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Invalid Session on posting/logging out during post


 
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SeeinStripes
Board Member



Joined: 29 Mar 2011

Posts: 3



PostPosted: Tue Mar 29, 2011 11:45 am 
Post subject: Invalid Session on posting/logging out during post

I am at my wit's end and beyond my technical ability I am sure. I've spent about 10 hours of time I didn't have trying to make my forum work again and I didn't get anywhere except to remove my gmt -12 anti-bot mod and had about 20 bots sign up before I realized what I'd done and could re-enter it.

I am running the newest version of phpbb2 with minimal mods (like 2 or 3 minor ones). Yahoo hosts my db, and comcast is my provider. I've had dead-end discussions with both of them. I even purchased a new website from JustHost with the big idea that I'd create a phpbb3 and convert everything to the new site, but the db would not import, coming up with dozens of errors. I did manage to get phpbb3 running on my just host site www stripersoup.com but that's as far as I got. I also noticed how much FASTER the ftp upload was to Justhost vs Yahoo, about 5x speed.

I am experiencing a few issues. The first and worst is that I can't access my admin panel or my admin toolkit (starfoxtj edition). So virtually no control over my forum (which has 1200 users). Secondly, after writing a post, when you click submit you will usually get the message "invalid session please resubmit the form" and after repeating the process 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 sometimes 10 times, the post will go through. Most of my forum is read-reg only, and you will be prompted for login just to read. This is occurring even if you are logged in.

I guess my question is how can I cleanse everything without losing my forum format (I have a ridiculous number of sections), members, or db, and hopefully fix the sessions errors.

Things I have tried (all unsuccessful)
-Overwriting all files in root directory and Includes folder
-Running fixtables.php (all tables came up OK)
-Installing phpbb3 (I think may not be Yahoo compatible) as I got to the last stage of installation and came up with fatal error red message screen

My forum is called Striper Soup, you can google "striper soup" and it comes up first. Take a look if you want. It's hosted under my main site, seeinstripes.com at http://seeinstripes.com/stripersoup/index.php

I would be forever indebted to anybody who can help and would take you on a fishing trip if you were ever in the area!!! I feel like I've been beating my head against a wall on this one and losing.
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Salvatos
Board Member



Joined: 19 Feb 2009

Posts: 449
Location: Québec


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PostPosted: Tue Mar 29, 2011 1:25 pm 
Post subject: Re: Invalid Session on posting/logging out during post

I think it would help to know when these flaws started appearing and if you did anything that triggered it.

I'm not very experienced with phpBB3 either, so I'll leave that part to others.

If you're going to stay with phpBB2, here's what I would do if I were you (supposing I'd have given up on removing mods and finding the cause of the bugs).

Step 0: If you're not going to do this on a test server (which I strongly recommend), warn your users ahead of time and prepare a backup plan.

Step 1: Export database. Don't rely on the control panel for that (especially if you can't reach it...), go into your phpMyAdmin, click export and save the file. You might also want a separate save with only the following tables (prefixes excluded): categories, forums, groups, posts, posts_text, privmsgs, privmsgs_text, topics, users, user_group, and optionally the vote_ and ranks ones. This is what I would call the minimal content backup.

Step 2: Wipe your files and database if you're doing this on top of the old forum (or, preferably, set up your test server).

Step 3: Make a fresh install of phpBB2 using a clean package - don't bother with mods and themes for now.

Step 4: Go into phpMyAdmin and import the tables you backed up. Regardless of whether you're using the full export or only the minimum package above, don't include 'config'.The rest should already be filled in by the installation process (or wasn't worth saving).

Step 5: Test everything that didn't work. If it all seems to work fine, reinstall your themes and mods, and test after each one of them to see if you can identify the source of any bug. Otherwise there's a problem with your database, so try again with the minimal backup if you weren't already doing that.

Step 6: If you get here fine, it means your problems originated neither from your mods nor your themes, so it was either an error on your part when modifying something, a flaw on the server or some manner of hacking. You should be ready to replace your broken forum with the new one (both code and database). Don't just "replace" them, though, make sure you delete everything, then upload the new files. This is especially important if you got hacked and rogue files are hidden in your folders. If you were working on a test server, make sure you set server addresses, cookies and the like properly in the configuration file and ACP.


