Another Blank Page + Others, host upgraded mySql and PHP Options

[geoffwin]

Host has just upgraded to mysql 5.0.54 and php 5

They appear to have broken openx 2.4 (also Oscommerce and a forum as well as their own webmail settings in squirrel mail (I think))

Basically I end up with a blank page when I try to log in or install the upgrade - I was advised that the issue was mine and that an upgrade to the latest version might assist - cannot even run the install.

Here is what I get http://www.telepoint.biz/adserver/

or my Osc problem (the same)

Here is what I get http://www.telepoint.biz/catalog/ or with Osc

Here is what my host says the error is

[Mon Feb 18 13:36:32 2008] [error] [client 203.88.112.129] PHP Fatal error: require_once() [function.require]: Failed opening required 'Log.php' (include_path='/home/httpd/vhosts/telepoint.biz/httpdocs:/tmp:/usr/bin:/usr/share/pear') in /home/httpd/vhosts/telepoint.biz/httpdocs/adserver/lib/Max.php on line 31

and that they cannot find log.php

The system is still delivering ads but I cannot access any managment of it. Given their slow support replies I think they may have broken more then mine>

I have just tried a complete independent install into a new directory with a new database and get the same problem

Any suggestions ?

Geoff

[geoffwin]

Replying to my own post :-(

Anyway, after havig uploaded the file set a few times and getting the same issues I finally got the first page up.

I found that if I continually refreshed the page I was getting page error on refresh "retry or cancel" I went "retry" a number of times and th einstall moved to the next page.

This happened a number of times until the system check which was OK but I could not get it to move on from there.

Could this be some sort of time out issue? either at the server side or in the software?

It seems interesting to me that the install could be moved on by page refreshs, if it was some critical error surely it would stop at the same place each time (under the same circumstances)

Anyway, I had a functioning setup before and this issue has just about put me off openads

Geoff

[lowlands]

Hi,

Same issue here. I have been a happy and content user of an older version of Openads. First I upgraded to 2.4.3. and reorganised my whole setup. Then all of a sudden I can't access Openads anymore (page not found error). Next I tried to do a new install using the old database because of all the work I had already put in. No joy.

To cut a long story short I finally decided to do a whole new install of 2.4.4 and encountered the same issue as mentioned by geofwin. I finally managed to get to the 'Congratulations' page refreshing all the time. Now I try to continue but I can't access my adserver. Neither from the install wizard nor accessing through my browser. I keep getting a HTTP error 500.

Please, please help!

Theo

[Arlen Coupland]

Hi geoffwin,

From your error message, it seems that OpenX is having a problem communicating with the Pear folder (a folder of PHP libraries). OpenX comes with a bundled version of Pear, and it seems that your server already has some pear files installed at /usr/share/pear

However, your host provided only the fatal error -- I believe there are some 'warnings' which would have come before this message which would better clue in on the issue.

My main bet is that it has to do with 'open_basedir'. The fatal error you give doesn't say PHP can't find the file, it says it can't open the file. This is a permissions issue.

Most likely your host has 'open_basedir' enabled - which means that PHP is only allowed to include files from certain folders.

I would make sure that the folder:
/home/httpd/vhosts/telepoint.biz/httpdocs/adserver/lib/pear
is in the list of allowable folders.
Also I would make sure that the folder '.' is in the allowable list of folders.
The '.' character represents 'current directory' so that files in the same directory as the current file are include-able. This may help with other softwares you are having problems with.

My other suggestions, which depend on what you are able to do on your server:

1) Edit include_path within php.ini so that '/home/httpd/vhosts/telepoint.biz/httpdocs/adserver/lib/pear' is in the list of folders. OpenX tries to add this folder to include_path itself, but it seems that your server does not allow modification of the include_path.
In addition, I would recommend adding '.' to the include path.

2) If editing php.ini isn't possible, I would ask the host if 'ini_set('include_path', $path)' or 'set_include_path' are disallowed functions in PHP

Anyways, it really seems like open_basedir is the problem here.

[Arlen Coupland]

lowlands - an Apache error detail would help here. Something similar to what Geoff provided. You can find such info in your Apache Error log - or your host should be able to provide such info.

Usually an Apache 500 error has to do with mod_security settings. This is an apache module.
You can disable mod_security by placing an '.htaccess' file in the root of OpenX folder

The .htaccess file should contain the text:

CODE

SecFilterEngine Off
SecFilterScanPOST Off

If your host doesn't allow htaccess to overwrite this setting, you could ask them about the mod_security settings

[lowlands]

Hi,

Thx for the reply. I turnes out that my host switched tot php5 and I have more (great) sripts (Moodle) with the same issue. Failure, failure, success, failure, failure, failure, success etc etc.

