Infact it wasn’t just this domain, but all domains on my VPS. It wasn’t just comment posting but posting about any form.

It didn’t throw up any errors, though users would get blank pages in firefox, or the Zero Sized Reply error.

Well I tried a lot of things, including upgrading to PHP 5.2.1, disabling eAccelerator, Zend Optimizer etc. but the stupid problem just wouldn’t go away.

At the height of my frustration I asked my host FutureHosting to move to a new freshly installed VPS, which is what we did whole of last night.

I ordered a new VPS and they moved all my domains for me as well as moved the old IPs to the new VPS to ensure that there was no downtime at all and no propagation delays as well.

I’m impressed by their service, because I can be quite a pain at times! Will definitely recommend them if you are looking for a VPS. They have prompt service and great uptime.

I haven’t seen any problems so far, but if you do run across any bugs here or a problem of any kind, especially if you are facing problems commenting, do mail me or try to leave a comment below.

Thanks.

I hope that the upgrade to 5.2.1 solves the commenting problems that people are facing.

If you do notice anything out of place on the blog, please do drop in a comment / email.

Thanks.

IE throws up a Page Cannot Displayed error and Firefox asks you to download the PHP file.

I’m still clueless as to what could be the exact problem with this and so I’ve decided to test Akismet instead of SK2 for a while in the process of isolating and eliminating the error.

I don’t believe this problem to be because of PHP, because I can make posts perfectly with a lot more data than the comments.

My next step after this is to deactivate the Math Plugin to see if that could a cause. I might switch back to Peter’s Antispam with the CAPTCHA as well.

Any one have any ideas about what could be causing this problem?

Compression ensures that your browser receives a smaller packet and so you effectively save bandwidth.

WordPress by default also comes with this feature that enables you to compress the webpages and send them to the browser.

You can find it under Options » Reading. Scroll to the bottom where you will find WordPress should compress articles (gzip) if browsers ask for them.

I’ve noticed upto 1 second difference between the loading times of my pages with this checked and unchecked.

After checking this, it is best to analyze your page to see if gzip is infact working or not. For this I use Web Page Analyzer.

In case you do have the above option checked and this is reporting that the files are not compressed, you will need to talk to your host.

Many of us have WP-Cache installed on our WordPress installation. When a page is requested for the first time, WP-Cache creates a cache file for the page. Subsequent requests are served from the cache. This ensures that the page doesn’t need to be recompiled, thus reducing the load on the server.

The problem with WP-Cache is that it doesn’t support GZip encoding. This means, that you need to first uncheck the above option that I talked about. This also means that you’re increasing the load time of your pages as well as consuming more bandwidth.

However, Mark Jaquith and Chris Stormer have found that a minor change in the the code of the plugin can turn on GZip encoding.

All you need to do is find the line

foreach ($meta->headers as $header) {

in wp-cache-phase1.php. This is line 35 in my file.

Just before this line you need to add:

if ( extension_loaded('zlib') ) ob_start('ob_gzhandler');

Now, your file will look like:

if ( extension_loaded('zlib') ) ob_start('ob_gzhandler');
foreach ($meta->headers as $header) {

Save the file and upload it and your set.

You can analyze the page again using the analyzer to check if the files are compressed.

Note that the above option in WordPress has to be disabled, or your pages will be royally messed up!

For those interested, the line of code we added checks if the zlib extension is installed. If it is, then it calls ob_gzhandler which gzips the output buffer and sends it to the browser.

With the high volume of downloads that I received today the file got corrupted and as a result the downloads gave an ID error.

I’ve restored a backup, which means unfortunately I lost a lot of counts

Anyway, it should be functional now. I plan on shifting to a counter that uses mySQL database or alternatively just write a plugin for the same.

Don’t know the time frame. Need to brush up my PHP skills first

This release addresses a cross-site scripting vulnerability in the search function.

The fix for the 1.0.x has been released as 1.0.9. The version number of 1.1RC3 has remained as is, but you need to download and update your SMF installation ASAP!

Just last week my forum was hacked. I’m not sure if this is the reason, but having your software vulnerable XSS is a sure shot way to getting hacked.

Read the complete release notification or download the latest version.

Direct Download:

Download the files below (you may need to be registered to the forum) and replace the files in your installation with the php files in the package.

updated_files_SMF_1-0-9.zip (102.59 KB)
smf_patch_1-0-9_1-1-rc3-1.tar.gz (1.99 KB)
updated_files_SMF_1-1-rc3-1.zip (179.11 KB)

These problems have been of two kind.

First being your comments landing in the spam bin. I am not sure why this has been happening. Also, it has been rare.

I’ve been going through the Spam comments anyway to check if any genuine comment has landed in there.

In case your comment does land up in the spam bin please do write to me and inform me of the same.

The second problem has been a “zero data received” or a “cannot find server” or similar error whenever you try to submit a comment.

This is more severe consequences. I’ve tracked down the problem to be a possibility that PHP is hitting its memory limit. I’ve arranged for the the memory limit to be increased, but I have not sure if the problem has been fixed for good.

Please do send me an email if you face this problem.

I’ve also upgraded the blog today to v2.0.5. In case you notice any errors please do let me know.