Hi. I just installed UBB 7.1.1 and am having problems with Captcha. My server has Imagemagick installed, and the path to it is /usr/bin/perl which I put in the "Path to Convert". In the "Path to Mogrify" I put in /usr/bin/mogrify (because I saw it suggested in other related posts here).

I have Captcha enabled, but when I try to register as a new user no Captcha image is shown. I have run the Captcha test on my server, but only get a blank page. Anyone have a suggestion or a fix that I can try?

Cheers-
John

PS, I tried changing the "Path to Convert" to /usr/bin/convert but still had the same issue..

Trust me, the path to imagemagick is not /usr/bin/perl; this is the path to perl...

Your path will vary, but in most cases it'll be /usr/bin/convert and /usr/bin/mogrify however you'll need to check to be sure.

The captcha image will not display if the paths are not set properly

If you are unsure of how to look up the path to Convert and Mogrify, you should have your webhost provide those paths for you (should ImageMagick be installed)

Well, I contacted my webhost and was told that ImageMagick is installed on the server, and that the needed paths are as follows:
/usr/local/bin/convert
/usr/local/bin/mogrify

I have changed the ImageMagick Settings in the UBB Control Panel to reflect this, but still no Captca image shows up in registration? Does anyone else have any ideas I can try?

Thanks!!

What version of ImageMagick do they have installed?

Have the image files been uploaded and that Java script too,
remember i done something similar.

Check you have uploaded the captcha folder.
Sorry its been a while you see.

Hi Rick. Its Image::Magick 5.5.7

The Captcha folder is in the images directory, right where UBB has them placed. FYI, when I FTP'd to the website I moved the images folder as Binary per the setup instructions.

Why are some of the simple things in life so difficult sometimes?

Thanks!
John

Ah, that would be it. The CAPTCHA feature requires ImageMagick 6 in order to work properly.

Ask your webhost to upgrade to the latest version

The benefit of ImageMagick is that you can download the binary files, uload to your server, and link to them in the control panel.

Hi again. Well, I've asked my hosting service to upgrade to ImageMagick 6 and they won't until they upgrade all of their perl modules. They told me their is a work around and to inquire on their support forums, which I did, but very little help was offered.

It seems to me that during the UBB install process it said something about in order to use Captcha, I needed access to either ImageMagick or something else??? I've searched the UBB documentation and forum to no avail. Is their another module or program that will work on Captcha?? Without a functioning version of Captcha I can't see going live with my UBB Board.

All suggestions are appreciated!

Cheers,
John

ImageMagick6 and GD with font support ( i forget which) can both run the captcha system.

ImageMagick has a "binary" option that you can install yourself as a user; it shoudl be as easy as uploading it, setting the paths to it, and chmodding it 755.

Hello... My webhost has recently upgraded to ImageMagick 6.3.4 so I am trying to get Captcha working on my board again. In my control panel I have selected to use ImageMagick in the "Registration Settings," and under "Paths & URL" set the paths to "convert" and mogrify" as follows:

/usr/local/bin/convert
/usr/local/bin/mogrify

If I try to register as a new user there is still no Captcha image displayed. By the way, the paths above are what were given to me by my webhost. I also tried dropping the "local" out of the path just for fun and it didn't work either. Does anyone have any thoughts on what can I try next??

Cheers--

The best suggestion is to ask your host to confirm the path to convert and mogrify.

I doubt they have changed, but you never know.

While logged in as an admin user, bring up the following on your forums:

ubbthreads.php?ubb=captcha&t=im&test=1

That should give some type of information if it's encountering an error of some sorts.

Rick, I ran the test and got the following error:

"PHP error: /usr/local/bin/convert/: not found"

I tried dropping the "local" from my paths and got the same basic error - "PHP error: /usr/bin/convert/: not found"

This is pretty frustrating... what can I try next?

Hmm, the error looks a bit odd. Do you have a trailing slash at the end of the paths? It looks like it's set to

/usr/local/bin/convert/

When it should just be:

/usr/local/bin/convert

I took out the trailing "/" at the paths end and now get the following error after running the test

"PHP error: /usr/local/bin/convert: Unrecognized option (-annotate)."

