Tiny Core Linux

General TC => General TC Talk => Topic started by: DanielH on March 18, 2021, 11:02:26 AM

Title: Unable to post (reply) in forum, 500 Internal Server Error
Post by: DanielH on March 18, 2021, 11:02:26 AM
Dear webmaster:

I'm unable to post in the forum, Post and Preview buttons give the same error:

Code: [Select]
http://forum.tinycorelinux.net/index.php?action=post2;start=0;board=2

500 Internal Server Error

The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.

Please contact the server administrator at webmaster@forum.tinycorelinux.net to inform them of the time this error occurred, and the actions you performed just before this error.

More information about this error may be available in the server error log.

Please, could you fix this issue?
I'm sending this email from TCL using Firefox latest and my Gmail account...

Daniel Mirkin
DanielH
Title: Re: Unable to post (reply) in forum, 500 Internal Server Error
Post by: Greg Erskine on March 18, 2021, 01:38:07 PM
I have been getting this error for years.

I found I have to post quickly after pressing reply. So I cut my post, hit reply again, quickly paste and post.
Title: Re: Unable to post (reply) in forum, 500 Internal Server Error
Post by: Greg Erskine on March 18, 2021, 01:39:09 PM
I actually got the error posting the previous post  ::) and this one.
Title: Re: Unable to post (reply) in forum, 500 Internal Server Error
Post by: hiro on March 18, 2021, 03:51:20 PM
same

tried to send also a mail to the displayed address, it bounced.

now this was the first message that actually worked in a while. after pressing refresh. i don't know why.
but i tried many other times before and couldn't get any reply through.

it got much worse lately...
Title: Re: Unable to post (reply) in forum, 500 Internal Server Error
Post by: polikuo on March 18, 2021, 11:47:50 PM
I keep running into this as well.  :(

Is it perhaps no more disk space left for the forum server ?

Some people said it may be cause by certain special characters.

Yet, all these special characters seem to be working just fine.

Code: [Select]
!@#$%^&*()-_=+\|[]{}<>,./?'";:`~
Title: Re: Unable to post (reply) in forum, 500 Internal Server Error
Post by: curaga on March 19, 2021, 12:47:36 AM
We're aware of the issue, most likely the forum host applied worse mod_security settings. The person hosting us is not replying to email.
Title: Re: Unable to post (reply) in forum, 500 Internal Server Error
Post by: DanielH on March 23, 2021, 06:33:37 AM
@Rich:

Quote
The person hosting us is not replying to email.
Ouch!
Perhaps is time to migrate to another server... an unresponsive hosting administrator is like a stone in the shoe...

So, how we (TCL community) can help to solve this problem?
I don't have the knowdledge nor a server to accommodate an alternative Forum...

Waiting for ideas, propositions, offers...
Best regards,
DanielH

Title: Re: Unable to post (reply) in forum, 500 Internal Server Error
Post by: GNUser on March 24, 2021, 05:25:46 AM
What's the main roadblock to moving the wiki and forum to new hosting?
If it's cost, I can commit to paying for hosting for 10 years. Just tell me how much you need and where to send the funds.
If it's manpower/time, unfortunately I can't help because family illness and increased demands at work have me overextended.

P.S. TCL has done a lot for me (it powers my personal laptop, two routers, and family media player) and it would be nice to give back.
Title: Re: Unable to post (reply) in forum, 500 Internal Server Error
Post by: bmarkus on March 24, 2021, 09:13:24 AM
The issue is to get a database backup which requires SSH access to the hosting machine what we do not have.
Title: Re: Unable to post (reply) in forum, 500 Internal Server Error
Post by: GNUser on March 24, 2021, 09:26:00 AM
I'm sorry to hear it. Maybe there's a hacky way to backup the database without SSH access? I don't work with databases and don't know any details about what kind of access you guys do have, so I can't intelligently give any suggestions. I hope you guys can sort it out.

