Atomicorp • Vbulletin problems

Vbulletin problems

Posted: Thu Apr 30, 2009 11:18 am

by nobody

Hello.

First of all I am using the settings ASL suggests for php.

I have installed many known php applications on my plesk server. All went fine.
Then we met with vbulletin.

There is some issue with vbulletin apparently. I can't figure out whats wrong 2 days now. Crawled a lot on the web thats why I ask you.
I even turned off php safe mode just to be sure ...

When I go to the install page of it, its blank. Does nothing at all.
We transferred a working on a cpanel server vbulletin and it worked but with issues with the images still trying to find out. It wont actually write-read the folder. They say that its a safe mode thing but yet even with safe mode off it wont do the trick.

Has any fellow admin found if vbulletin needs some special php addon apart from the defaults a plesk box has ? And if its a option thing in php.ini ? Anything at all if you have bumped into problems with this cursed api ...

Thanks.

Re: Vbulletin problems

Posted: Thu Apr 30, 2009 1:51 pm

by Highland

A blank page typically means a PHP error of some kind (usually syntax). If it were mod_security you'd be seeing 403 errors from Apache.

Try looking in your error logs to see what might be happening.

Re: Vbulletin problems

Posted: Thu Apr 30, 2009 2:46 pm

by hostingguy

also enable php logging if its not already (its a server setting in php.ini) and see if it helps any

If you do find the problem please post, Im sure it will help others

Re: Vbulletin problems

Posted: Thu Apr 30, 2009 4:38 pm

by nobody

Okay.

Created and php.log file and set the path into the php.ini. As error logging I set ALL and STRICT.
Restarted apache.

Run the install.php of the vbulletin. Nothing gets written inside the php.log

Re: Vbulletin problems

Posted: Thu Apr 30, 2009 5:21 pm

by hostingguy

You can try adding this to the top of the file

[php]

ini_set('error_reporting', E_ALL);
ini_set('display_errors', 'On');
ini_set('display_startup_errors', 'On');

[/php]

You can also check line by line - just have exit() after few lines and that will hopefully point you to where the problem is.

There is also the vBulletin help forums
Read over this: http://www.vbulletin.com/docs/html/blank_pages

Re: Vbulletin problems

Posted: Thu Apr 30, 2009 8:58 pm

by aus-city

One client I have has vbulletin and it's on a Fedora 7 server. No issues but he uses horde so popen and a few more allowed. I suggest setting the php settings for horde and try again.

Re: Vbulletin problems

Posted: Fri May 01, 2009 4:43 am

by nobody

hostingguy wrote:You can try adding this to the top of the file

[php]

ini_set('error_reporting', E_ALL);
ini_set('display_errors', 'On');
ini_set('display_startup_errors', 'On');

[/php]

You can also check line by line - just have exit() after few lines and that will hopefully point you to where the problem is.

There is also the vBulletin help forums
Read over this: http://www.vbulletin.com/docs/html/blank_pages

!!! When I enter these commands in the top of php.ini the vbulletin installation runs. When they are out it doesnt ! Why !?

Re: Vbulletin problems

Posted: Fri May 01, 2009 5:29 am

by aus-city

I still suggest allowing escshellcmd (or similar from memory) and popen and what else horde needs. It runs fine on my friends server and he applies upgrades as well.

Re: Vbulletin problems

Posted: Fri May 01, 2009 5:35 am

by nobody

aus-city wrote:I still suggest allowing escshellcmd (or similar from memory) and popen and what else horde needs. It runs fine on my friends server and he applies upgrades as well.

Hi there !

I dont run horde. I run roundcube webmail. Far better and faster. I didnt want plesk to have to do anything with webmails so I never installed in plesk anything around the webmail ...

But what send me away is that with the commands of the fellow hostingguy in the php.ini the vbulletin installation run ! ! !

Re: Vbulletin problems

Posted: Fri May 01, 2009 11:45 am

by hostingguy

Were you able then to get it working?
What changes did you make?

Re: Vbulletin problems

Posted: Sat May 02, 2009 12:03 pm

by nobody

hostingguy wrote:Were you able then to get it working?
What changes did you make?

Nope. I see the first step page. Enter the serial number and then it gets stuck to step 2. The only thing I see is the following

vBulletin 3.8.2 Install Script
(Please be patient as some parts may take some time)

-------------------------
Let me give you a more detailed image of my box.
Any suggestions are more than welcome !

