Server Blog

[asavage]

Well, it's not the forum code, as I rolled it back all the way to the old version, and the disappearing Preview persists. That means it's either the newer php (likely) or the newer mysql (less likely). Hmmm.

[asavage]

The problem is an interaction with PHP v5.4.15 and phpBB2 v2.0.23 . There have been some changes to PHP recently that tend to make older code not work right anymore; backward compatibility is waning.

I rolled PHP back to 5.3.20, and that resolved the "no preview if a degree symbol exists in the post text" problem, but the server trapped with exceptions four times in fifteen minutes, which is no good. I've rolled PHP back further, to 5.3.4 . Crossing my fingers.

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Doing a 360°

[asavage]

For my own reference, my testcase:

http://www.phpbb2refugees.com/viewtopic.php?p=7580#7580

It's a problem with the default charset encoding having changed for the function htmlspecialchars() between php 5.3.x & 5.4.x. The default used to be "ISO-8859-1" (<=5.3) and became "UTF-8" (5.4).

htmlspecialchars() now has four parameters. The phpbb2 code was written before parameters three & four existed, including the default charset encoding, but the default of those parameters was "ISO-8859-1" so it didn't matter for most of us.

However, with php 5.4 the default charset encoding changed to UTF-8, and now (in my case) we have (202) instances of htmlspecialchars that need to be modified with the 3rd & 4th parameters to explicitly define the correct charset encoding again.

I'm going to have to fire up sed or something for this one; hand-editing 202 function calls does not sound like fun.

[asavage]

I think I've got the problem with the non-backwards-compatible php 5.4 version of htmlspecialchars() fixed. Reference data is here.

Summary: wrote a wrapper function for the std htmlspecialchars() that adds the legacy 2nd & 3rd parameters if needed (AFAIK, for the 2.0.23 codebase, they're always needed, but future MODs might not), and used automation (sed) to rename all (202) function calls to htmlspecialchars() to the new wrapper.

Seems to work.
Degree symbols ahoy!
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[Nissan_Ranger]

Wish I was as good with this black magic!

[plenzen]

Me too but he assures me he's only a minor deity

[asavage]

Wow, that's a far-back dredging, Paul

The new Apache (httpd) is not stable, and I don't know if it can be made stable. I have a cron job automatically killing it and restarting it every six hours, but a user called me yesterday around noon to tell me it was not responding, and when I went to the console, it wouldn't kill but was also not responding to requests. I had to reboot the box. That's very discouraging.

I'm now investigating if I can go back to the older Apache we've been running for the past ten years, but with newer mysql and somewhat newer php. I enjoyed very good uptime with the previous setup.

[asavage]

As of today:

• We are still running on the new hardware: HP DC7100CMT
• We are running on the newer OS: eCS 2.1 GA
• We are running the newest available MySQL: 5.1.68
• Old Apache 1.3.41
• Old php 4.3.10

I am rejoining the workforce tomorrow, so I have to call it quits on the attempt to update Apache 2.x & PHP 5.4. I got close, but Apache just keeps dying, and in a way that can't be scripted around reliably. As the old Apache 1.x & PHP 4.3.10 have been giving us no problems for years, I'm not going to chase this any more until more progress is made (external to me) to the Apache product port. Maybe I'll revisit it in a year.

Meanwhile, there's no loss of functionality using the old stuff.

[plenzen]

Just for an FYI Al

On my end at least

#1. The emoticons simply list an underlined "text" for what they are. If I click on that particular text like this one: ,,,, the word "wink" only appears in the body of the message and not the emoticon. ( not a big deal, but thought you would like to know )

#2. When I click on a "quote" to include in a replay. It takes a certain amount of time for the text within in the quote to "focus" for lack of a better term. The longer its left stationary the clearer it becomes. Not that it's unreadable but kind of like the old typewriter ribbon needs replacing.


Again, not a big deal, and it is legible, but thought it something you would like to know.

Good luck on your "rejoining" of the army of Drones.


Paul

[asavage]

The focus thing, I can't think of what could cause that. It really sounds like a User Agent thing (ie your browser), but let's see if anyone else reports.

I'll look into the emoticon problem this week.

[asavage]

I'm sorry that I haven't worked on fixing the emoticons. I know what I have to do, I just haven't devoted the time to chase it.

New news: we've had an cable internet outage here since sometime early Sunday morning 11Jan. As I write this, it's still out, and this won't get posted until we get internet back, so I don't know how long it will be out. Wave Broadband, my broadband provider out here in Duvall, Wash., has an automated recording that just says, "it's bad, we know about it, and no ETA for fixing it."

[later]
Seems we're back online at about 8pm PST.

[asavage]

I updated the MySQLd (database server) from 5.1.68 to 5.1.72 yesterday. It was found that the C compiler (GCC) was generating stack corruption, so this is the first version of MySQLd ported to OS/2 with the repaired compiler.

[Nissan_Ranger]

I bow to your great genius, oh wise and munificent master of the ethernet subweb electronic quark quark particles!

Andy

[asavage]

Well, that didn't go so well. MySQLd crapped out four times in less than a day, so I've rolled back to 5.1.68 and am forwarding trap files to the appropriate place.

[plenzen]

Our very own Sheldon Cooper keeps us going

Thanks again Al.