If that's the case, then it sounds like they actually "downgraded". annotate was added in version 6, but not available in version 5.

Either that, or they have both versions installed, and they gave you the path to version 5 and not version 6.

Likely that they have both versions running beside eachother; I'm thiking that we need a utility in the CP that checks the version...

You can create a "test.php" file which has the following which should read out the version (be sure to update "convert_path" to be your path):


Should read out something similar to: 6.2.8

Hi,

For some reason Captcha has stopped displaying images during the registration process on my site? I've checked the forum permissions and everything checks out as okay. When I run the captcha test that Rick suggested 5 posts above (ubbthreads.php?ubb=captcha&t=im&test=1), I get the following error:

PHP error: convert: unable to read font `/usr/www/users/iwrf/forums/images/captcha/fonts/_vti_cnf' @ annotate.c/RenderType/1075.

If I refresh the page I get this error:

PHP error: convert: missing an image filename `GIF:/usr/www/users/iwrf/forums/cache/03995596e1f846ffdeb0fbe94aec60a0.gif' @ convert.c/ConvertImageCommand/2775.

I'm not sure what has happened as everything was working fine a week ago, and I haven't changed any settings before then or since. Does anyone have any suggestions on what I can try to get captcha working again so people can register on my forum again??

Many thanks in advance!!
www.iwrf.com/forums/

delete the _vti folder(s) from the images/captcha folders; they're not valid fonts and are thus b0ging things

That solved the problem, THANKS! Any idea what caused the _vti folders to be created in the first place?

One more question. I'm using UBB version 7.2; is there a way to replace the captcha images with the newer images that captcha now uses? The older ones can be a bit difficult to read.

the _vti folders are from Front Page Extensions on the server, they tend to place themselves in every directory, which can harm some scripts which are expecting only their own data to be within the directories.

And the images are simply the backgrounds, the letters are generated from the fonts within the captcha directories.

If you have ImageMagick available on your server you'll notice that images generated with that (vs GD) will be easier to read.

He has imagemagick, since he's using convert. But on many servers it seems that GD will give better quality than ImageMagick. Guess it kind of depends.

I switched over to GD2 and that makes the image much easier to read. Is is possible to replace the 2 fonts (bullpen_.ttf and eflb.ttf) that are in the captcha/fonts directory with something else to help clear up the generated image further?

Thanks!

Weird... Figured if its better on some it'd stay that way ...

Yes, the font's and backgrounds are read dynamically at the time of the CAPTCHA generation. So you can use any .ttf font you'd like. One thing to note, there is a bit of a blur put on all fonts. You don't want to clear of an edge to the font as it makes it much easier to crack the CAPTCHA.

Yeh, the clearer the worse you're off... There are bots and scripts designed just to crack captcha's, so you don't want to make it too easy for them...

Thanks guys.. I'm going to take your advice and leave it as it is.

A++ on this thread

Somehow I got a _notes folder in my CAPTCHA images folder and it wasn't working .. Deleted it and its now working great.

I think this folder popped up from Dreamweaver and/or a server move I did awhile back.

I needed to turn on the captcha on registration due to an increasing number of spambots registering on my forum.

Dreamweaver is known for placing a _notes folder.

I'm going to have to get a list of all of the various auto-generated folders/files and just have it ignore those.

That is a tough job. Just like frontpage places the stupid files. And wsftp if logs are enabled it will place a log.txt file in every folder that you upload to. God only knows what other programs add files.
It almost seems to be easier to add the caveat to the manual.

I'm using GD2 and after re-install my files the captcha is not working any more. I just did a re-install for all files, nothing else changed on my 7.3.1 version.

I run Rick's code and got this:
PHP error: sh: /www/forum/images/captcha/backgrounds/background2.jpg: Permission denied

if I hit reload, got this:
PHP error: sh: /www/forum/images/captcha/backgrounds/background1.jpg: Permission denied

I play with those files permission, and if I give 777 it gave a diff. error:

PHP error: sh: /www/forum/images/captcha/backgrounds/background1.jpg: cannot execute binary file

any other comments please?