Thanks

My php installed packages

php.x86_64 5.2.9-2.el5.art
php-Smarty.noarch 2.6.13-1.el5.art
php-cli.x86_64 5.2.9-2.el5.art
php-common.x86_64 5.2.9-2.el5.art
php-devel.x86_64 5.2.9-2.el5.art
php-eaccelerator.x86_64 1:5.2.9_0.9.5.3-5.el5.art installed
php-gd.x86_64 5.2.9-2.el5.art
php-imap.x86_64 5.2.9-2.el5.art
php-ioncube-loader.x86_64 1:3.1-7.el5.art
php-mbstring.x86_64 5.2.9-2.el5.art
php-mcrypt.x86_64 5.2.9-2.el5.art
php-mysql.x86_64 5.2.9-2.el5.art
php-pdo.x86_64 5.2.9-2.el5.art
php-xml.x86_64 5.2.9-2.el5.art

Available Packages
php-bcmath.x86_64 5.2.9-2.el5.art atomic
php-dba.x86_64 5.2.9-2.el5.art atomic
php-dbase.x86_64 5.1.6-15.el5.centos.1 extras
php-embedded.x86_64 5.2.9-2.el5.art atomic
php-ldap.x86_64 5.2.9-2.el5.art atomic
php-mhash.x86_64 5.2.9-2.el5.art atomic
php-mssql.x86_64 5.2.9-2.el5.art atomic
php-ncurses.x86_64 5.2.9-2.el5.art atomic
php-odbc.x86_64 5.2.9-2.el5.art atomic
php-pear.noarch 1:1.7.2-2.el5.art atomic
php-pear-Auth-SASL.noarch 1.0.2-4.el5.centos extras
php-pear-Console-Getargs.noarch 1.3.4-1.el5.art atomic
php-pear-Crypt-CBC.noarch 0.4-1.el5.art atomic
php-pear-Crypt-GPG.noarch 1.0.0-1.el5.art atomic
php-pear-DB.noarch 1.7.13-1.el5.centos extras
php-pear-Date.noarch 1.4.7-2.el5.centos extras
php-pear-File.noarch 1.2.2-1.el5.centos extras
php-pear-HTTP-Request.noarch 1.4.2-1.el5.centos extras
php-pear-Log.noarch 1.9.13-1.el5.centos extras
php-pear-MDB2.noarch 2.4.1-2.el5.centos extras
php-pear-MDB2-Driver-mysql.noarch 1.4.1-3.el5.centos extras
php-pear-Mail.noarch 1.1.14-2.el5.art atomic
php-pear-Mail-Mime.noarch 1.4.0-1.el5.centos extras
php-pear-Net-SMTP.noarch 1.2.10-1.el5.centos extras
php-pear-Net-Sieve.noarch 1.1.5-2.el5.centos extras
php-pear-Net-Socket.noarch 1.0.8-1.el5.centos extras
php-pear-Net-URL.noarch 1.0.15-1.el5.centos extras
php-pecl-Fileinfo.x86_64 1.0.4-3.el5.centos extras
php-pecl-apc.x86_64 3.1.2-1.el5.art atomic
php-pecl-memcache.x86_64 2.2.3-1.el5_2 extras
php-pgsql.x86_64 5.2.9-2.el5.art atomic
php-pspell.x86_64 5.2.9-2.el5.art atomic
php-readline.x86_64 5.1.6-15.el5.centos.1 extras
php-snmp.x86_64 5.2.9-2.el5.art atomic
php-soap.x86_64 5.2.9-2.el5.art atomic
php-sqlite2.i386 5.2.9-1.el5.art atomic
php-sqlite2.x86_64 5.2.9-1.el5.art atomic
php-suhosin.x86_64 0.9.27-1.el5.art atomic
php-tidy.x86_64 5.2.9-2.el5.art atomic
php-xmlrpc.x86_64 5.2.9-2.el5.art atomic
php-zend-optimizer.x86_64 1:3.3.3-2.el5.art atomic

----------------------------------
I get this error after adding these lines
PHP: Error parsing /etc/php.ini on line 3

Php.ini

Code: Select all

[php]

ini_set('error_reporting', E_ALL); <-This is line 3
ini_set('display_errors', 'On');
ini_set('display_startup_errors', 'On');

[/php]

