Failures after porting to different ISP

Totobuvika

Hello,

I had to port my Vanilla forum from one Internet Service Provider to another. After this, updating (Check for Updates) does not work any longer - the "hourglasses" spin round and round, but nothing else happens. Any ideas what went wrong and how I can fix it?

Thanks in advance!

Fyorl

Are you sure you mean ISP and not web-host?

Totobuvika

You're right, I mean the web space I hire from a web hosting provider. Web hosting is one of the services of an internet service provider.

Fyorl

Well, web-hosting in limited capacity is one of the services offered by some ISPs but not necessarily all, they're not obligated to offer it.

Anyway, to address your problem. I'm assuming everything else works on your forum? The updater uses Ajax requests to retrieve data about each extension. It calls a file called updatecheck.php in the ajax/ folder so the first thing I would do is check the permissions on that file and folder. Also, if you're using Firefox, download the Firebug extension and enable it when you run an update check as that will give you information about what is happening to the Ajax requests.

Totobuvika

... one of the services offered by some ISPs but not necessarily all ...
I agree.

Anyway, to address your problem ...
Yes, everything else works, except for the notifications, but that's not so important for the moment.
The permissions for the ajax folder and files are 755; I think this is correct.
I checked the file updatecheck.php, and I assume there's something wrong in the included conf/settings.php:
$SettingsFile = $Context->Configuration['APPLICATION_PATH'].'conf/settings.php';
I'll try to find the error.

Thanks for your help, Fyorl!

Fyorl

No problem, if you're still stuck, keep posting.

Totobuvika

The update check of Vanilla itself works correctly, but then the updates of the extensions get stuck. I could not find an error in the PHP files. Any further ideas what I could do next?

Fyorl

Have you got any output from Firebug?

Totobuvika

Uhm, no, I have Firefox 3 beta 2, and Firebug is only available for the 2.x versions. Tomorrow I'll try on my other PC where Firefox 2 is installed.
Thank you for your help!

Totobuvika

I set up a second Vanilla forum on the same host, and the updates of the extensions do not work here, too. So it seems to have to do with the hoster's configuration, although that would make me wonder. I haven't tried with Firebug, but tomorrow I shall.

Totobuvika

Fyorl 2:

Have you got any output from Firebug?

Nothing special, everything seems to be all right, as far as I can see. But to be honest, I don't know exactly what to look for, or what Firebug should spit out if there was an error.

Fyorl

Well, when you click the Update button, Firebug's console should start listing POST requests. There should be one for each extension. Open up those requests and look at the 'Response' tab. See if there's anything unusual in there.

Totobuvika

Nothing unusual, I guess (settings.php):

<legend>Check for Updates</legend> <form id="frmUpdateCheck" method="post" action=""> <input type="hidden" id="FormPostBackKey" name="FormPostBackKey" value="c4fda24c4776d32b5a2214ed520130c9" /> <div class="Errors Invisible" id="UpdateCheckErrors"></div> <ul id="UpdateCheckItems"> <li id="Core" class="UpdateChecking"> <div id="CoreName" class="Name">Vanilla 1.1.4</div> <div id="CoreDetails" class="Details">Checking for updates...</div> </li> <li id="AccountPictures" class="UpdateChecking"> <div id="AccountPicturesName" class="Name">Account Pictures 1.2</div> <div id="AccountPicturesDetails" class="Details">Checking for updates...</div>
and so on.
I only wonder why after "action=" there is no web page specified.

Fyorl

The action="" means the form will post to itself. Is that the output from the POST response because it really shouldn't be serving up the HTML for the updates page. What I mean is: 1. Open up Firebug by clicking the the green tick in the bottom right. 2. Click on the 'Console' tab underneath Firebug's main bar. 3. On the Vanilla update page, click the 'Check for Updates' button. 4. Watch Firebug's window and you should see lost of POST requests. 5. Click the little '+' sign next to one of those POST requests. 6. Click the 'Response' tab within that. 7. Post here with what you get.

Totobuvika

Hi Fyorl,

thanks for your help! What I get is the following:
GET http://www.torstenkelsch.de/avm65/ajax/ updatecheck.php?RequestName=Core&PostBackKey=ea5a085d9bb2641f1efbad11c1b67c5c (501ms)ajax.js (line 1) First|[ERROR]
I don't realize what I can do with this information, because the error is not explained. Do you have any idea?
Thanks again!

Fyorl

Hmm, I'll have a look through the relevant code and see what it means when it displays '[ERROR]'

Totobuvika

Thank you, Fyorl, I appreciate it, but isn't that too much work? It seems easier if I forget the update automatism and simply look by myself for updates from time to time ...
On the other hand: interesting problem. Maybe I could test Vanilla on another web-space/server and see how it behaves. Weekend is coming soon ...

Fyorl

Yeah true, I suppose the auto-updater isn't that important. It'd be interesting to see how it behaves on another server.