I posted this thread to my hosts tech because technically this is all a bit beyond me. Let's hope he can figure out what the problem is.

Once I know I'll get back here.

Theo

[lowlands]

Hi again,

Sofar no joy. I succeeded once in accessing my login page and after that no more.

lowlands - an Apache error detail would help here. Something similar to what Geoff provided. You can find such info in your Apache Error log - or your host should be able to provide such info.

These are the errors I find in the log file:

[Wed Feb 20 16:15:53 2008] [error] [client 80.126.237.137] PHP Fatal error: require_once() [<a href='function.require'>function.require</a>]: Failed opening required 'Log.php' (include_path='.:/usr/share/pear') in /var/www/vhosts/aksomhosting.nl/httpdocs/adserver/lib/Max.php on line 28, referer: http://www.aksomhosting.nl/adserver/www/ad...rtiser-edit.php

and

[Wed Feb 20 16:16:01 2008] [error] [client 80.126.237.137] PHP Strict Standards: Non-static method OA_Admin_Timezones::getTimezone() should not be called statically in /var/www/vhosts/aksomhosting.nl/httpdocs/adserver/www/admin/settings-admin.php on line 35, referer: http://www.aksomhosting.nl/adserver/www/ad...rtiser-edit.php
[Wed Feb 20 16:16:01 2008] [error] [client 80.126.237.137] PHP Strict Standards: date_default_timezone_get() [<a href='function.date-default-timezone-get'>function.date-default-timezone-get</a>]: It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. Please use the date.timezone setting, the TZ environment variable or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'Europe/Berlin' for 'CET/1.0/no DST' instead in /var/www/vhosts/aksomhosting.nl/httpdocs/adserver/lib/OA/Admin/Timezones.php on line 153, referer: http://www.aksomhosting.nl/adserver/www/ad...rtiser-edit.php

At least the first one is the same as the one Geoffwin mentiones. My phpinfo says

open_basedir /var/www/vhosts/aksomhosting.nl/httpdocs:/tmp:/usr/share/pear no value

So I will send your reply to my hosts tech.

The .htaccess file should contain the text:
SecFilterEngine Off
SecFilterScanPOST Off

I tried this but got an error message and this is what the log file says:

Thu Feb 21 01:05:31 2008] [alert] [client 80.126.237.137] /var/www/vhosts/aksomhosting.nl/httpdocs/adserver/.htaccess: Invalid command 'SecFilterEngine', perhaps mis-spelled or defined by a module not included in the server configuration
[Thu Feb 21 01:05:31 2008] [warn] [client xx.xxx.xxx.xxx(ip removed)] mod_include: Options +Includes (or IncludesNoExec) wasn't set, INCLUDES filter removed

My host also informed me that I wasn't the only one having issues and that he installed a newer version of Zend Optimizer to counter the problems. In my case this at least solved a similar issue I had with the forum in a Moodle install where I could not reply all of a sudden and also got a html 500 error. This is now solved.
Not so with OpenX alas.

Theo

[geoffwin]

Thanks for the advice, I have forwared on to my host fot their info.

Host have basically fixed http://www.telepoint.biz/adserver by install of the pear module (I think), the only issue now is that even though I can manage openads I get a blank page when I try to open the statistics link.

The very similar issue I have had with OSC has been escalated - perhaps the advice is transferable to that as well.

Thanks again

Geoff

[Arlen Coupland]

Hello to you both,

It seems that both of these are related to open_basedir
Try adding the 'current directory' to this list, which is done by using a period: .
Like so:

open_basedir /var/www/vhosts/aksomhosting.nl/httpdocs:/tmp:/usr/share/pear
Change To:
open_basedir .:/var/www/vhosts/aksomhosting.nl/httpdocs:/tmp:/usr/share/pear
Or even Perhaps:
open_basedir .:/var/www/vhosts/aksomhosting.nl/httpdocs:/tmp:/usr/share/pear:/var/www/vhosts/aksomhosting.nl/httpdocs/adserver/lib/pear

The last one, make sure it is a valid path to OpenX's lib/pear folder.
Geoff - you mention they added pear to your server which helped. OpenX comes with a bundled version, located in openx/lib/pear - it might help if you make sure this is included in your include_path

Hope this helps

[Arlen Coupland]

And, just so you know, the 'PHP Strict Standards' errors you see are more of 'warnings' for development purposes. There are new functions available in PHP 5 not available in PHP 4, etc, which these Strict messages try to warn you about - so that you can code to work best in PHP 5. Unfortunately, we must still support PHP 4 so we must still use some PHP 4 functions (while using PHP5 functions if available)

[geoffwin]

Thanks again Arlen

Stats have come back, perhaps they looked at your advice in here :-)

I don't believe I have access to the levels that you are mentioning open_basedir.