[PHP]

engine = On
asp_tags = Off
y2k_compliance = On
output_buffering = 4096
zlib.output_compression = Off
implicit_flush = Off
unserialize_callback_func=
serialize_precision = 100
allow_call_time_pass_reference = Off
safe_mode = Off (Until i figure out whats going on ...)
safe_mode_gid = Off
safe_mode_exec_dir =
safe_mode_allowed_env_vars = PHP_
safe_mode_protected_env_vars = LD_LIBRARY_PATH
disable_functions =  , dl , exec , escapeshellcmd , passthru , pfsockopen , popen , posix_kill , posix_mkfifo , posix_setuid , proc_close , proc_open , proc_
terminate , shell_exec , system , leak , posix_setpgid , posix_setsid , proc_get_status , proc_nice , show_source
disable_classes =
expose_php = Off
max_execution_time = 45     ; Maximum execution time of each script, in seconds
max_input_time = 80     ; Maximum amount of time each script may spend parsing request data
memory_limit = 32M
error_reporting  =  E_ALL & E_STRICT
display_errors = Off
display_startup_errors = Off
log_errors = On
log_errors_max_len = 1024
ignore_repeated_errors = Off
ignore_repeated_source = Off
report_memleaks = On
track_errors = Off
error_log = /var/log/php.log
variables_order = "EGPCS"
register_globals = Off
register_long_arrays = Off
register_argc_argv = Off
auto_globals_jit = On
post_max_size = 9M
magic_quotes_gpc = Off
magic_quotes_runtime = Off
magic_quotes_sybase = Off
auto_prepend_file =
auto_append_file =
default_mimetype = "text/html"
default_charset = "iso-8859-7"
doc_root =
user_dir =
extension_dir = "/usr/lib64/php/modules"
enable_dl = On
file_uploads = On
upload_max_filesize = 10M
allow_url_fopen = off
default_socket_timeout = 80
define_syslog_variables  = Off
sendmail_path = /usr/sbin/sendmail -t -i
sql.safe_mode = Off
odbc.allow_persistent = On
odbc.check_persistent = On
odbc.max_persistent = -1
odbc.max_links = -1
odbc.defaultlrl = 4096
odbc.defaultbinmode = 1
mysql.allow_persistent = On
mysql.max_persistent = -1
mysql.max_links = -1
sybase.allow_persistent = On
sybase.max_persistent = -1
sybase.max_links = -1
sybase.min_error_severity = 10
sybase.min_message_severity = 10
sybct.allow_persistent = On
sybct.max_persistent = -1
sybct.max_links = -1
sybct.min_server_severity = 10
sybct.min_client_severity = 10
bcmath.scale = 0
ifx.nullformat = 0
session.save_handler = files
session.save_path = "/var/lib/php/session"
session.name = PHPSESSID
session.auto_start = 0
session.cookie_lifetime = 1800
session.cookie_path = /
session.cookie_domain =
session.serialize_handler = php
session.gc_probability = 1
session.gc_divisor     = 1000
session.gc_maxlifetime = 1440
session.bug_compat_42 = 0
session.bug_compat_warn = 1
session.referer_check =
session.entropy_length = 0
session.entropy_file =
session.cache_limiter = nocache
session.cache_expire = 180
session.use_trans_sid = 0
session.hash_function = 0
session.hash_bits_per_character = 5
url_rewriter.tags = "a=href,area=href,frame=src,input=src,form=fakeentry"

My.cnf

Code: Select all

[mysqld]
set-variable=local-infile=0
datadir=/var/lib/mysql
socket=/var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock
user=mysql
# Default to using old password format for compatibility with mysql 3.x
# clients (those using the mysqlclient10 compatibility package).
old_passwords=1
skip-locking
safe-show-database
query_cache_limit=1M
query_cache_size=32M
query_cache_type=1
max_user_connections=80
max_connections=500
interactive_timeout=10
wait_timeout=20
connect_timeout=20
thread_cache_size=128
key_buffer=32M
join_buffer=1M
max_allowed_packet=16M
table_cache=1024
record_buffer=1M
sort_buffer_size=1M
read_buffer_size=1M
read_rnd_buffer_size=1M
thread_concurrency=2
myisam_sort_buffer_size=64M
server-id=1


[mysqld_safe]
log-error=/var/log/mysqld.log
pid-file=/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.pid
open_files_limit=8192

[mysqldump]
quick
max_allowed_packet=16M

[mysql]
no-auto-rehash

Re: Vbulletin problems

Posted: Sat May 02, 2009 2:41 pm

by hostingguy

step 1 - take this out of php.ini

Code: Select all

[php]

ini_set('error_reporting', E_ALL); <-This is line 3
ini_set('display_errors', 'On');
ini_set('display_startup_errors', 'On');

[/php]

step 2, find those keys in php.ini
'error_reporting', 'display_errors', 'display_startup_errors' and change them to those values. The ini_set functions can only be used inside of php code, so you could add those lines into the config.php file for example, but for now change the php.ini. Also turn off safe mode, and open_basedir for now just to test, and you should change this to a better value later.

make sure magic_quotes_sybase is set to 0, and if in asl you have any of the magic qoutes disabled make sure you enable them. and run asl -f -s afterwards.