There is no expiration date on my offer to take care of hosting costs somewhere else (preferably with a provider that gives you SSH access).
Title: Re: Unable to post (reply) in forum, 500 Internal Server Error
Post by: hiro on April 19, 2021, 01:47:32 PM
The issue is to get a database backup which requires SSH access to the hosting machine what we do not have.

maybe with phpmyadmin or so...
Title: Re: Unable to post (reply) in forum, 500 Internal Server Error
Post by: curaga on April 19, 2021, 11:15:26 PM
The db is too big for PHP. It times out.
Title: Re: Unable to post (reply) in forum, 500 Internal Server Error
Post by: sm8ps on May 29, 2021, 12:03:15 AM
P.S. TCL has done a lot for me (it powers my personal laptop, two routers, and family media player) and it would be nice to give back.
Same here! Plus I have invested countless dozens of hours into the dCore wiki and it grieves me to see that they seem to have vanished in a puff.

The person hosting us is not replying to email.
So we need to track down that person via other means, maybe by telephone or so. There has got to be a way to get hold of these data! Who is that person? Does anybody have personal relations, maybe via some relays? Please let us step up and do something about this because the situation is getting unbearable for many users. I have almost given up due to frustration of not being able to communicate.

Today seems to be a good day on the forum as I have had two successful attempts in posting things. I am just hoping that my lucky streak continues! Always do Ctrl+A and Ctrl+C before hitting Post though. (:
Title: Re: Unable to post (reply) in forum, 500 Internal Server Error
Post by: curaga on May 29, 2021, 09:59:34 AM
I'm not sure he'd appreciate his name posted publicly...

I don't think we have any other info than name and email. He was just a TC user who offered to host us many years back.
Title: Re: Unable to post (reply) in forum, 500 Internal Server Error
Post by: sm8ps on May 30, 2021, 01:13:57 AM
I'm not sure he'd appreciate his name posted publicly...
I don't think we have any other info than name and email. He was just a TC user who offered to host us many years back.

Yeah, I did not think of publicly shaming somebody. Instead, I was hoping that there might be some other connections than such loose ties. Does not seem to be the case, unfortunately.

Would web scraping be a feasible idea? After all, the postings are currently (!) all available. A new forum could be set up and the old data might be migrated. On a quick glance I found Scrapy, a Python framework. Though, I do not have used it and neither do I know about the database structure of the Simple Machines forum software.

The db is too big for PHP. It times out.

This is via Simple Machines DumpDatabase.php function, right (https://support.simplemachines.org/function_db/index.php, https://wiki.simplemachines.org/smf/SMF2.0:Forum_Maintenance)?

Let me find out if today is another good forum day and this posting does go through or not. Ctrl-A + Ctrl-C! (:
Title: Re: Unable to post (reply) in forum, 500 Internal Server Error
Post by: curaga on May 30, 2021, 10:04:21 AM
Yes, via the forum's admin interface.

Scraping would be a lot of work and still get only an imperfect copy.
Title: Re: Unable to post (reply) in forum, 500 Internal Server Error
Post by: jazzbiker on May 30, 2021, 12:05:49 PM
Hi!

Probably I missed something, but as I understood from the discussion, the forum is not being backed up? Please tell me that I am wrong.
Title: Re: Unable to post (reply) in forum, 500 Internal Server Error
Post by: curaga on May 31, 2021, 12:04:33 AM
That is correct. Our last backups are from 2019, we haven't had ssh access since.
Title: Re: Unable to post (reply) in forum, 500 Internal Server Error
Post by: jazzbiker on May 31, 2021, 02:53:55 PM
I copied the forum in the form of separate html pages with the help of curl. Hope it will remain useless. Raw size is 793M, gzipped is 85M.
Title: Re: Unable to post (reply) in forum, 500 Internal Server Error
Post by: mocore on November 17, 2021, 02:17:31 AM
I copied the forum in the form of separate html pages with the help of curl. Hope it will remain useless. Raw size is 793M, gzipped is 85M.

hi @jazzbiker
 is this backup including attachments !! ?? !!
Title: Re: Unable to post (reply) in forum, 500 Internal Server Error
Post by: patrikg on November 17, 2021, 07:26:39 AM
Could some one just install some package to the simple forum, to make a backup.

