New WordPress Plugin

lovelure

Just installed vanilla for the first time in a subdomain (http://subdomain.mydomain.com/forum) and I am getting the same error about Forum URL cannot be validated. I can definitely access the forum directly using that URL. Any advice appreciated. Like the look and ease of use of the forum so far! I'm using WP plugin 1.04 as well with WP 3.05.

Shadowdare

What's new in 1.0.4?

leafboxtea

@shadowdare - not sure, there is no changelog. I know they mentioned publishing one, but I also know they are very busy and working hard. I just keep upgrading every time they push one out and hope for the best.

I like the features the wordpress plugin offers, but I've managed to setup a good embed without it (my users primarily only interact on the forums). It'll be nice to have if it ever works for me, but I've found I can live without it.

therob

@shadowdare changelog in 1.0.4 can be found in plugin.php is as follows:

1.0.4
- Fixed validation of Vanilla Url to correct when users incorrectly enter the path to their discussion instead of the actual root of the forum.
- Fixed a bug that caused Vanilla Admin JS & CSS to be included on all wp dashboard pages.
- Fixed a bug that caused the copy of the embed template to fail and throw a fatal PHP error.
- Added an option to the embed form that allows widgets to use the embed url instead of the actual forum url.
- Changed discussions widget to friendly-url-encode discussion titles.
- Fixed plugin to work with forums that are not using mod_rewrite.

I happened to stumble accross it when trying to find an answer to the "URL validation" issue, I am using:

WP Version 3.0.5
Vanilla Version 2.0.17.8
WP Embed 1.0.4

I cannot figure this out...any suggestions?

Mark

It validates that the forum is there by sending a curl request to the url and then looking in the source of the response for your Vanilla's configured "WebRoot" url. If it is failing to validate, I bet it's because you don't have curl set up on your server. I can make it try to do an fsock request, but I bet you'd run into the same problems.

I guess we need to change it so that you can force it to accept a specific url, but you're going to run into more problems with the widgets after the fact as they currently use curl to pull data as well.

leafboxtea

@mark - That explains it, I've other problems with curl recently on something else not working. Low-level tech guy at my host says curl is setup but the other item that relies on it doesn't work either.

Don't rewrite for us about that, not ur fault hosts don't keep things modern, up-to-date and flexible. I'm moving hosts anyway next week. Will try again with a host that is more contemporary.

Drake

@Mark

It seems that my local environment has cURL enabled (version 7.19.4) but url fails to validate. Maybe there is some other host/cURL wrong setting.

Do you have any suggestions what I need to check regarding this issue?

Mark

@Drake - What is the url to your actual forum? Just want to make sure that it contains the info that the wp plugin is looking for.

Also, what is the url you are entering in wp to validate?

therob

@Mark just checked and we have cURL version 7.12.1 running on our server, any chance you can let us know what the WP Plugin is looking for on the forum URL in order to validate / what you are checking for in the above post?

And also what we can do to fix whatever we can't find...if its not there... Hopefully that makes sense... just a bit of noob-ness showing through there - sorry about that!!

Drake

@Mark

These are my settings:

PHP 5.3.0
Wordpress 3.1 RC2
Vanilla 2.0.17.8
Vanilla Forums 1.0.4 (plugin for Wordpress)

cURL 7.19.4 support is enabled on my PHP environment

Wordpress is located in: http://localhost/wordpress/
Vanilla is located in: http://localhost/wordpress/vanilla/

I am very noob at PHP, but it seems like a redirect problem. But my .htaccess file on Wordpress installation is empty.

Printing variable $html in function

vf_validate_options

(/vanilla-forums/functions.php) returns the value Redirect. Don't know if could help.

Mark

@Drake - Is your forum set to be a private community? That's the only reason I can think of that it would be redirecting instead of returning the html of the page...

jackstin

Does this ever happen when using the embed code? Premalink gets all hashed out #

Tried installing plugin and was unsuccessful due to "invalid url path" to forum.

------
iframed forum url
.com/forum-embed/#tegories/community

non iframed url
.com/forum/categories/community

------
iframed forum url
.com/forum-embed/#scussion/327/the-sounds-need-music-videoss

non iframed url
.com/forum/discussion/327/the-sounds-need-music-videoss

Drake

I finally solved the problem with cURL. It was caused by the fact that I am developing locallly (using XAMPP) the integration between Wordpress and Vanilla, on a PC behind a corporate proxy.

If there are other people in this situation, you can add the following lines after curl_init() in function vf_rest (functions.php of plugin)


/* Drake: Fix to avoid using proxy to retrieve vanilla forum location on localhost */
curl_setopt($C, CURLOPT_PROXY, "http://");
curl_setopt($C, CURLOPT_PROXYPORT, 80);

PNMarkW2

I'm getting this same error, sometime it will say settings saved, but no options change and it just keeps asking to validate the url. Then when I enter it again it gives me the "Forum url could not be validated. Are you sure you entered the correct web address of your forum?" message.

I have version 1.0.5 of the plugin
Wordpress 3.1.2
PHP 5.2.17
Curl 7.12.1

Any thoughts?

~Mark

PS: This is not intended as a slam, but unless Vanilla and WP can work together as advertised, I need to move on and find something that will.

kunkelwe

Sorry to post so late, but this is the first result when searching Google. I had been getting this error, and I found that simply adding a slash to the end of the URL fixed it. Weird, huh?

ntr4nce

My web hosts block loop backs using cURL to prevent abuse of misconfigured settings, this is why I cannot use the plugin, and get the error message Forum url could not be validated. Are you sure you entered the correct web address of your forum?

Are there any other ways to get around using cURL? fsock, or hard code the url, I know the forum is hosted at www.mydomain.com/forum

TalhaAltinozek

I can't get the plugin to display either the forum or the widgets in a wordpress page.
I installed Vanilla 2.0.18 (beta 4) successfully.
I selected the embed friendly theme from Vanilla Admin.

NathanRijksen

To everyone getting the "cannot validate" problem, go into the functions.php file and change line 150 to:

$html = file_get_contents($url);

The function it was calling (vf_rest) expects JSON to be returned.. I'm guessing the dev's got their functions mixed up or something.

Steve1980

None of the above has worked for me. Any more suggestions?

rebthegreat

@> kunkelwe said:

Sorry to post so late, but this is the first result when searching Google. I had been getting this error, and I found that simply adding a slash to the end of the URL fixed it. Weird, huh?

That worked for me! Thanks