Invite a Friend Doesn't Work!

Hi

At the moment, Invite a Friend Doesn't Work! The window does not load but the page goes cloudy....

Could this be a problem with javascript?

Looking back through the posts I see where you are having several issues.  This would indicate that you have problems with the installation of your site.  Give us more information on the type of hosting you are using and if you installed Dolphin through a one-click installation such as softaculous.  Also, check in host tools and let us know if you have any permission problems with files.

Try clearing your cache manually, by emptying the /cache, /cache_public, and /tmp directories (EXCEPT for the .htaccess files inside!). If that doesn't work, turn off the JavaScript cache and compression options in the cache settings.

Many thanks for help...

I have disabled javascript cache and java compression and this "appears" to have fixed the uploader problem for different options in both the sounds and video uploading selector....

Invite a friend is still not loading though.... and nor does the simple messenger icon appear in the members menu/bar...!

 Server info:

• PHP: 5.4.31 - WARNING (your PHP version is probably outdated, upgrade to the latest 5.5.15 maybe required)
• allow_url_fopen = On - OK
• allow_url_include = Off - OK
• magic_quotes_gpc = Off - OK
• memory_limit = 268435456 - OK
• post_max_size = 268435456 - OK
• upload_max_filesize = 268435456 - OK
• register_globals = Off - OK
• safe_mode = Off - OK
• disable_functions = - OK
• php module: curl = curl - OK
• php module: gd = gd - OK
• php module: mbstring = mbstring - OK
• php module: xsl = xsl - OK
• php module: json = json - OK
• php module: openssl = openssl - OK
• php module: zip = zip - OK
• php module: ftp = ftp - OK
• MySQL: 5.5.39-MariaDB - OK
• Web-server: Apache
• rewrite_module - OK

Also, all file permissions are correct....

Have you made any changes to template files such as _header.html or _sub_header.html or _footer.html or _sub_footer.htm to add any 3'rd party addon scripts for things like banners, ads, google, tracker code, analytics code, ect?

The fogged out display with a missing block indicates a javascript error is occurring before the window could be popped up. Addition of 3'rd party scripts which include their own jquery is the most common cause of this.

My first suspicion is always the dolphin caching system, but considering you shut that off, this would be my next suspicion.

Also check the browsers console for javascript errors. Or provide your sites url so others can loot at it.

I've checked for injections. Only analytics but the problem was there from the start of installation. I've deactivated analytics, cleared cache and still problem with inviter plugin and simple messenger...

Site: http://www.78rpmcommunity.com 

Firefox developer tools shows a 404 not found error when trying to access tellfriend.php

That file appears to be missing which is the reason the invite friend does not work. Apparently when you uploaded the dolphin files via FTP, that file did not get uploaded.

One thing I noticed when a page does not load but still fogs over: If you click anywhere in the foggy area and the fog disappears, then the problem is with the code on the page that pops up. If you click on the foggy area and the fog does not disappear, then the page that is supposed to appear is missing.

 Hi,

This is strange because I do have the file tellfriend.php uploaded. 

It's not missing. See screenshot of ftp.

Yea, and i can see in your screenshot that the date and time stamp is clearly not the same as your other files, so perhaps it was tampered with.

Delete it and upload a clean fresh copy from the original dolphin zip file.

 Hi

Have uploaded file again, have cleared cache but problem still persists.

I'm sure this is a javascript problem...

Should I upload all javascripts again perhaps and if so, what files should be changed?

Problem with simple messenger and sound/photo/video uploader selector is still a problem... which I'm sure are all linked.???

Deano said, "Also check the browsers console for javascript errors. Or provide your sites url so others can loot at it." 

Have you done that?

 Hi

Yes. Website url is listed above at bottom of one of my posts. I've checked browser console in firefox but I'm not sure what I'm looking for...

It is not a javascript problem (at least I do not think so). If you go to yoursite.com/tellfriend.php, this should bring the page up fine - and bypasses the javascript function - but there is still a page not found error.

While on your website, click tools in the firefox menu, go to Web developer, then Web Console. This will open a window at the bottom of your browser - like the inspect element does. Click on the link for your tell a friend, and it will show a 404 - page not found error in the web console (make sure NET is enabled).

Now - mysteriously - I just went through this exact same thing with regards to another page, and after about 30 minutes of clearing caches and refreshing, it finally worked.

OK, do this. download the Dolphin zip file, just to be sure your local copy is good.  Now open up your FTP client; which I hope is not FileZilla, delete the tellfriend.php file from your server.  Now upload tellfriend.php from the fresh Dolphin copy and make sure your FTP client is set to transfer in binary, not auto, binary.  Let us know if that fixes it.

It is not a javascript problem. At least not in this case.

The 404 error is quite clear.

Something else is wrong. Something else on the server is blocking access to that file.

Lets try a experiment for testing. Edit that file and look for this line.

'action' => BX_DOL_URL_ROOT . 'tellfriend.php',

Change it to this.

'action' => BX_DOL_URL_ROOT . 'invitefriend.php',


After thats done, rename the file tellfriend.php to invitefriend.php

Then go directly to this url and see if the new page loads.

http://www.78rpmcommunity.com/invitefriend.php

In the 4'th post you said you disabled the js cache and js compression and all those other problems went away.

What did you do? turn them back on? Leave them off. They do not work on all servers and it's obvious your on one of those servers where those JS caching options cannot be used. So they need to remain off.

I also see an announcement on your home page about a server migration. I also noticed that the files shown in your screen shot have incorrect file permissions. Or at least they do not match what is normal for either php running as an apache module or for php running as fastcgi. However the permission incorrect or not does not appear to be the issue as the tags.php script runs fine. However, things still do not look quite right with those permissions.

