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A mess of errors

Started by BSI-CS3-Regina, July 20, 2010, 02:53:05 PM

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BSI-CS3-Regina

Hello fine people! Recently an existing forum-based website with which I had been helping out for months came into my possession. During my months of helping with the site we had converted it from YaBB to SMF 1.1 then the owner upgraded to 2.0 RC3. After the last upgrade he also installed Simple Portal then I installed Ad Mod. Since the other fellow took care of most of the admin duties I didn't get into things like error logs.

When I took over the site its hosting and domain was about to expire so the first order of business was to take care of that. In the end I moved the site to a new host because I wasn't at all happy with the lack of customer support the old host provided. After everything was set up and the database restored (I followed the instructions here for the move to make sure everything was done correctly) I installed a few minor mods. At this point I was still n00bish enough not to have been checking the error logs.

A couple of days ago in one of those "Oh, maybe I had better check this out!" moments I decided to look at the logs and found that the site was generating about a thousand errors per hour. After looking through the logs I decided this was probably because I had some conflicting mods installed. I also discovered that the version of Simple Portal I was using had been updated and wanted to upgrade it. After a few hours of searching the internet and reading I decided that probably the best thing to do would be to rid the site of all the mods and start with a clean install of Simple Portal so I spent the next several hours doing what was needed to get the forum restored as closely to its original state as possible. Since there were still files with mod information in them I also restored those to their pre-mod versions from the back-ups I had saved.

At this point I was thinking that the errors should stop and they pretty much did. At least I was no longer getting 1,000+ errors per hour. Instead they decreased to the dull roar of about 140 errors every twenty-four hours, some of those being user errors from spambots attempting to log in, users mistyping their passwords, etc.

Yesterday I spent several hours searching this site and the entire internet to see if I could find a solution to these errors. I discovered that several people have posted similar errors but generally speaking didn't return with more information when asked for it so their questions were never answered.

So, here I am trying to get to the bottom of this mess so I can possibly get my forum restored to its former self without all of the errors.

SMF 2.0 RC3
Current Mods: None
Previously Installed Mods:
Simple Portal
Ad Manager
Bookmarks23
Current Signature Mod
Custom User Name Color
Remove Images From Quotes
Resize Attached Images (2rc3)
Thank-o-Matic for 2.0 RC3
Tidy Child Boards
Ultimate Profile 2.0 RC3

The errors on the mod-free, restored board, all being generated by guests:

These first errors are coming up under General Errors and appear to be generated within a topic. Many of them show the same line while other times the same error is generated off of different lines.

2: in_array(): Wrong datatype for second argument
File: /hsphere/local/home/xxxxxx/xxxxxxxx.com/smf/Sources/Security.php
Line: 837

2: array_intersect(): Argument #2 is not an array
File: /hsphere/local/home/xxxxxx/xxxxxxxx.com/smf/Sources/Security.php
Line: 840

2: implode(): Invalid arguments passed
File: /hsphere/local/home/xxxxxx/xxxxxxxx.com/smf/Sources/Subs.php
Line: 3878

8: Undefined index: total_time_logged_in
File: /hsphere/local/home/xxxxxx/xxxxxxxx.com/smf/Sources/Subs.php
Line: 3212

8: Undefined index: time_offset
File: /hsphere/local/home/xxxxxx/xxxxxxxx.com/smf/Sources/Subs.php
Line: 740

Here is a sample of Undefined Errors

(Again, with Line 837 in the Security.php.)

(Topic related)
8: Undefined index: permissions
File: /hsphere/local/home/xxxxxx/xxxxxxxx.com/smf/Sources/Security.php
Line: 837

(These appear to be from the index page.)
8: Undefined index: name
File: /hsphere/local/home/xxxxxx/xxxxxxxx.com/smf/Sources/Load.php
Line: 1530

8: Undefined index: ignoreusers
File: /hsphere/local/home/xxxxxx/xxxxxxxx.com/smf/Sources/Load.php
Line: 1527

8: Undefined index: email
File: /hsphere/local/home/xxxxxx/xxxxxxxx.com/smf/Sources/Load.php
Line: 1526

I am going to leave it at those for now. If anyone could give me some insight into what I have done wrong I would really appreciate it. If more info is needed, please ask. I'll be checking back until I get this problem fixed.

xenovanis

Hi BSI-CS3-Regina

To clean out all mods, you can upload all files from the upgradepackage for the version of SMF you're currently using. Just overwrite the existing files. You don't need to upload upgrade.php and the *.sql files, since there is no need to run the actual upgrade.
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

BSI-CS3-Regina

Thank you for your reply! Does that also include overwriting the settings.php and settings.bak.php? I remember reading that those files should not be replaced during a restoration of the originals.

xenovanis

No no, you are right there. Those files aren't inside the upgradepackage though, just in the installation package  ;) So, use the large upgradpackage, no worries  :)
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

BSI-CS3-Regina

Okey-doke. I am re-uploading default versions of those files although admittedly I'm thinking this may not solve the errors because these are the same version of the files I over-wrote everything with a couple of days ago. Even so it would be a rare occasion if I hadn't missed something. :-\

BSI-CS3-Regina

That just did not help so much. It looked good last night, for four hours after I uploaded all the files again I didn't have any more errors. Then this morning I checked the log again to find the same assortment of errors, the vast majority of which are in security.php:

wrong datatype for second argument
Argument #2 is not an array
The first argument should be an array
undefined index: permissions
undefined index: language
Undefined index: total_time_logged_in

So on and so forth.

