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Category Archives: Website Administration
When Bizarre Web Server Errors Strike: Check File Ownership
I recently was contacted by a user of my AWSOM Pixgallery plugin to help with an issue that was affecting her install. For some reason whenever she loaded her main page or Categories page her website slowed down to a crawl. At first I didn’t think that it was related to Pixgallery, since it only does one function on non-gallery pages, which is to check if the global resize setting is active and apply it to images if it is. On her site this setting was disabled, so Pixgallery should have been doing nothing.
It did turn out though that whenever Pixgallery was active, this slowdown behavior would occur, with it disappearing after Pixgallery was disabled. The bizarre thing was that her galleries pages were loading totally normally.
My first thought was that there were permissions issues with her images. After checking her server there were some issues with some of her files being set to non-execute, but this did not clear up the problem. I was honestly going a bit crazy and started to think that I had coded something incorrectly with the newest Beta version that she was using.
I then had a sudden thought: in Filezilla, the ftp program I tend to use most, the settings by default do not show the owner of the files on the server–so I turned this view on. Typically looking at the owner of files isn’t a big issue since if you are moving your files to the server using the same account and ftp program they all have the same owner–>the account that is used to log into the server. After I changed the view I discovered that a large number of her files were actually owned by an entirely different owner/group account. In cases like this, especially if your WordPress has plugins that actually do processing things to files (like Pixgallery), if the files to be processed are not part of the Owner/Group of the program that is doing the actions (WordPress) what actually happens is the file sits there and refuses to allow any action to take place–but importantly does not actually cause an error to occur. It simply stands the code off and does nothing, causing a php execution timeout. Typically this setting in php is set to 15-30 seconds, which was the exact amount of time per image that was being added to her load time for her index and category pages.
It turns out that her ftp login and her web based Cpanel login were somehow under 2 different ownership/group listings.
The solution to the problem was for her to download her entire site, log in as the account she planned to use primarily for moving files to her server, then re-uploading the entire thing under the one account. This fixed everything and her site was running correctly again.
So, if you ever hit an issue where there seems to be a lag occurring that you can’t identify, make sure all of your file ownership is under the same account.
Information every WordPress user should know and post when problems strike
I often go on the WordPress.org forum and try to answer help questions from users who are having problems with their install. In many cases the problem is easily solved by knowing a small amount of information–but it’s usually true that most users do not know the most basic information about their setups. In general, anyone who is setting up a WordPress website should know the following information:
- The Version of WordPress they have installed
- They Type of Server they are using (Linux, Windows, Solaris, etc.)
- The Version number of PHP (the programming language WordPress is written in) that is running on their server
- The Version number of MySQL (the database system typically used by WordPress) that is running on their server
It’s also good to know generally what version number your theme is and all of the plugins you have active in your install. This very basic information can usually diagnose many of the most common problems with WordPress. The most common issues of aberrant behavior stem from out of date versions of the above items.
In my experience it is best to have at least PHP 4.2.2, MySQL 4.1.x, and WordPress 2.0.11 running. Using a Linux server also seems to cut down on the possible problems that can exist, since WordPress was specifically developed with that type of server.
If you are having a problem it’s best to post your install information immediately so others can work with all of the facts, in many cases your problem can be resolved within hours. (Oh, and always remember to post a link to the page/site that is not working, it’s always best if we can see what the problem looks like directly.)
WordPress 2.3.1 now available
WordPress 2.3.1 is now available for download from the WordPress.org website. This release fixes a number of bugs and security issues. I would strongly suggest all current 2.3 version users download and update their version of WordPress.
Webcomics plugin StripShow 1.5 Final released
The “final” version of the StripShow WordPress plugin has been released. This plugin has a boatload of features that would help out any new webcomic site being developed in WordPress (comic nav arrows, RSS feed integration, file uploading, etc.). In many ways it looks like it’s compiling up many other previous plugins into one uberplugin. The developers are talking about strongly supporting this plugin so go check it out and add to the feature wishlist.
First WordPress 2.3 vulnerability found, same for earlier versions
The first WordPress 2.3 security issue has been found. It is in regard to the blogroll function in WordPress and results in unlimited spam entries being injected into your blogroll. This vulnerability is already being exploited by spammers. An explanation and a fixed file can be found here until a new point release of WordPress is available. This issue apparently also affects older versions of WordPress as well as the newest version, so pretty much anyone using the blogroll on their site should immediately address this issue.