 Caching has been turned off now for some time and has remained so... Problems seemed to go away but they have returned again. They seem to intermittently come and go... Very frustrating!

 Invite a friend page displays without error once I changed code and file name as suggested..!

Well then. If invitefriend loads but tellfriend does not, then something is blocking the running of that file with that name.

1) Is your host running any security software such as modsecurity? This is my primary suspicion due to other issues your having. I have a feeling some kind of security software is preventing various scripts from running.

2) Do you have the page access control module installed and blocking access to any pages?

3) Is this site your having issues with running in a sub directory off another site running something other than dolphin such as wordpress?

 Hi

1. modsecurity isn't running on server

2. page access control module is installed but no constraints /access rules enabled

3. I have one sub directory and it is working well. No problems or issues...

I'm at a loss.

I have also changed necessary permissions to 644

Interestingly,

I have noted that the Dolphin error log at ../ does display a lot of errors related to this:

PHP Warning:  Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/xxxxxxxx/public_html/inc/utils.inc.php:402) in /home/xxxxxxxxx/public_html/inc/design.inc.php on line 101

Maybe this is a problem?

I am out of ideas.

Some errors in the logs are normal. But that one is not normal and should not be occurring. It normally indicates white space that the end of a php file after the closing ?> php tag. But that is a thing of the past with current dolphin versions as dolphin no longer uses the closing tag. So the only other cause would be some of your files are damaged.

Not sure what your using for a FTP client, i hope it's not filezilla. It's a piece of crap. But something is wrong and i am at a loss.

Oh and BTW. Thats not a dolphin error log. It's a php error log.

I did a bit more digging - you've been a great help so far deano... and I came across this on the Boonex wiki. I tried it only on the sounds uploader, cleared browser cache and "appeared to work" (fingers crossed)

Maybe this is the problem to the uploader issues???

Some or all of my Flash apps keep on loading and do not work.

1) This problem usually happens when there are writable permissions on folders and files when PHP is running in CGI mode.

To check the mode your PHP is running in, go to Admin Panel > Tools > Host Tools > Audit.

To check permissions, go to Admin Panel > Tools > Host Tools > Permissions.

2) This problem may also be caused by script's inability to open widgets' default skins. You can try the following tweak which will be harmless for the rest of the script functionality:

open the file flash/modules/MODULE_NAME/skins/index.php and replace the line

$sFile = $aResult['current'] . "." . $aResult['extension'];

with

$sFile = "default.swf";

You can also try to comment out these lines if you still experience the problem:

/* - comment start
require_once("../../../../inc/header.inc.php");
require_once($sIncPath . "functions.inc.php");
require_once($sIncPath . "apiFunctions.inc.php");
require_once($sIncPath . "xml.inc.php");

$aPathParts = explode("/", $_SERVER['PHP_SELF']);
$iPartsCount = count($aPathParts);
$aResult = getExtraFiles($aPathParts[$iPartsCount-3], $aPathParts[$iPartsCount-2]);
comment end - */

MODULE_NAME stands for board, chat, desktop, im, mp3, photo, video or video_comments.

I do not know. I have never had to do weird patches like that. I have never had uploader problems on any of the servers i have ever hosted on.

I think at this point I might:

1. Wipe the whole thing out

2. Pull the Dolphin zip from Boonex using Wget

3. Unzip the files through SSH

4. Run the install

It will only take a few minutes and might save you a lot of time trying to fix all these small problems.

 Between 3 and 4 set all the permissions for files to the correct values as outlined in the Boonex Help section above.

 When you run the install it tells you what files to change, no need to consult the help section. 

I recommend reading the installation guide first before doing an install and to set the file permissions as outlined by Boonex before running the installation.  Mscott and I disagree here, evidently, of course it is your choice to omit reading the installation manual and doing any changes to the permissions of the files.  When I install Dolphin, I follow the guide and do a chmod on the files.

 It's chmod, not chmode.. and I never said not to do it, I said the install program will tell you exactly which files need changing. 

Thank you for pointing out my mistake (corrected in my post); it stands for change mode so you can see why the mistake.  The Boonex installation guides does give the correct command, including the files that ones need to change, so it is easy to just copy and paste into your shell and easily change the permissions; the same help files also includes the permission changes needed on modules so one just copy and paste and in a minute will have all the file permissions set; no need to wait for the installer to yell that permissions are not correct.

Upload this file to your sites root.  You don't seem to have one. Permissions should be 644

BTW, mscott gave you some good advice here:

It's not missing. It's been checked, and it works when renamed to invitefriend.php. I have been through every idea i can think of.

I think wiping it all out and doing a reinstall is the only option.

 RE:

 That doesn't make sense.  Someone would need to change the database entry in sys_menu_bottom for that to happen.  I suppose the OP could have changed that in the bottom menu builder.

This is what the 'Invite a Friend' item should look like in bottom menu builder

No. I had him rename it to try and determine if something like a security script or something else was blocking the execution of the origional name, and it workes when renamed. Obviously not from the bottom menu link, but when run directly. tellfriend.php will not work at all. Even when run directly. So that told me that something is indeed blocking that script from running. I suspected modsecurity, but he claims it's not installed. In anycase, something is wrong.

Guess you did not read the entire topic.

I have seen this exact issue with more than one clients in the past and had to rename the file in all instances for it to work. There is definitely some server process that has flagged the filename and is blocking the execution.

 Nope.  I did go back and see that screen shot with all the file permissions set at 640 though.  That doesn't seem right.

Yea. It does seem weird. However tags.php and the others have the same weird permissions, but those work.