Lots of false positives –?not quite, as it turns out

Hi @yeoric

Sorry to hear you are having this issue.

This is weird, the plugin will run on your database and check the links located there, it looks at the posts and do a cURL request to the link and get the response and report if it returned 200 status or not.

You can find more about cURL requests on https://curl.se/docs/httpscripting.html

Do you have access to your database using for example PHPmyAdmin?

If so, you can look for the links https://www.easycgi.com/help/article/searching-mysql-tables-in-phpmyadmin

Could you also share some examples of the links that are returning false positives?

Best Regards
Patrick Freitas

As I said, all is well if I switch off the Secret Content plugin. Without that, I get a list that includes basically ALL links in the site shown as 404. A few examples:
https://wp.flyhi.de/alle-personen/ (to a page)
https://wp.flyhi.de/balin-ein-zwerg-von-durins-volk/ (to a post)
https://wp.flyhi.de/alle-personen/#e (to an anchor inside a post)
I created a link list with a different plugin, and I confirmed that every site-internal link is affected.

It seems obvious that the Broken Link Checker does not act from within the context of my browser session, because 404 errors are exactly what you get with the Secret Content plugin if you are not logged in. You should be able to verify this if you install the Secret Content plugin on a test site (and mark the pages and posts that contain links as “Show this to logged-in visitors only”).

So I have a workaround: For the link check, I just switch of the Secret Content plugin for a few minutes, then I switch it on again.
IF the login requirement is the reason for the observed behaviour, maybe the Broken Link Checker could store a username and password to create a logged-in environment for its test runs.

I think we can close this case. I am willing to do more tests if you require them for further checks, should the behaviour of your plugin be different from your expectations. As I said, I changed my rating to 5 stars.

Hi @yeoric

Broken Link Checker indeed “does not work from within the context of your browser session”. It runs on “server level”. Specifically, it makes cURL requests so it’s basically server making PHP request to the site. It doesn’t “simulate” you being logged-in.

From site’s point of view it’s like I would try to visit the URL as a 3rd-party visitor or if search engine crawler would be visiting it.

I’m afraid it’s not (at least not currently) possible to make plugin “login” to the site so disabling the Secret Content plugin is most likely the only workaround at the moment. There’s a huge update to Broken Link Checker in our task queue and it will be working in a very different way (which will also open up way more options and area for improvements) but I don’t have ETA yet and it might still take some time until it’s released.

There would be a workaround possible (with a bit of custom code) if that Secret Content plugin would allow access to protected links via some additional URL parameter. What I mean is for example:

– site.com/somepost <- cannot be accessed
– site.com/somepost?access=some_secret_password -< can be accessed

but I didn’t find any information if that’s possible. If yes, then we can most likely come up with some simple additional code that would make Broken Link Checker support that.

Kind regards,
Adam

Hello @yeoric ,

We haven’t heard from you for some time now, so it looks like you don’t need our assistance anymore.

Feel free to re-open this ticket if needed.

Kind regards
Kasia