• What a terrible day for my blog. I used Hashcash to break Apache, then I broke my feed. All unintentionally.

    From the beginning: I tried to install Hashcash. It wasn’t working properly, so I deleted the lines I had added in each php file and deleted the plugin files. As far as I understood it, everything should have been back to normal.
    Unfortunately, apparently somehow in there my Apache got messed up. I only know that because the tech support of my host said soa€??I never touched nor ever would touch Apache. I know nothing about it at all. Not even what it does. Except that now I fear it and without it my site was not loading. So the tech support people fixed the “lines of the Apache that were not parsing properly.” My site now loads nicely.
    But something in the feed is still amiss. When trying to read it in Sharpreader, the program gives me this lovely message

    Error parsing RSS XML: Undefined root element: br
    Please try to validate this feed. If this feed validates as correct RSS, you can send an error report.

    My feed, right here, does validate except for some problem that I think I always hada€??”Your feed appears to be encoded as “utf-8”, but your server is reporting “US-ASCII” (Validator). I’m worried that if it’s not working in Sharpreader, it’s also not working elsewhere.

    If anyone can fix this Sharpreader, I will write a post to laud you and your amazing beauty, intelligence, and WP progess, if you wish.

Viewing 14 replies - 1 through 14 (of 14 total)
  • Thread Starter willfulexpose

    (@willfulexpose)

    Okay, so I fixed the “Your feed appears to be encoded as “utf-8”, but your server is reporting “US-ASCII” and now I’m SUPPOSEDLY valid. But still not good enough for Sharpreader. I still need help.

    Wow, I didn’t have a single problem with this plugin and I haven’t had a single comment spam get through since I implemented it, even though there have been many attempts. What wasn’t working?

    Maybe you should ask or explain what happened on Elliott’s site?

    BTW, you should not have edited/modified any of your WP files when you installed this plugin. All you needed to do was upload the plugin to you wp-content/plugins folder (directory) and then activate it. If the plugin failed, then there are manual instructions. Did you try the plugin without modifying any of your WP files first?

    Thread Starter willfulexpose

    (@willfulexpose)

    Perhaps the Apache was wrong all along and that’s why the plugin didn’t work. I had timeouts, the comment box wouldn’t load, and something in the “form” was wrong. I did, however, insert the code correctly. As far as I could see…

    Sorry, willfulexpose, I added to my post while you were posting. Did you try the plugin without modifing any of your WP files?

    Thread Starter willfulexpose

    (@willfulexpose)

    Yes I did try it without modifying any files. After all that’s happened, I forget what was wrong. I’ll try again, without modifying any WP files.

    Thread Starter willfulexpose

    (@willfulexpose)

    Okay, implemented with no editing of WP files. At the top of my site lies this message:

    Warning: Cannot add header information – headers already sent by (output started at /home/webadmin/willfulexpose.infinityhost.com/html/wp-content/plugins/wp-hashcash.php:2) in /home/webadmin/willfulexpose.infinityhost.com/html/index.php on line 8

    I also can’t load individual post pages.

    Thread Starter willfulexpose

    (@willfulexpose)

    After removing…

    <?php header(“Content-type: text/html; charset=utf-8”); ?>

    …which I had used to validate my feed, the message is still gone. Individual pages still not loading though.

    Thread Starter willfulexpose

    (@willfulexpose)

    Hmm, more specifically, the first permalink doesn’t work (it loads the original page), others do. Unfortunately, trying to post a comment generates more bad messages:

    Warning: Cannot add header information – headers already sent by (output started at /home/webadmin/willfulexpose.infinityhost.com/html/wp-content/plugins/wp-hashcash.php:2) in /home/webadmin/willfulexpose.infinityhost.com/html/wp-comments-post.php on line 177

    …and on lines 179, 181, 185, 187, 189, 191, 201. I never touched that php file!

    Okay, I’m not an expert and I can’t see your code but do you have an extra whitespace either in front of the <?php or after the ?>

    Thread Starter willfulexpose

    (@willfulexpose)

    I checked index.php, wp-comments-post.php, wp-comments.php, wp-hashcash.php, or even md5.js. Didn’t see any white space.
    Thanks for your help, so much!

    Thread Starter willfulexpose

    (@willfulexpose)

    Now the site isn’t loading at all. I think the Apache might be off again. Depressing!

    Thread Starter willfulexpose

    (@willfulexpose)

    The Apache dies when I try to comment. I may have just too old of a version. Unfortunately, I’m giving up on this plugin. I’ll still make an ode to you though.

    I can’t even load your site now. I suspect that you removed something you shouldn’t have removed or left something you shouldn’t have left when you removed the code for the hash. Sometimes it difficult to find a small mistake. I would compare a fresh WP copy with what you have now. I don’t know PHP well enough to know what those errors mean. Sorry that I could not be of more help. ??

    Thread Starter willfulexpose

    (@willfulexpose)

    Just got tech support to fix it again. He said the Apache was “stopped with an error” and “once that was resolved, it was fine.” Now that that is fixed, all seems to be well with my site.

Viewing 14 replies - 1 through 14 (of 14 total)
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