If you have a value for 'memory_limit' set, change it to 256 - again this is just for testing and you should change this to a better value later.

Since you have suhosin you may also have to tweak those settings.
Go to /etc/php.d/suhosin.ini and change or set the following
suhosin.cookie.encrypt Off
suhosin.request.max_vars 3000
suhosin.post.max_vars 3000

also edit config.php and add this right under the <?php line to disable GZIP:
DEFINE('NOZIP', 1);

Re: Vbulletin problems

Posted: Sat May 02, 2009 8:45 pm

by nobody

hostingguy wrote:step 1 - take this out of php.ini
Code: Select all
[php]

ini_set('error_reporting', E_ALL); <-This is line 3
ini_set('display_errors', 'On');
ini_set('display_startup_errors', 'On');

[/php]
step 2, find those keys in php.ini
'error_reporting', 'display_errors', 'display_startup_errors' and change them to those values. The ini_set functions can only be used inside of php code, so you could add those lines into the config.php file for example, but for now change the php.ini. Also turn off safe mode, and open_basedir for now just to test, and you should change this to a better value later.

make sure magic_quotes_sybase is set to 0, and if in asl you have any of the magic qoutes disabled make sure you enable them. and run asl -f -s afterwards.

If you have a value for 'memory_limit' set, change it to 256 - again this is just for testing and you should change this to a better value later.

Since you have suhosin you may also have to tweak those settings.
Go to /etc/php.d/suhosin.ini and change or set the following
suhosin.cookie.encrypt Off
suhosin.request.max_vars 3000
suhosin.post.max_vars 3000

also edit config.php and add this right under the <?php line to disable GZIP:
DEFINE('NOZIP', 1);

Thanks again for your reply !

Dont have suhosin installed ! Listed both installed and available ! Take a look again maybe you thought I have something needed allready installed !

Ok. Changed the settings in php.ini.

I added these lines as a test inside php.ini

Now that I removed them even though the "normal" ones are the same again I get the blank page in the vbulletin installation...

With these lines in the php.ini allthough its very weird at least the install.php was showing something before it got stuck in step 2 ...
ini_set('error_reporting', E_ALL);
ini_set('display_errors', 'On');
ini_set('display_startup_errors', 'On');

Re: Vbulletin problems

Posted: Sat May 02, 2009 9:43 pm

by hostingguy

nobody wrote:
hostingguy wrote:
With these lines in the php.ini allthough its very weird at least the install.php was showing something before it got stuck in step 2 ...
ini_set('error_reporting', E_ALL);
ini_set('display_errors', 'On');
ini_set('display_startup_errors', 'On');

That probably means that with the bad lines in php.ini from before when it failed on line 3, it didnt process the rest of the file, and so the installer displayed properly. That leads me to speculate that something inside of php.ini further down is causing the problem.

Also, I would advise you to install the latest php (all of the available php-* except for the php-pear packages), zend optimizer, and ioncube (and even suhosin as its pretty cool) before trying again as its possible its missing something it needs to be able to run.

Re: Vbulletin problems

Posted: Sun May 03, 2009 7:10 pm

by nobody

Good news !

Installed the ioncube and smarty. Then did a execution of the variables through ASL interface and everything worked !!!
The """funny""" thing is that after a 4 day experiment in order to figure out what was going wrong and since there were no errors anywhere ... Now I don't know what actually solved the problem.

All that time there was 0 errors. Checked every log file in the system and nothing !

I use the versions I get from the art repo just to be sure since they are patched and stable releases.

You believe I should install all php* packages or you advised me to do so in order to solve the problem ? Now that the issue is solved do you still suggest to install them all except the pear ones ?

Also would you like-could suggest a configuration for php.ini - suhosin and even if possible a my.cnf focusing on the ""security"" of a shared hosting box ?