Captcha issues

[bekeen]

We are having this issue as well... Version 5.4 installed:

1). We are running captcha scripts on other sites (on this server) without any trouble.
2). The captcha is not being cached.
3). The problem is irregular. Happens whether I'm logged in or not; regardless of ISP.
4). We modified the registration form to remove it completely (that was the only way we were able to fix the "problem", and plan to remove the captcha from the site submission form as well (although this is not the ideal solution).

Nick

[Bruceper]

Moved your post to it's own thread.

Do you have any URL's that you can provide that have captcha enabled still?

The only other things I can suggest to you are to check the following for now

In /filters/filter.start_session.php make sure you see


if ($type == 'post') {
session_write_close();
}

at the bottom of the file after the last brace } and before the ?>

If not, then add it and it should solve your issues.

Also please check what version of GD is installed on your server(s).

[CEC]

Seems like a recurring issue.

[Bruceper]

A few posts in a month doesn't really make it recurring, but it does seem to be happening to newer users. Otherwise we'd be flooded with these issues.

The worst part of it is, the last two people I helped haven't responded back yet to let me know if what I told them to do fixed their issue. People only seem to post when there's a problem (obivously) but once it's fixed (or they work around it) they don't reply back with what they've done.

[CEC]

true. jumped the gun!

[inspireme]

could try my alternative, its free now... just download from forum :

http://www.nicecoder.com/community/s...6018#post26018

only works for adding links, but could easily be changed to work on all forms. I want some feedback on if it improves issues with spam, or how you find it generally.


thanks

[deebee]

Just had inspireme implement the submission mod so that should cut down on spamming - BUT, I have the problem with captcha just not working. It was fine up the last week or so. No changes server side that I'm aware of and the filter.start_session.php has the code mentioned above. Caching is set to zero.

Just did a hard cache clear on IE and that fixed it but that can't be the solution.

EDIT:
Spoke too soon. The problem has returned already. Just checked the templates_c folder and there is a lot of files in there. Perhaps delete cache files from admin is not doing what it should?

[Bruceper]

It could also be due to script permissions. The script will run as the user nobody on unix/linux servers, and if the files the script creates are not made by the same user then it will not have permission to delete them.

The files the script makes should be created by nobody, but that's not always the case in some oddly setup servers.

What happens if templates_c does not have write permissions? I've never tried it, but that would solve the cached file issue.

[deebee]

What happens if templates_c does not have write permissions? I've never tried it, but that would solve the cached file issue.

Just tried that & it don't want to play...

Fatal error: Smarty error: unable to write to $compile_dir '/home/meetings/public_html/templates_c'. Be sure $compile_dir is writable by the web server user. in /home/meetings/public_html/lib/smarty/Smarty.class.php on line 1088

EDIT:
Manually cleared template_c and the problem still exists.

[Bruceper]

Well that sucks, it was a thought.

I can only suggest sending a ticket in and letting Dody check it out. I know he was working on something with captcha but I don't konw what.

[deebee]

Progress, of sorts...it appears to be template related. I switched from cleandex to kosmos and everything works OK.

I've made a couple of mostly visual changes to cleandex, otherwise, it's as was.

[deebee]

Could I ask a favour of anyone reading this post. Can you try the contact form and see whether you can get a valid captcha response?

[deebee]

Bit more progress. This is definitely a caching issue. If I get an invalid number response to any form, a screen refresh displays a new captcha and sends successfully.

So, the remaining question is why doesn't the script clear down the captcha session properly?

[Bruceper]

What about adding a no-cache meta header and see if that fixes the issue?

<META HTTP-EQUIV="CACHE-CONTROL" CONTENT="NO-CACHE">
<META HTTP-EQUIV="PRAGMA" CONTENT="NO-CACHE">

Yes, use both

[deebee]

Good idea, but still no joy...