I gather you consider that it is better to point to the included library rather then the host switching / installing their version?

Part of the problem I had with providing anything specific here is that the error creates the blank page - to my knowledge only the host had access to the error log and the detail.

Now off to battle the demons of oscommerce (who suffers the same problems)

Geoff

[geoffwin]

Thanks again Arlen

Stats have come back, perhaps they looked at your advice in here :-)

I don't believe I have access to the levels that you are mentioning open_basedir.

I gather you consider that it is better to point to the included library rather then the host switching / installing their version?

Part of the problem I had with providing anything specific here is that the error creates the blank page - to my knowledge only the host had access to the error log and the detail.

Now off to battle the demons of oscommerce (who suffers the same problems)

Geoff

Much appreciate to my host who has now got everything that was broken running again - if you are in Australia and need their information I am happy to be contacted

thanks again

Geoff

[geoffwin]

Thanks again Arlen

Stats have come back, perhaps they looked at your advice in here :-)



Geoff

Much appreciate to my host who has now got everything that was broken running again - if you are in Australia and need their information I am happy to be contacted

thanks again

Geoff

Even more kudos to my host. It now all is running well, including the blank pages issues being resolved.

Is there a complete list of of pear modules being used in openX, my host advises that even though it is running they are getting errors generated on missing pear modules?

This is the one that did it finally

"1) Edit include_path within php.ini so that '/home/httpd/vhosts/telepoint.biz/httpdocs/adserver/lib/pear' is in the list of folders. OpenX tries to add this folder to include_path itself, but it seems that your server does not allow modification of the include_path.
In addition, I would recommend adding '.' to the include path."



thanks

Geoff

[geoffwin]

Further to this saga (still on going BTW)

Host repaired setup

setup broke

host repaired setup

setup broke - you get the message.

Host has got back again after escalating and have replied with this

"Hi Geoff,

I have spoken with the technicians, and it is a bug with Plesk itself and PHP5. Plesk keeps overriding the settings, causing them to be lost on the domain level.

We have no ETA for an update for this as of yet, but what we have done is set the Pear include globally which should allow your site to work. The only problem with this is that any custom or alpha/beta Pear modules may have conflicts with the ones we have installed.

I do apologise for the problems this is causing you, as soon as there is an update available we will have it installed on the servers so we can resolve this issue.

Let me know if you have any other troubles and I will look into it for you.
"

They seem to think it is a plesk issue and are working to resolve it - so I guess if it is shared hosting plesk users who are having the blank screen problems this may be relevant.

When they advise of a fix I will get back or if someone here gets the fix perhaps they could so I can let my host know :-)

Geoff

[Arlen Coupland]

Hi,

Thanks for the feedback, very helpful.

On our end, I have created a ticket to explore why users have an issue with having their 'include_path' modified by OpenX. This shouldn't be an issue if OpenX was allowed by your server to edit the include_path setting.

Would you be able to ask if 'ini_set' php function is disallowed by your host ?

As a *test* ( I can not guarentee results ) could you try editing constants.php

Change:
ini_set('include_path', $newPearPath);
To:
set_include_path($newPearPath);

(but to tell if it helps, you need a non-working version. )
If you want to *test* to see if the include path is modified with this, try:

echo get_include_path();
echo '<br />';
$newPearPath .= PATH_SEPARATOR . '/test1';
ini_set('include_path', $newPearPath);
echo get_include_path();
echo '<br />';
$newPearPath .= PATH_SEPARATOR . '/test2';
set_include_path($newPearPath);
echo get_include_path();
die();

NOTE -- ONLY do this as a test, placing this code *will* cause your OpenX to not work. What it will do is output to the screen the current include_path, the include_path after 1 attempt to modify it, and the include_path after a 2nd attempt to modify it. It is simply meant as a test to find out what is happening on your server!

Tell me what output you see on the screen after doing this

If this doesn't work, please give the output of phpinfo()
You need to have PHP > 4.3.0 (which you should anyways) and set_include_path can't be in the disabled functions list