(HELP) Captcha Not Working SMF 2.0 RC5

[SonicDcer]

Hi guys.
I had this problem right after installing backinblack205 Theme to my Forum. The captcha verification image isn't displaying at all, it shows the X as if it doesn't find the image.

I've been reading a lot but i can't seem to fix this issue and my forum is full of spam by every 3 hours.
This doesn't happen if i switch to the Default Theme, but happens to BackInBlack205 theme.

Any suggestions?

Thank you very much for your support.

[Illori]

link to your forum so we can see the issue?

[SonicDcer]

i tried but it didn't let me put it.
www. l2ashenvale .com /foro

Thank you

[Illori]

the area for the CAPTCHA image is not showing at all, are you sure it is enabled?

admin -> security and moderation -> anti-spam visual verification image to display is set to something other then none?

i would also suggest you upgrade to 2.0.

[SonicDcer]

Sorry i disabled it for a bit since it wasn't working. That's why you didn't see it.

There you have it, check it out

Also, my forum is already 2.0

[Illori]

still dont see the CAPTCHA and your copyright says it is RC5 which means you have not upgraded to 2.0. 2.0 RC5 is not the same as 2.0.

i would suggest you remove the mod that gives you the password strength and try again. also test it on the default theme.

[SonicDcer]

still dont see the CAPTCHA and your copyright says it is RC5 which means you have not upgraded to 2.0. 2.0 RC5 is not the same as 2.0.

i would suggest you remove the mod that gives you the password strength and try again. also test it on the default theme.

No mod gives me password strengh, i'm using it as default.
It's tested and working on the default theme like i said before.
I'll try updating to 2.0 2.0 (weird version number btw).

[Illori]

2.0 2.0 is not the version it is just 2.0. also i dont see any option in the admin panel to give the password strength.

[SonicDcer]

[Illori]

and does it work in the default theme? [not the forum default theme]

[SonicDcer]

and does it work in the default theme? [not the forum default theme]

This doesn't happen if i switch to the Default Theme, but happens to BackInBlack205 theme.

It's tested and working on the default theme like i said before.

[Illori]

then ask the theme author for help, it would be specific to that theme.

[SonicDcer]

Thank you for your support pal!
...

[carrerafan]

Had this problem with a custom theme, I'd done an upgrade from RC5 to 2.0 and somehow my themes directory got corrupt and the images folder was missing from the default theme. Reuploading that sorted it.

[RavenDT]

I am bumping this because it's not just specific to the theme he's using.  I am using a completely different theme than he, and my captcha isn't working.

I am using a fresh install of SMF 2.0.2 with a different theme.  I reverted the board to default theme and it works fine.  Switch back to theme, captcha is broken.

It is broken on IE9 and Chrome.

[Illori]

please open a separate thread for your issue, this thread belongs to someone else and is marked solved. also please dont bump old threads.

[RavenDT]

I apologize, I did not see a "solution" on this page which is why I bumped it.  Basically someone said "Go talk to the author," which isn't really a solution in my book.

I will say however that after an hour of scouring the internet, I did find a fairly common issue, albeit very obscure, but will definitely break the captcha on every browser, so I will post that here for anyone who may have the same issue.

Basically, I went and put in the link to the register page into hxxp:validator.w3.org/ [nonactive]
hxxp:websitehere.com/index.php?action=register [nonactive]

It failed because the document claims to be UTF-8 but there was a character on some line that was not UTF-8 and broke the whole thing.

The validator was able to tell me the hex value of the character in question, which was 0xA9.  This is supposed to be the code for a copyright symbol.

With this knowledge, I looked at the copyright statement at the bottom of my forum with the theme and saw that there was a diamond with a question mark in it, which appears to be a symbol for an invalid character.

I went and edited the index.template.php file on the site, found the erroneous line, and replaced the character with © for the copyright symbol, saved, and viola, Problem Solved!!!!


TL;DR: If you have an invalid character on your page that is not UTF-8, replace that.  It seems a lot of theme makers have been putting the actual copyright character in the footer instead of using the proper HTML code.  Wherever your invalid character is, find that and replace it to make your page compliant and all will be fixed.

[MrPhil]

Yes, many theme and mod makers make this stupid mistake. You must never, ever, put a non-ASCII character into code that might possibly output to an arbitrary character encoding (Latin-1, UTF-8, etc.). Language support files are OK, since they are intended to be run under a specific encoding. Everything else must be ASCII with HTML entities (either numeric or named) That means no "binary" copyright characters, >>, non-breaking spaces, etc. Period.