If you get stuck somewhere, let us know where and how. And please excuse typos, I didn't sleep well.
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dogs and things
Board Member



Joined: 18 Nov 2008

Posts: 628
Location: Spain


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PostPosted: Tue Mar 29, 2011 3:32 pm 
Post subject: Re: Invalid Session on posting/logging out during post

Quote:
I think it would help to know when these flaws started appearing and if you did anything that triggered it.

Spot on.

Do you recall when this started and what you did last just before the problem appeared.

_________________
phpBB2 will never die, I hope!
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SeeinStripes
Board Member



Joined: 29 Mar 2011

Posts: 3



PostPosted: Tue Mar 29, 2011 9:11 pm 
Post subject: Re: Invalid Session on posting/logging out during post

It's only been occurring for the past 4 or 5 days. I didn't make any changes to anything. I'm a pretty hands off admin and the forum usually takes care of itself. Just a few minutes ago, I was able to access my admin panel on the bb (first time in 2 days), but immediately afterwards it prompted me to log back in and when I did, the index popped up on the right side screen. Sometimes, if I get as far as to get the admin panel to open, the right side opens and the left side shows cannot display content. When I try to log into the toolkit I get the rotating proxy error:

Quote:
"The IP address in use for this session has changed and the script execution has halted as a fail safe to prevent possible session hijacking.

If this is the first time you have seen this error, please continue by clicking the link below to return to the login screen.
If you continue to receive this error, it is likley that you are viewing this script through a rotating proxy which may have changed your IP address. The AOL browser is well known for exhibiting this type of behavior; it is recommended you use a use a standard browser (such as Mozilla Firefox or Internet Explorer) while using this script to prevent this halt from occurring.

Click here to return to the ToolKit login screen."


I had a user email me a screen capture today that showed an error on line 234 of emailer.php

Quote:
Failed sending email :: PHP ::

DEBUG MODE

Line : 234
File : emailer.php


All of my members are experiencing the invalid session and logout during their session, sometimes in the midst of a post.

Salvatos: That's probably great advice, but is pretty far above my skill level. I can insert small code and save and upload on FTP. I have SEEN phpmyadmin and clicked around on it some, but don't really know my elbow from my a**hole on it. I know to access my Yahoo database control panel and repair/backup the db.

I was thinking maybe rolling back to an older version of the forum and then rolling forward. Is that even popssible? Or would it even be worth it?

I was just bragging about how good my new Acer timeline was working and nothing was effing up when this all went down. Figures icon_rolleyes.gif

Thanks a bunch for helping guys.

Shawn
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SeeinStripes
Board Member



Joined: 29 Mar 2011

Posts: 3



PostPosted: Tue Mar 29, 2011 9:31 pm 
Post subject: Re: Invalid Session on posting/logging out during post

Since I'm at the top, this isn't a bump violation. icon_smile.gif Is it possible Yahoo made a change and this has caused my disturbance. It is so inconsistent in the type and amount of hassles it is making. Something else I've noticed is the slooow page load on not only my forum, but on Yahoo's own sites, my webhosting control panel, especially. This forum and all other websites I visit pop almost instantly when I click a link.

One of the strangest things is a lot of times when I click "go to administration panel" at the bottom, it takes me back to the main index page. Not even a reauthentication screen, but it still shows me logged in as admin.
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Salvatos
Board Member



Joined: 19 Feb 2009

Posts: 449
Location: Québec


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PostPosted: Wed Mar 30, 2011 12:12 am 
Post subject: Re: Invalid Session on posting/logging out during post

It does sound like Yahoo! screwed something up, or your site got disturbed/hacked in some way.

The easy way to verify this is to copy your whole forum folder and database over to your other host, change only the strict minimum in the config table (server IP, script and cookie paths) and config file (db name and password if you use a different one). If everything works fine, it's probably a server misconfiguration on Yahoo! or a problem with your hosting account in particular.

If you experience the same issues, there's a problem with your files, your database, or your computer (although the latter is unlikely if all your users get the same issues).
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