Missing many old aspects

[tricities]

The forum was hit by a Trojan.  I deleted all folders on the server except the PMB folder for http://ucfm2.com/pmb and installed 2.09 version.

I'm wanting to now start getting complaints from the users of what they used to be able to do and the first that has come in is from the other admin which says:

When I do a member search  and pull up a profile, there is only the top part of the profile with name and address. It does not display the statement of faith, geographic ordinances, and several other key details. This happens occasionally when I am looking with at a profile. Always before I was able to reload it but not now.

I thought maybe this had to do with some Mod or the Simple Portal the old webmaster had sitting on the server that I deleted the folder of.  Does anyone know what Simple Portal is, in the first place, since their own website doesn't say what it is even used for and do you think his complaint has something to do with that?

I have never used this forum before this week and was not a member of this forum but am their webmaster at ucfm.org so I'm totally clueless as to what it used to look like or what folders and files Fred had kept on the server that he didn't delete if he found he didn't want to use them.  It was massive with a lot of garbage, so I'm at the point of taking bits and pieces and trying to answer each complaint.

Any help or insight into this is greatly appreciated.  I'd hate to say, "sorry, I can't help you" and leave them with a forum they can't use like they did before, but cleaning out Trojan coding I think would be a rather large task than maybe just fixing this issue because I wouldn't know what files to clean up that are even useful.

[Colin]

Hi Tricities,

Sorry to hear about the trouble. Are you able to provide credentials to a demo account that we can log into and have a look at the symptoms?

[tricities]

Hi again,
I don't think I'd know how to make a demo account.  If you gave me steps, I probably could.  Would that mean installing the Trojan destroyed files back on the server in a separate folder?  The web hosting company may not like it! LOL

[margarett]

Also: do you have a backup of the forum (files + database) before you did the changes?

edit: to create a demo account, go to your ACP --> Members --> Registration --> Register a new user
Give a username and a password plus a fake email address, do not choose any membergroup for it. Then let us know the user/pass

[Kindred]

Also, if you have mods installed on the old system (which you deleted) and then you loaded a clean set of files and/or upgraded, then you are going to have to reinstall all of the mods to get that functionality back.

[tricities]

Margarret, will do that and yes I do have them.

Kindred, if I printscreened a list of folders he had installed, do you think you could look at them and guess which are mods and which are other forums he may have tested?

[tricities]

Should I post the demo info here or PM it?

[Kindred]

No....  Most mods make changes internal to existing files...

[tricities]

Well, it looks like the Pastor knows I'm working on the forum and then didn't bother telling me he was talking about the other domain name's website and not the forum!  His first email before the one above being, It appears that the PMB is working now. I didn't do much testing, but it looks like we are back up again. The main webpage is not loading profiles properly. It shows everyone as local member, whatever that means.


*Sigh*  Wouldn't YOU have thunk it was the FORUM we are working on?!?  Okay, he's like really nice, so I'll not slap him silly.

Thanks for the help anyway.  Sorry for wasting your time on this.  However, I would like to keep this topic open about the Mods problems unless you think I should start it somewhere else.  If so, please give me a link to where I should ask for help about that or let me know if it's okay to continue here.

[Kindred]

There really isn't much you can do about your "mods problem"

Figure out what functionality you WANT, going forward and install those mods.  If they were installed before, the new installation will pick up the data that already exists, if not, then no harm, no foul... you get new functionality.

[tricities]

That sounds like a better plan.
Thanks so much!

[margarett]

Margarret, will do that and yes I do have them.

If you have a backup of everything, you should:
1) create a different, temporary subfolder and put your forum files there
2) import the database backup. Be careful to not overwrite the current database
3) load and run repair_settings and adjust all the paths and database info to this new configuration.
Now you will have your "old" forum back up. You can login into it and check the installed MODs. As soon as you have this information, delete it again.

[tricities]

Great idea!

I really don't know much about databases and am scared of them.  How do I do number 2 and to where?  Do I create a new database and import it into that one and then change the settings.php username and password to that database?

[margarett]

You import via phpmyadmin (depending on the size of the database backup). It it's too big, send it via FTP to your webspace and ask your host to import it

repair_settings will allow you to change those informations in Settings.php, and will also allow you to fix the paths, which is also fundamental to have SMF running.

[tricities]

If I go into phpmyadmin and import, won't it override the existing database?

[Kindred]

not if you import into a DIFFERENT database

[tricities]

Don't know how

[tricities]

When I said I deleted extra folders on the server, I didn't mean I didn't do a backup first and I've found this: http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=400356.msg2782585#msg2782585

So it looks like I can look in that "Packages" folder backup at least to find names of Mods and go download them again.

[Kindred]

yes

[tricities]

In July 2015, I moved the SMF being on a paid hosted account at HostForWeb.com and stored it on another domain my client has so they wouldn't have to pay for a forum.  Everything was running fine until a couple of days ago.