https://custom.simplemachines.org/index.php?mod=2664

By using the Upload or Download function in Package Manager.

https://wiki.simplemachines.org/smf/SMF2.0:Package_manager#Download_a_package_by_URL
Title: Re: Unable to post (reply) in forum, 500 Internal Server Error
Post by: curaga on November 17, 2021, 10:03:36 AM
I believe that would run to the same PHP limits as the built-in pages.
Title: Re: Unable to post (reply) in forum, 500 Internal Server Error
Post by: gadget42 on November 18, 2021, 07:16:03 AM
is there(or is there a way to offer) a bounty for successfully rescuing the COMPLETE forum database?
Title: Re: Unable to post (reply) in forum, 500 Internal Server Error
Post by: curaga on November 18, 2021, 10:18:13 AM
We don't have any organization or funding sources, so no.
Title: Re: Unable to post (reply) in forum, 500 Internal Server Error
Post by: gadget42 on November 28, 2021, 03:09:14 AM
just saw this at slashdot:
https://developers.slashdot.org/story/21/11/27/0225217/addressing-bus-factor-php-gets-a-foundation

referencing:
https://thenewstack.io/php-gets-a-foundation-to-work-on-php-core/

wondering what the bus-factor is for tinycorelinux project itself as-well-as the forum we continue to build/contribute-to/expand/etc even though we can't administer and/or back-it-up?

would appreciate thoughts from most-active-members such as:
Rich - (http://forum.tinycorelinux.net/index.php?action=profile;u=2311)
Juanito - (http://forum.tinycorelinux.net/index.php?action=profile;u=4)
curaga - (http://forum.tinycorelinux.net/index.php?action=profile;u=5)
bmarkus - (http://forum.tinycorelinux.net/index.php?action=profile;u=240)

no offense to anyone intended(don't shoot the messenger)!
Title: Re: Unable to post (reply) in forum, 500 Internal Server Error
Post by: nomadbyte on November 29, 2021, 09:09:02 PM
The db is too big for PHP. It times out.

If you have cPanel access (assuming that's how you get to phpAdmin), then the db can be backed up via cron job (with mysqldump, maybe piped to gzip), then downloaded from the File Manager or, well, uploaded to wherever from another cron job.

That's how I had to get it done when facing a similar case (no SSH acceess). Would be happy to help, if needed!
Title: Re: Unable to post (reply) in forum, 500 Internal Server Error
Post by: curaga on November 29, 2021, 11:54:53 PM
No, no cpanel access, so cron is not possible. Only forum admin access, I meant SMF's backup page.

@gadget42
The bus factor is low, and for the forum, arguably already happened.
Title: Re: Unable to post (reply) in forum, 500 Internal Server Error
Post by: gadget42 on December 17, 2021, 12:55:29 PM
so the forum could disappear forever...at virtually any point...given the currently understood situation.

do we even know where the server(s) are located and who owns it/them?
Title: Re: Unable to post (reply) in forum, 500 Internal Server Error
Post by: curaga on December 17, 2021, 11:59:31 PM
It's a virtual host somewhere, and the owner is known.
Title: Re: Unable to post (reply) in forum, 500 Internal Server Error
Post by: gadget42 on December 19, 2021, 08:44:05 AM
maybe this can help:
https://www.dreamhost.com/pro-services/management/hacked-site-repair/

can pay the fee if required.

tried to send a pm but it kept failing...sigh...
Title: Re: Unable to post (reply) in forum, 500 Internal Server Error
Post by: curaga on December 19, 2021, 10:06:49 AM
That'd only be if it was Dreamhost and by the owner, not us.
Title: Re: Unable to post (reply) in forum, 500 Internal Server Error
Post by: gadget42 on December 19, 2021, 04:02:19 PM
when you try https instead of just http firefox shows a certificate from dreamhost(see attached)
Title: Re: Unable to post (reply) in forum, 500 Internal Server Error
Post by: curaga on December 20, 2021, 12:09:30 AM
Thanks, it's Dreamhost then. However only the owner can use that service.
Title: Re: Unable to post (reply) in forum, 500 Internal Server Error
Post by: mocore on January 06, 2022, 01:22:43 PM
Thanks, it's Dreamhost then. However only the owner can use that service.
--sig--
The only barriers that can stop you are the ones you create yourself.

