Latest news and package information not being updated just shows ??

[ukcwm]

Hi

I have recently updated my version of SMF to version 2.0.17 and everything is working fine. However, the only thing that seems not to be working is the
Live news from Simple Machines... updates and the version list and support information are not being automatically pulled in - instead they are either saying 'You are unable to connect to simplemachines.org's latest news file.' or just showing '??'

I did some investigation in the forums and found a thread that talked about cURL and fsockopen() here: https://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php?mod=1569

I then tried to install that mod, but it looks like it is not compatible with the latest version 2.0.17 as it said so, and although it appeared in the list once I uploaded it, nothing changed. I have since deleted it again in the hope that it didn't inject anything nasty into my forum's code.

I have checked with my hosting company and they said that cURL should work on the shared hosting service I have.

Can anyone shed any light as to why this function is not working?

I should also mention that I only have one other MOD installed - reCAPTCHA for SMF 2.0.0

Many thanks for your help in advance.

[Arantor]

It won't take effect immediately; the data for that 'news' is only loaded once per day.

Try re-running the "Fetch Simple Machines files" scheduled task manually.

[ukcwm]

Hi Arantor

Thank you for your response - the problem still remains, even after waiting some time for it to pick up the information, and running the process manually several times.

Is there anything else that it could be?

Everything else on the forum appears to be running absolutely fine

Many thanks for your help in advance.

[Arantor]

Did the task say it ran successfully?

[ukcwm]

Hi

In forum Maintenance, I have 'Check all files against current versions' in my routine forum maintenance, when I click 'run task now' it lists my versions, BUT under 'sources' 'language files' and 'templates' - which are linked, but don't go anywhere when you click them, they also show '??' next to them, and all the remote file versions from SMF are listed just with a '??'

The other message for the latest news items pulled in from SMF, 'You are unable to connect to simplemachines.org's latest news file.'

It seems, it can't connect to SMF to update the latest info from you, but also doesn't seem to know where my files are stored - yet everything else seems to be functioning as normal.

Hope this info helps, maybe?

Many thanks for your help.

[Arantor]

Ok, so time to look in the database.

In the table, smf_admin_info_files, what does it contain?

[ukcwm]

Hi

There are 6 rows - looks like the first three are relevant - here is what the first 3 rows are populated with:
1    current-version.js    /smf/    version=%3$s    window.smfVersion = "SMF 2.0.17";    text/javascript
2    detailed-version.js    /smf/    language=%1$s&version=%3$s    window.smfVersions = {'SMF': 'SMF 2.0.17', 'Sou...    text/javascript
3    latest-news.js    /smf/    language=%1$s&format=%2$s    window.smfAnnouncements = [{subject: 'SMF 2....    text/javascript

...Does that help?

[Arantor]

That tells me that SMF was able to fetch the data from simplemachines.org.

That means we move onto... when you're in the admin panel, do you get any errors in the browser console?

[ukcwm]

Hi

OK, so there are a number of errors show up in the browser console:

A form was submitted in the windows-1252 encoding which cannot encode all Unicode characters, so user input may get corrupted. To avoid this problem, the page should be changed so that the form is submitted in the UTF-8 encoding either by changing the encoding of the page itself to UTF-8 or by specifying accept-charset=utf-8 on the form element.

Request to access cookie or storage on "<URL>" was blocked because it came from a tracker and content blocking is enabled. 2

Uncaught ReferenceError: smc_Toggle is not defined

Uncaught ReferenceError: addLoadEvent is not defined

Some cookies are misusing the recommended "sameSite" attribute

Request to access cookie or storage on "<URL>" was blocked because it came from a tracker and content blocking is enabled.

'src' attribute of <script> element is empty.

Uncaught DOMException: The operation is insecure.

Scroll anchoring was disabled in a scroll container because of too many consecutive adjustments (10) with too little total distance (-0.103333330154419 px average, -1.03333 px total).


...not sure what most of this means, but perhaps it will mean something to you?

Thank you for your help

[Arantor]

So is your site HTTP or HTTPS?

[ukcwm]

Hi

Its HTTPS

[ukcwm]

Hi

Just checking in to see if we can continue to get to the bottom of this issue - I'd love to get it fixed!

Many thanks

[ukcwm]

Hi

Just bumping this again, as I still haven't resolved the issue. I'd love to get it fixed!

Many thanks

[ukcwm]

Hi

Final request for help on this - I have been in touch with my hosting provider and they said that the hosting plan should be able to carry out the automated tasks, so I'm not sure why the latest news and information isn't being picked up.

Many thanks
Trevor.

[Arantor]

The problem was never the scheduled task. The problem is a JavaScript error in the browser.

[ukcwm]

Hi

Oh I did not know that - how can I resolve that? Which is the problem bit of Javascript - can you identify it? As far as I know my browser is up-to-date (Firefox), but could the error be caused by the hosting?

Many thanks

[Arantor]

No, you need to do that: go to the admin page, look in the browser console for errors.

[ukcwm]

OK - many thanks, I'm working also with my hosting company to try and identify the issue.

If I find an answer, I'll post it up for the benefit of others.

Thank you for your help.

[Arantor]

The hosting company can do nothing.

The only person who can is you. You need to go to the admin area, press F12 in your browser and see what errors it logs.