I have a smiley on my forum that is missed sorely on this site. It's the one with the head banging on a brick wall. That's how I'm feeling right about now.

xenovanis



These errors, are all caused by guests on login actions? Is there an IP address included in the errormessage?

Could you attach the file /Sources/Security.php in your reply?
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

BSI-CS3-Regina

I sure do appreciate your trying to help!

I don't know if they're caused on log-in actions or not, but they are all caused by guests. And unfortunately no IP is listed. If it was it might help me to see if these were in any way connected to banned spambots or some such.

Yes, attaching the security.php page. These are the exact default versions of the pages that I uploaded from the upgrade archive yesterday, not altered in any way (time stamp on the files is the same as when I uploaded them), just downloaded and zipped. :)

Most of the errors in the security page are coming from Line 837 and Line 840. I am also attaching Subs.php which is coughing up an "Undefined index: groups" error on Line 3878.

xenovanis

I am guessing it is either a serverglitch or someone is trying to attempt something what is resulting in these errors. I have seen this before, lasting for a couple of days and then stopping.

Both files indeed match the ones from the installationpackage, so no oddies there.

On your server's control panel, could you check for entries made within the same timeframe in both errorlog and accesslog?

In addition, could you run the task Find and Repair any errors in Admin -> Maintenance -> Forum Maintenance -> Routine?
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

BSI-CS3-Regina

Many apologies, couldn't get to this early in the day as I had planned and now my evening will be occupied as well as maybe tomorrow but as soon as possible I'll be back on this.

Thank you so much!

BSI-CS3-Regina

So sorry, that couple of days turned into the entire weekend so I'm just getting back to this today.

On a positive note I have made time to check the error logs daily and haven't had a single thing out of the ordinary for about three days now.

I just now ran the repair routine and it did come up with a lot of errors so I opted to repair them.

Before starting that I put the forum into maintenance mode (making my regular back-up, etc.) and after running repair looked at the error logs. In thirty minutes of maintenance mode I've had ninety-one errors generated. I never thought about it before but would some of these errors be generated from access attempts while the site's down? I hate that I don't know enough about this stuff.

CapadY

You have removed all MODs trying to get a clean system.

Why not just make a backup of your database, clearing the complete forum directory, uploading a fresh install package and doing a fresh install ?
After that you can import your current database to get all your message, members and so on back.

I will take you maybe one hour but you are sure all current problems are resolved.
Please, don't PM me for support unless invited.
If you don't understand this, you will be blacklisted.

BSI-CS3-Regina

I did not mean to leave this thread go for so long but stuff has a way of taking over.

QuoteYou have removed all MODs trying to get a clean system.

Why not just make a backup of your database, clearing the complete forum directory, uploading a fresh install package and doing a fresh install ?
After that you can import your current database to get all your message, members and so on back.

I will take you maybe one hour but you are sure all current problems are resolved.

That had actually already been done when I moved the site to the new server. New server, new database set-up, same old problems.

Once I uninstalled the mods I took my own sweet time about getting anything put back. In the meantime I set up a test forum, installed anything there I wanted to put on the main forum first and made sure it worked.

Errors with no mods stayed at a dull roar but they didn't stop. Overall the forum worked like it should. I installed one mod on my test forum with absolutely no problems, installed the same mod to my main forum and BOOM! All kinds of weird things started happening. Memberlist page won't display, errors were a bit fewer than before but way more than I had been having.

I also discovered something very odd. Members were losing post counts for no reason, as in they would lose post count without me deleting threads. I could check their posts through their profiles and the number of posts didn't match up with the displayed posts.

Some members consistently had log-in problems, some had sporadic log-in problems and others never had any trouble logging in.

Something in this database is very, very wrong and I don't think it has anything to do with mods. I think it happened way back before I ever took over the site during a server crash. I spoke with one of the former owners and he said after that crash there were quite a few things that were haywire but they thought they had them fixed but apparently not.

The members and I considered our options (I have some very devoted and helpful members) and it was decided to install a brand new forum and start from scratch, putting our gotta-keep-it info into a Wiki format. We all feel this will be the best approach.

I went ahead and marked this topic solved. I hope that was the right thing to do.

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