 ::) reading the post above + sig as quoted provides an intresting juxtaposition

so the forum could disappear forever...at virtually any point...given the currently understood situation.

 what comes to mind reading this is to contact archiveteam@archiveteam.org / https://wiki.archiveteam.org/
and or
setup some scraper script to monitor http://forum.tinycorelinux.net/index.php?action=recent
and automate request to https://web.archive.org/save/eg.org/foo.bar for each new post .
Title: Re: Unable to post (reply) in forum, 500 Internal Server Error
Post by: liuzhaoyzz on January 08, 2022, 06:20:55 PM
so the forum could disappear forever...at virtually any point...given the currently understood situation.


That's really a bad news...
Title: Re: Unable to post (reply) in forum, 500 Internal Server Error
Post by: gadget42 on January 09, 2022, 03:08:51 AM
as you can see by visiting this webpage, over 100k posts and 13yrs of knowledge would be lost forever:
http://forum.tinycorelinux.net/index.php?action=mlist;sort=posts;start=0;desc
Title: Re: Unable to post (reply) in forum, 500 Internal Server Error
Post by: gadget42 on January 09, 2022, 03:13:55 AM
regardless of what happens here, visiting https://wiki.archiveteam.org/ should prove to be a wonderful eye-opener!

also visit the fine folks at https://archive.org/

modified-20220109-0530am-added disclaimer

disclaimer:
Archive Team is in no way affiliated with the fine folks at ARCHIVE.ORG(https://archive.org/)
Title: Re: Unable to post (reply) in forum, 500 Internal Server Error
Post by: liuzhaoyzz on January 11, 2022, 09:51:42 PM
Oh,that's really not good.
Maybe somebody can clone the fortum with HTtrack or other tools.
Title: Re: Unable to post (reply) in forum, 500 Internal Server Error
Post by: mocore on January 21, 2022, 01:48:32 AM
I believe that would run to the same PHP limits as the built-in pages.

presumably

if the "PHP limits" are known
and new script's can be added modifyed

it should be posibable to work around whatever limits of the current php version/config ?

Title: Re: Unable to post (reply) in forum, 500 Internal Server Error
Post by: rmarion37 on May 11, 2022, 09:10:20 AM
same issue when I try to post a new message in Corepure64 topics:

Internal Server Error

The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.

Please contact the server administrator at webmaster@forum.tinycorelinux.net to inform them of the time this error occurred, and the actions you performed just before this error.

More information about this error may be available in the server error log.
Title: Re: Unable to post (reply) in forum, 500 Internal Server Error
Post by: rmarion37 on May 11, 2022, 09:12:54 AM
same issue when I try to post a new message in Corepure64 topics:

Internal Server Error

The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.

Please contact the server administrator at webmaster@forum.tinycorelinux.net to inform them of the time this error occurred, and the actions you performed just before this error.

More information about this error may be available in the server error log.

Rémy
Title: Re: Unable to post (reply) in forum, 500 Internal Server Error
Post by: gadget42 on May 25, 2022, 09:23:24 PM
wanted to add some additional historical links for those who enjoy such things.

reference to distrowatch interview:
http://forum.tinycorelinux.net/index.php/topic,841.0.html

distrowatch link:
https://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20090323#feature
(interview references forum hosting by Kent Porter and Chris Livesay, assuming @ke4nt and @clivesay respectively)
(also a link provided in the interview now appears used by Prof. Dr. Christopher N. Shingledecker - https://www.shingledecker.org/)

also a distrowatch link to a tinycore desktop screenshot:
https://distrowatch.com/images/screenshots/tiny-core-desktop.png
(including the minefield extension information by curaga dated november 16th, 2008)

also attaching a copy of that screenshot to this post.