The most requested support issues?

pursuit · 8th June 2008, 04:07 PM

Given that the php upgrade has been half way through, I wonder if UH would publish the most requested (upgrade related) support issues, if any, during the upgrade or just after the upgrade, so that we can watch out and be prepared?

UH-Simon · 8th June 2008, 05:26 PM

It's actually been relatively trouble free so far. Most common couple of issues are peoples scripts needing register_globals to be set to on (whereas the default php.ini has register_globals off) and some customers putting the temporary php5 directives back into the .htaccess files (these directives are no longer required). Few other minor issues but these are being dealt with using scripts when we run the updates.

UH-Matt · 8th June 2008, 08:29 PM

We will certainly keep you posted with any frequently asked questions or problems. I may make a fresh thread and will report back here if its been necessary.

It may be that we are on a weekend and issues have not yet been noticed, maye I will have more to say come monday morning!

Charles · 8th June 2008, 08:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by UH-Simon

It's actually been relatively trouble free so far. Most common couple of issues are peoples scripts needing register_globals to be set to on (whereas the default php.ini has register_globals off) and some customers putting the temporary php5 directives back into the .htaccess files (these directives are no longer required). Few other minor issues but these are being dealt with using scripts when we run the updates.

This is why I am with UH as yall know what yall are doing. From talking with a few support staff, yall have lots of things streamlined such as with these upgrades.

pjrobertson · 9th June 2008, 07:22 AM

One that I've just found:
Webcalendar (can be installed with powertools) has to have magic_quotes_gpc set to ON in your php.ini file.
It's a simnple change to make though.
It's line 474 of php.ini.

UH-Matt · 9th June 2008, 11:07 AM

It's amazing how many customers did not test their site and ignored our announcement emails regarding this change. We are getting quite a few tickets now (monday morning etc)... Nearly all of them are due to register_globals now being defaulted to OFF, whereas with PHP4 this was ON.

So if you are experiencing a problem with your site, you can first check the /etc/php.ini and try changing register_globals from OFF to ON, and see if this helps.

Otherwise please do contact the helpdesk where we will do our best to promptly offer assistance and advice.

UH-Matt · 9th June 2008, 11:25 AM

Due to the number of people requiring register_globals and register_long_arrays to be ON and not knowing how to adjust this themselves, we are making somewhat of a u-turn and making these two php.ini variables ON by default again across all sites and servers during these upgrades.

We wanted to have it OFF by default just the way php5 has it, but it just is not possible when scripts like oscommerce still require it.

biggles · 10th June 2008, 03:46 PM

I can't believe people didn't check out their scripts!

As for osCommerce, they had a fix for register globals being off when i played about with it 3 years ago!

I thought it was recommended as being off for security issues

- people should try and update their sites once in a while.

Charles · 10th June 2008, 04:28 PM

I went and changed register_globals and register_long_arrays to OFF in my php.ini file.
Speaking of updates, that reminds me that I need to update one of my scripts.

Paul_F · 11th June 2008, 08:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by UH-Matt

we are making somewhat of a u-turn and making these two php.ini variables ON by default again across all sites and servers during these upgrades.

Hi Matt,
can you let us know what time that decision was implemented, register_globals was off when I tested my sites on hercules on Monday morning. It is now set to ON you say? I guess I'd better check all my sites again....

UH-Matt · 11th June 2008, 08:44 AM

Hi Paul

As far as I know it shouldnt have an adverse affect having this ON, its only the people who needed it on when it was OFF who were having problems... so ON is the safest way to guarantee sites work even if its not our preferred default. The decision was made around 1 hour before I made that post you quoted.

Paul_F · 11th June 2008, 09:28 AM

ok, it was just that I had noted down that the sites as 'register globals safe', so just needed to know whether any of the sites were checked with the assumption of OFF when in fact they were ON! I'll probably go back in and set them all to OFF again anyway.

fluxman · 12th June 2008, 07:47 AM

i reckon you should set register_globals to OFF by default....people who don't know how to turn it on if they need it shouldn't be making websites.

UH-Matt · 12th June 2008, 07:52 AM

You didn't see what happened to the helpdesk when we tried having it ON by default on the first few servers - it was scary!

I agree that it should be OFF by default, but at least with each site running inside a secure virtual filesystem it means the only damage that can be done is limited to their own site.

fluxman · 12th June 2008, 07:55 AM

congrats on a smooth upgrade....although I've been using php5 for several months now (using the .htaccess fix)...so I didn't have to do anything :P

Charles · 12th June 2008, 02:53 PM

Thank You UH for the updates and making them so smooth!!