Author Topic: Odd: board won't post any message with an image url (Read 9106 times)

bollywhat · « **on:** October 22, 2006, 10:50:35 PM »

If anyone can help me figure out what might be causing this -- even if they can't tell me the solution -- I'd be deeply appreciative.

Background info: So, I moved my forum to a new server and domain. Got all the paths right, and the forum is working well. The only thing I've left to do is install an SMTP server on my VPS. However, I don't think that can account for the problem I'm having.

The problem: Any post with a url in it to an image will simply NOT load. If you hit submit, it will hang there for a few seconds... and then the board will give up. No error message or anything. But the post won't go through. This affects not only the posting of messages, but also the ability to customize profiles (at present, no one can select externally hosted avatars).

I'm completely baffled about what the cause of this could be. Any suggestions?

Thanks!

JayBachatero · « **Reply #1 on:** October 25, 2006, 11:14:15 PM »

Is there an error in the error log? What mods do you have installed?

bollywhat · « **Reply #2 on:** October 31, 2006, 08:19:38 AM »

Apologies for my late reply; I wanted to get the SMTP installed just in case that might fix the problem. But it didn't.

1) The log shows NO errors about this.

2) I have NO mods installed.

I should add that even when I DISABLE max width and min width of images in Features and Options, it makes no difference!

Also, the package manager to upgrade to 1.0.9 didn't work for me -- connection would time-out, so I had to do it manually. I wonder if this is connected to the problem? Certainly in both cases, the server sends out an unsuccessful request.

This is killing me -- all the images make the forum hang and make loading pages SO SLOW.

I think it must have SOMETHING to do with having switched servers, but since everything else is working fine now, I can't figure out what that might be.

Here's one member's insights on the issue:

Quote

Regarding posting of image references in the img tag, it's pretty clear to me what's not working: It seems not a timeout but a failure of a connection being initiated from the forum server.

I'm really baffled about this -- I found a similar topic someone created in 2005, and no one could help him either, which scares me...

JayBachatero · « **Reply #3 on:** October 31, 2006, 09:14:42 AM »

Can you give me a test account and a link to an image that would give problems so that I can give it a shot?

bollywhat · « **Reply #4 on:** October 31, 2006, 12:07:04 PM »

Sure!

JayBachatero · « **Reply #5 on:** October 31, 2006, 12:17:23 PM »

Umm link to your forum is?

bollywhat · « **Reply #6 on:** October 31, 2006, 12:18:10 PM »

Er. Um. Sorry. It's been one of those days (and it's not yet noon!).

bollywhat · « **Reply #7 on:** October 31, 2006, 12:22:20 PM »

Posting an http link works -- but not displaying the image itself in the message via the [img] tag

JayBachatero · « **Reply #8 on:** October 31, 2006, 12:24:03 PM »

Ok I got the same problem. Now to track this down. Can you install a test version of 1.1 RC3 in another folder and new database? I want to make sure that it's not a 1.0.x problem.

bollywhat · « **Reply #9 on:** October 31, 2006, 12:24:41 PM »

Ok, sure. Off to coordinate that!

bollywhat · « **Reply #10 on:** October 31, 2006, 12:29:40 PM »

Actually, it seems like that would introduce a lot more variables, wouldn't it? Because I was using 1.0.x on the other server and everything was working fine. Is there some smaller scale way to test whether 1.0.x is the problem, rather than installing an entire new site? Like, are there files I could just swap in? Is there any one module that handles this, that I could swap in the file for to test it?

JayBachatero · « **Reply #11 on:** October 31, 2006, 12:35:21 PM »

What mods do you have installed?

bollywhat · « **Reply #12 on:** October 31, 2006, 01:01:48 PM »

I don't recall ever installing any, actually! In the package manager, these two do show up as mods, though:

MySQL 5.0.12 Compatibility Update
SMF 1.0.7 / 1.1 RC2 Update

I'm now running 1.0.9, FYI.

JayBachatero · « **Reply #13 on:** October 31, 2006, 01:07:12 PM »

Yea those are not really mods. Let me look into this a bit more and see if I can find the cause of this problem.

bollywhat · « **Reply #14 on:** October 31, 2006, 02:43:45 PM »

Aha! I just discovered that the img tag works if it's linked using https (that is, if the site hosting the image delivers images in whatever protocol you request -- ie, over https, without having to be logged in). But NOT if it's used with http.

This indicates that there's something related to the protocol that is messing it up, it's NOT DNS and it's not hotlinking that is creating this problem. The problem is, it doesn't work over the http protocol.

So, what file has the code that interprets the img tag when you post? It's being interpreted in such a way that it can't find the server -- hence it times out. So, the solution to this problem should be in the code, or some setting, because, as I said, it's not a server issue -- because I just posted an image when using an https URL. Million dollar question: Why can't it locate the server when it's not a secure protocol?

JayBachatero · « **Reply #15 on:** October 31, 2006, 02:46:11 PM »

The file that handles that is Subs.php and Subs-Post.php. Let me look into it and see where I get to. Does the url tag work? It could be a server setting also.

bollywhat · « **Reply #16 on:** October 31, 2006, 02:52:48 PM »

Quote from: JayBachatero on October 31, 2006, 02:46:11 PM

Does the url tag work? It could be a server setting also.

Yes, the url tag works perfectly. (Cue the Twilight Zone music.)

bollywhat · « **Reply #17 on:** November 03, 2006, 10:40:37 AM »

Jay, any luck with this? Or have you declared it an unsolvable mystery?

JayBachatero · « **Reply #18 on:** November 04, 2006, 01:41:29 AM »

actually haven't really looked into it. Been busy the past few days.

bollywhat · « **Reply #19 on:** November 08, 2006, 08:30:18 AM »

FYI, for anyone else who ever has this problem -- I have not yet solved it, but I've learned that if you capitalize HTTP in the image urls, the image WILL show up. However, say you try to link to an externally-hosted avatar, using the capitalized HTTP. Your avatar WILL show up in your posts, but it will appear as a broken image in your UserInfo box. So, consider this a temporary fix, but not a solution.

One of my members speculates:

"It looks like capitalizing any part of "http" (Http, etc.) probably works. This means that somewhere in the code there is a check for the protocol starting with the exact characters "http" (i.e. the actual check could be for "http://"). If that exact match is found, it goes down the seemingly broken code path. Otherwise it probably just skips all/most of the image restrictions/formatting and (still guessing) stores the image as part of the post/profile."

I don't know where this code might be, though.

News:

Author Topic: Odd: board won't post any message with an image url (Read 9106 times)