Two things happened early Friday morning that may or may not be related, though I think they probably are. I got an email message from my server that said I had been sending more than 400 emails an hour and my avatars and attachments (photos are all I allow anyway) stopped working on my forum. The server turned off my email. It was pretty much a big pain because I was trying to email photos in to my editor. I hope I still have a job come tomorrow morning. At any rate I went through all my files on my sites, cleaned up anything that wasn't being used, deleted a couple old smf forums that were no longer used, a photo album I tried and didn't like, changed all my passwords, deleted email accounts that weren't being used, etc. I'm not sure if any of this helped but they have turned my email back on, I haven't gotten any more 400 emails and hour complaints from them and they haven't turned my email back off again. I still don't have avatars and attachments showing up on my forum though. I was really not having much luck getting any information from my server/host, which was pretty disappointing as they were always pretty wonderful in the past.
I'm using smf 1.1.13. I've been thinking about going to 2 but haven't done so yet. It's a shared server so I'm not sure if there is a hack if it was through smf or something else. I'm not running anything other programs on any of my sites or pages. I customized a very old theme long ago and have the gallery and a few mods.
I have no idea what I should do next or what I should be looking for in the files as something that shouldn't be there. I have no idea if it was hacked how it happened and what I need to do to prevent it in the future. The attachments and avatars seem to all still be in the attachment folder. I'm really not sure what to do next. I searched for disappearing avatar attachments on smf but most of the threads seem to be older or about problems when moving the forum. Do you think it was a forum hack? Do I need to wipe everything an reinstall? If so what files should I save? If I'm doing that anyway it seems I might as well just install smf 2.whatever it's at now instead. I really need some advise. My skill level is I'm really good with html, ok with css and stumble through dealing with my forum by the very detailed and good instructions I always receive here. :) The forum is at http://naturalaquariums.com/bb/ (yes it was originally a bulletin board, it's been up that long and gone through several incarnations. lol)
Thank you, Rhonda
Let's try the obvious, first, Rhonda.
If you go to Admin>Attachments and Avatars, is the path to the attachments and avatars directories correct?
Are those directories read-enabled?
Is there anything in your error-logs?
Thank you for the response. What ever was doing the emails has apparently stopped. The avatars and attachments haven't come back though.
The path is correct. The directory is read enabled. The error log has this multiple times, from the day before the problems started:
..../Sources/Subs.php on line 866 [28-Apr-2011 05:34:20] PHP Notice: Undefined index:
Also I noticed that the header, footer, index, ssi_examples, and fantversion php files were all dated on the day before this all happened too, about an hour after the error log entries. I hadn't done anything or updates on that day. Could that be something related?
Thank you again for your help.
The dates do make things look a bit suspicious, don't they?
Unless you installed a mod, then, or something.
Tell ya what.
Can you attach Subs.php to your next post, so we can have a gander at it?
Here it is, thank you.
Nothing wrong, there.
Sooooo...
Looks like a problem with the database.
Can you go to Admin>Forum maintenance and repair errors?
If that doesn't work, you could try repairing it in your CPanel.
I did the find and repair errors and all I got was a bunch of private messages to people that no longer existed. I cleaned that up. What do I do with it through the c-panel?
CPanel>Databases>MySQL Databases.
You'll see the "Repair" thingy, there.
I tried the check and repair things on the database in c panel the other day and nothing. I did however start looking at some other things. I checked my other forum I kept up which is basically for announcements for a local aquarium club I'm in. It was running 1.1.11 so I thought I'd upgrade. It wouldn't let me.
Execute Modification ./Sources/Subs-Package.php Test failed
Then getting a big lightbulb over my head I realized I could check the errors in the forum not just by downloading the file through ftp. There were a bunch of errors on the subs. I checked my main forum same thing. Now today I'm seeing more errors on both on both on messages, and languages.
Also last year I was trying to add an app so I could have the new messages in the forum show up on my web site main page. I never could get it to work and it was saying the problem was in subs also. Here is the link to that series of messages. http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=373921.0
So I'm wondering if all this could be related. Maybe it would be easier to save the messages and start from scratch using 2. Or do you think it's possible that there's nothing wrong with the files from the forums but something messed up with the programs my server (lunarpages) has that runs these things?
Actually, I just dropped in, on my way somewhere.
So, just a quick post, I'm afraid.
If you do a little search in the "Install and upgrade" board, you'll see that quite a few upgrades have failed on Subs.php.
If you track one down, you'll find the solution and it's a dead easy one to fix.
I'll catch-up, with this, later, to see how you got on. :)
most people that have this issue, either need to manually do the edit or they have to uninstall pretty urls and then install the upgrade and reinstall pretty urls.
Thank you for all the help. I need a quick brain implant to teach me all the php mysql stuff I think. lol I'm not sure what pretty urls is. But I don't believe I have any extra goodies on the second forum I was having trouble upgrading. I did do a search as suggested in the install and upgrade board. I tried uninstalling and reinstalling several times and finally I just told it to install 1.1.12 even though it told me it wasn't going to work and then after installing it told me it had installed, and then I installed 1.1.13 and it told me it had installed. I hope all this isn't going to confuse my first issue which I would most like to get solved that my main forum which was already updated previously and didn't have any trouble doing so, isn't showing avatars or uploaded images. With all the error messages on both forums, I'm thinking there is a real issue somewhere, though I have no idea whether they are related or not, or just a bunch of unrelated troubles. This is one of the reasons I'm wondering if starting from the beginning again may be my best option.
pretty urls is a mod that some use to rewrite urls, which is the mod common reason for this type of error.
Thank you, I'm pretty sure I haven't added any mods to the second forum. It's really basically just for our club announcements more than anything else. There aren't any that show up on the installed packages page at least.
Now my main forum that's having issues has several mods, though I don't think I've added that one on there either. It also doesn't show up on the list of installed packages on that one.
Just a thought...
The attachments directory IS read-enabled?
Yes that was one of the first things you had me check.
Hmmm...
Am I to assume that your default theme's been butchered?
Normally, going to http://naturalaquariums.com/bb/index.php?theme=1 would force the place to shift to the default theme.
So, I'm guessing that me asking "What is it like when you use the default theme?" is gonna get the answer "That IS the default theme", is it?
Yes it is. Isn't it odd that things that were working fine for months just suddenly stopped working? Do you think it's possible that it could be something my host did that might cause this?
Also is there a page that just shows all the lines and code and explains what each one does? I suppose not but it would be handy.
And finally might it be easier and quicker, to just do a back up, trash the whole thing, install smf2 and start over again?
Just wondered if you found a solution for this. I'm experiencing a problem with similar attributes http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=451111.0 (http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=451111.0)