geoPlugin webservice Extras
        • Latitude/Longitude to Place
        • Place to Latitude/Longitude
        • Nearby Places
        • Nearest Transport
        • Latitude/Longitude to Postal Code
        • Postal Code to Latitude/Longitude
        • EU Cookie Law
        • GDPR
        • EU VAT Rate
3. Some real-world examples
4. Discussion Group
5. Frequently Asked Questions
6. Premium geoPlugin access