I've exhausted all resources in doing searches on SMF
and SpambotSecurity/Zbblock http://www.spambotsecurity.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=41&t=2080

Problem:
I can register a new person without any problems, but my client says he cannot and neither can new people.  They keep getting
Hourly registration attempts exceeded!
Press your back button and try something else.

He gets this on the first attempt.  This is wording directly from the Zbblock file....but.......

The log files show a bunch errors in templates during their attempts.  Such as

http://www.ucfm.org/pmb/index.php?action=register;sa=usernamecheck;xml;username=Job
Unable to load the 'check_username' template

I can't remember now what I clicked on to see this error sometime yesterday
parsing error index.php?action=register;a=username check;xml;username=amos

I got this one while logged in
Unable to load the 'stats' template

Another user got this one while logged in
Unable to load the 'message_icons' template

I noticed that my IP address was blacklisted at spambotsecurity but the users who couldn't register were able to see his website.  I called him and he flushed his DNS cache (or whatever it was he said he would do to whitelist everybody, which he said his day job doesn't allow him to maintain his website very much).  So today I can see his website.  But this doesn't seem to be the problem since myself and my client and his customers are having totally different effects.  So now I'm on a hunt about this template problem, thinking if it has a problem it's somehow making zbblock's wording come up as if the user had exhaust all three attempts at logging in.  (which is not the case at all from what I'm hearing)

So.........I followed what Kindred said here on this topic
http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=533902.msg3794321#msg3794321
Kindred says
"Since you have no mods, then I recommend loading a clean, fresh set of files.
Delete everything except settings.php, settings_bak.php, the avatar directory and the attachments directory.  And then load a clean set of forum files from a clean download of the zip."  http://wiki.simplemachines.org/smf/How_to_upload_a_fresh_set_of_files

I did all that and I'm waiting until later today to see if they're going to still have problems.

Question: I moved the forum in July.  Here it is September.  All of a sudden users cannot register and there template errors and zbblock wording about multiple login attempts during registration ()  I haven't been back to the forum to have touched any files after July and there are no other people modifying anything.  There are no mods as far as I know except I did add one block for a member ID number to be entered during registration.  Works for me, doesn't for them.  What is happening?

So, the last thing that goes unchecked is related to the last post I made Dec 2014 about the Packages folder.  I never did look into it and today now wonder what's in it and if it's at all related to all these problems all of a sudden.  I don't see how it's possible since I never did bother with that folder back in 2014.

I read this http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=400356.msg2782585#msg2782585

I got as far as this:
Download that file to your desktop, or somewhere fairly empty of files and dearchive it.

It's a "gz" file.

When you dearchive it you'll be left with a "tar" file.

If you dearchive that, you'll find loads of files and directories.

Okay........but I don't know what "dearchive" means.  So did a google search to see I may need 7-zip.  I installed it and was able to get the tar file but cannot get any further with that because everything I read from that point on is talking about some command prompt as if the reader knows what they're talking about when using one and this reader doesn't!  It's irritating to spend all night long trying to figure out how to extract files from a tar file without any instructions whatsoever.  I chose Extract on 7-zip and it's asking for a password!  WHAT???

So I haven't a clue, once again.


http://www.spambotsecurity.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=41&t=2080  This is almost exactly our problem but it didn't quite solve my problem and I think that user may have discovered these template errors maybe causing his problem too, but I can't be sure.

I have no idea what to do at this point to get members to be able to register again, and it's a totally mystery to me why everything was working for an entire month until now.

Any clues and help would soooo be appreciated.  Please feel free to sign up with a fake name.  We won't activate unless you're ID number matches our other membership, so test away if you'd like to help me figure this out.

Thanks again
Tina

[Illori]

please dont double post, you have a topic for this new issue already. someone will reply if and when they know the answer.

http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=539424

[tricities]

Here's his reply today after I did a clean install.

"It won't even let me start the registration. As soon as I click register it gives me the message that I exceeded the attempts"

[tricities]

please dont double post, you have a topic for this new issue already. someone will reply if and when they know the answer.

http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=539424

I didn't create that post where you linked to.  I created it here within my topic I started in December. 

[Illori]

well you must have made that topic as it was made by you, and has the same text you just posted. either way this is a solved topic, so you should be using the other topic you made.

[tricities]

Seriously, I didn't make that topic.  I purposefully made it here in this one for the follow up on the Packages folder and so moderators would know what my history on our forum was about.

However, I could not find this topic when I came back today and did a page refresh, noticed I was in "preview" my post, and thought maybe I went to bed without actually posting it, and hit post.  If it somehow created a new subject line and new URL.........then I guess that's what it did, but seriously, I didn't create any new subject or post, so some Moderator must have decided to move my post to another thread.  But I want it here in this one so I can also read the history on this client's problems, not scattered all over your SMF.  If you can delete the "can't register new user" thread and leave me here, I'd appreciate it.

[Kindred]

this is a SOLVED thread and the current issue has nothing to do with the old issue.

So, this should be discussed in the new thread that has already been started - not here...