Simple Machines Community Forum

Some discussion in our forum yesterday around issues for new registrants and the anti-spam verification questions let me to review our logs.



We're currently on SMF 2.0.15 (and have a notice that 2.0.17 is available, but we can't devote resources to updating right now, unless it is "more urgent" than  what we estimate the upgrade to be.

We've also not added mods or made significant changes that I am aware of to the forum software or settings that I am aware of.  I recall that when I asked for guidance on some log errors previously (some years back), I was informed that those errors were caused by attempts at hacking the forum and could safely be ignored. I hope I remember the preceding correctly, my apologies if it is incorrect.

Any advice?

Also, if prospective members fail verification questions, are any log entries created?

Appreciate, as usual any assistance.

In most cases an upgrade from 2.0.15 to .16 to .17 is as simple as clicking a few times in the admin panel... it'll be applied as part of other changes.

The issue you're having is that you're on a PHP version newer than 2.0.15 really supports, and is the main reason you should upgrade to 2.0.17. Failing that you can look at the fix for this particular warning in the 2.0.15 -> 2.0.16 patch and apply it manually - https://custom.simplemachines.org/upgrades/index.php?action=upgrade;file=smf_patch_2.0.16.tar.gz;smf_version=2.0.15 (under Subs-Sound.php)

If prospective members fail verification, no log entries are created.

Thank you for the incredibly fast response. One more question. We have the Stop Spammer mod installed (I thought it was the other, similar Stop Forum Spam, since I'm subscribed to both threads here) and it seems that there is some work required to allow those mods to function in SMF 2.0.17?

If so this is absolutely a no-can-do-now, as we are really, really under a crunch for a deliverable in 2 weeks' time. I really can't afford much time on items that are not in the direct line of progress, unfortunately. We're overdue by almost two weeks as things stand and this is a "must do" deadline.

I thought Stop Spammer needed work primarily to work on 2.0.15 but if you were already on there, it should be plain sailing.

You know what? You could... try it. Go to the package manager, see there is a link to install 2.0.16, click it and see what happens. If it doesn't work cleanly, it'll warn you before you press the button. Then from there you can go to 2.0.17 with a similar method.

And if it doesn't work out you can undo them just as easily.

Much appreciates.Thank you.

Arantor, thank you again. We did the upgrades - apparently with success.

FYI, we use the NightBreeze theme in addition to the standard SMF theme(s) and that failed verification in 3 files where the version statements could not match. Fixed that with a manual update and hoping it doesn't come back to bite us sometime in the future. .

Well heck, that kind of caused a LOT more errors in the logs



Any ideas on this one?

So what's line 3593?

You're right, I'm sorry for just throwing something over the wall without looking at it. I've had a look at the issue, seems something to do with a footer, that could possible theme-related? It also seems to have something to do with images (avatar).

I recall an issue from a number of years ago where all images on the forum "broke' and displays differently from how they displayed before and how newer images display - never tracked that down and never bothered too much, since we can work around it.

This error seems to now affect everybody - and we don't even know how it affect the few people that hit it, so maybe we're jsut moving on, in all other aspects things seem to work fine.


Edit to add: Oh yea. Also, it seems theme-related, so again, since we use the Darkbreeze theme in addition to the standard SMF themes, it probably makes PD a tad more tricky.

So if no-one spend more time on this that's fine. If someone wants to look at it, it seems the foreach() in error is the one on line 3806 (if memory serves).

That error line is for at the attachment directory the 3806 check that that is set valid path

if (!is_array($modSettings['attachmentUploadDir']))
$modSettings['attachmentUploadDir'] = safe_unserialize($modSettings['attachmentUploadDir']);


Since I posted yesterday, there has not been that many of these errors. As I mentioned, there is an older class of attachments that does cause some errors which I've not been able to track down.

Now that I know where to look, I'll monitor the logs and if the error is frequent enough, I'll see if I can get to the bottom of it. For now, we really have to move on to getting something ready in a very short time, so we have to focus all our time/attention on deliverables.

Thank you all for your assistance and prompt help.

Do the problem attachments have anything in common e.g.: same file type, similar file sizes, unusual names, etc?