Upgraded from 7.5 to Raven 2.02.02 Questions

Worker Joined: Jan 22, 2007 Posts: 104

I wiped the HTML directory on my server, uploaded the new Raven files and then ran the upgrade75-76.php file (from the root html directory). The upgrade appears to be successful, however there are a couple of oddities that I hope you guys can help me solve.

Sentinel
Sentinel appears to be version 2.5.0, I believe I have read of a 2.5.5 version? Is there a 2.5.5 version?

Forums
The forums appear to be functioning. I have updated to version .21 on the forums. Unfortunately, the last udpate I performed on the old site had resulted in my Forums Admin screen being a blank screen. I was hoping that the upgrade to Raven would resolve this problem since I wiped everything and started from scratch. However, the blank page is being shown with the new Raven. Since it's a fresh install on the HTML/PHP side, I'm guessing it's a configuration problem...

o Any idea what would cause the blank page on the Forums Admin screen?
o What is the latest version of PHPBB I should upgrade to for this Raven release?

Security
I had disabled all upload functionality, journals, reviews, and pretty much anything to do with HTML, hopefully Raven is a little more secure in regards to these modules. I noticed that many sites have the little number entry that must be done, you know the 'are you human' check. I know for a fact that our website took a huge hit with 8 non-human users registered in the last 3 days prior to the successful hacking attempt, so I need to get my hands on that 'are you human' check, but I'm not sure what it is or where to get it.

o Is it safe to enable HTML functionality on the forums and other aspects of the site with Raven?
o Where can I get my hands on the little 'are you human' check for the user login?

Modules
I'm looking for a few modules, and I was wondering if you would suggest a place where I can download secure forms for each of the following:

o Shoutcast
o Dontations

Thanks for the help guys!

Posted: Thu Feb 01, 2007 3:57 am

The patches and sentinel are only up to date at the time the package is released. So you will need to update to the latest patches and Sentinel.

Forums

A blank page usually indicates an error somewhere. Try turning on error checking and post any errors here. It sounds like it may be a DB issue if the problem has been carried over. I think the latest BBtoNuke is 2.0.22.

Security

I must admit I never use HTML in the forums and stick with BBCode, better safe than sorry.
I assume you are refering to the captcha? This can be turned on in the config.php file.

Modules

Unfortunately I've never used any of these modules, but hopefully someone else can help you. Although I believe the NukeTreasury project has been taken over by Raven, so this might be a good place to start.

Jakec

Posted: Thu Feb 01, 2007 6:42 am

Re Forums did you have any forum mods installed?
Sounds like either the files were not over written correctly, there is a DB or forum configuration.

Posted: Thu Feb 01, 2007 10:38 am

Guardian2003 wrote:

Re Forums did you have any forum mods installed?
Sounds like either the files were not over written correctly, there is a DB or forum configuration.

Nope, no forum mods installed. I had modified the PHP/HTML to include a 'Ranks' page that a user could click and see the ranks, but it was not a mod, it was just something I put together. It got wiped with the upgrade though.

The files were definitely overwritten properly as I completely deleted everything except for my theme in the 'themes' folder. I didn't think that would be the culprit as it never displayed the forums admin functionality using my theme, it always reverted to the default theme for the forums admin.

Is error checking a function of PHP, or of Raven Nuke? Usually when I debug I go old school and just print out 'here - value' until I figure out what's wrong. Something I frown upon developers for doing in Java, but I have never debugged PHP before much less on the server side.

Posted: Thu Feb 01, 2007 11:10 am

You can turn error reporting on in the config.php file
It would be worth checking your server error log too - this shouldnt be happening.

Posted: Thu Feb 01, 2007 1:45 pm

Ok, I set $display_errors = true; which I hope was what you were referring to when you said to turn ont he error reporting. It didn't display anything to the page. Is there a file or log I should look at to see the errors when error reporting is turned on?

Posted: Thu Feb 01, 2007 2:36 pm

The errors should display in the browser window. Do you have any server logs like Guardian suggested.

Do you know if forums were working before you loaded in your old DB?

Posted: Thu Feb 01, 2007 3:50 pm

I'm not sure about the logs, I'll have to check and see what logs my ISP makes available when I get home tonight.

The forums worked like a champ before and continue to run fine after the upgrade, it's only the Forums Admin page that is broken. All other aspects of the forums work. Posting, editing, even managing groups. Clicking the Forums Admin on from the Administration page results in a blank page. I was upgrade to 3.2b patch on 7.5 and forums .20 I believe.

Unfortunately I'm not sure what patch disabled the forums Admin screen. I applied patch .14 to .20 one right after the other, and only checked the forums page (not forums Admin page) after each upgrade. Something is broken though, and it has to be database related or 'theme' related since all of the HTML/PHP was wiped except for my theme and the database is the same.

btw - Thanks for all the feedback/help guys, I'm not a traditional PHP guy and constantly find myself fumbling around with Nuke.

Posted: Fri Feb 02, 2007 1:42 pm

Checked the logs, and no errors there. Just a white page. At this point, IMHO, it has to be some configuration at the database level that got befuddled during one of the upgrade scripts. I verified I had upgraded to 3.2b and .20.

Out of curisosity, what version of the forums is RavenNuke running at on the 2.02.02 release?

Any idea what else I can do to debug the blank page on the Admin/Forums screen (Forums Administration page)?

Posted: Sat Feb 03, 2007 9:06 am

Have you compared the structure of the database? There are a few minor differences between the Raven Nuke structure and that of the core nuke 7.5

If you can provide a structure dump of both, zip them and email them to me I'd be happy to take a look.

Posted: Sat Feb 03, 2007 11:53 pm

I read that updating to patch .22 for the forums will fix the problem. Is the 2.02.02 running the .21 patch?

Posted: Sun Feb 04, 2007 12:50 am

2.02.02 should be running phpBB 2.0.20
The next update will have phpBB 2.0.22

Posted: Sun Feb 04, 2007 10:29 pm

I checked my log files, and it appears that a "-" is being returned instead of the full path for the Forums Admin page. I'm not sure why this is happening, it's not because of my .htaccess file. I have contacted my site provider to see if they can help me resolve the problem.

Posted: Mon Feb 05, 2007 6:57 pm

Alright, performed some poor man's debugging, and the start of the forums/admin/ index.php is the following:

Code:

<?php


define('IN_PHPBB', 1);


//


// Load default header


//


$no_page_header = TRUE;


$phpbb_root_path = "./../";





require('./../extension.inc');


require('./pagestart.' . $phpEx);

It works up to the following line:

Code:

require('./pagestart.' . $phpEx);

That line fails. I don't see an error in the HTML log and there's no debug information returned via PHPNuke. Anyone know what's going on there?

Posted: Sat Jun 16, 2007 12:54 pm

I finally figured out the blank forum admin page problem. It has something to do with the config.php file I created being a folder below the default location. Once I moved it back, I received another error that I was then able to debug.