Okay well try this.
What would be the URL to the backgroung1.jpg
Let us know what it is.
It sounds to me if it is not a extra file issue then it is a file permission issue.
You should be able to type.
http://mydomain.com/forums/images/captcha/backgrounds/background1.jpg. and get a response with a background image.
It should have 755 for the folder for me the file is 644

Yes, I can get the picture when I go directly:
http://www.imigrar.com/forum/images/captcha/backgrounds/background1.jpg


my Folder is 755 and the files are 644

For GD2 the test url should be:
ubbthreads.php?ubb=captcha&t=gd&test=1
If still a issue then
open a support ticket and let us know what happens.

I get a background image when I go to that URL posted above.

Yes I do to. But he is cross posting now.
Trying the gd test url it is a blank page. He was using the IM test url which for me is the same (blank page)but that does not apply according to his post. Either does permission errors.

Okay Ehm1: Question
What did you use to re-upload your files with.

Yes I got the blank page too on the test page. Strange.

I'm sorry if I'm cross-posting or hijacking the thread. I can move my posts to a new one if that is the case.

Any way, I did the test and then I got a blank page.
No error, just a blank page.
I try with I.E. and Firefox and the same result. In both browsers I was log-in.

I'm sure is someting stupid I did when I re-install the softare... I just can't find what that could be.

Filezila.
PHP setup to ASCII
JPG setup to BIN.

I upload the fonts as ASCII then again as a BIN, with same results.

Just to confirm, you are running the test while being logged in as an admin correct? It will only display any output if so.

I have to take back my previous observation on the captcha test.
I had captcha disabled on my forum, so users can registry.
I enable and then I got a broking link sign on I.E.
and a blank page on Firefox.

If I click on the broking image, it shows no file name, but the PHP code.

Here is what should be in the captcha directory. And nothing else
Captcha CHMOD 755
Backgrounds/
Fonts/
indexhtml

Backgrounds CHMOD 755
background1.jpg
background2.jpg
index.html
Fonts CHMOD 755
bullpen_.ttf
eflb.ttf
index.html

Check to make sure only the index files are 0 bytes

Are you enabling it as GD2 or ImageMagick?

On the I.E. I was admin
on the Firefox I was moderator.

I log-in on Firefox as a admin and the same blank page, (no broking image) appears.

The broking image only appears on I.E.

GD2

and how about the 'fonts' folder?
My has that too, and I checked the install files and the /fonts are there as well.

Check my post again I selected submit before I was done typing.

all checked and all the way you described. index.html with 0b in all.

Okay back to what I said "Open a support ticket"
I am not sure why you needed to re-install all of your files but there must of been a reason for it. Maybe something got corrupted either in the files or the tables. And just the captcha option is apparent right now. You may have other things not working you are not aware of yet.

OK, I did that.
I will post here when they give me a solution.
Thank you all for your help so far.

hei guys,
now become critical:
I disabled captcha for the registration, but looks like any member that is just a 'user' needs to fill the captca to post. and since captcha is not working, nobody can post, just the admin and the moderators.

I really need some help on how to make captch work again on my server.
Any ideas?
I submit a support ticket about a week ago and so far got no response from ubb.

Thank you for any ideas that may help!

I responded to your ticket right after you submitted it. You put in the ticket at 1:12 PM, I responded at 1:37 PM. Will copy/paste here:

__________________________________

Something seems to have gone awry with the way you uploaded the files. If you look at all of your files, there are multiple line breaks between each line of code. There are even linebreaks before the opening PHP tag everywhere.

So, what happens is view the source of any of your pages, you'll see a big block of blank lines before the opening html tag.

When PHP tries to generate an image, it sends an image header and then the image code itself. Since you have all of those blank lines being spit out, it sends the image header, but then sends all those blank lines before the image code, so it can never be a valid image.

What you're going to need to do is reupload all of the files and make sure that those spaces aren't there at all. It seems to be especially bad with the files in your libs directory, but it's also a problem in other directories as well.

Hi Rick,
I'm sorry. but I didn't received this response...
my bad.
Do I have to go back to the site and find the if it was reply or normally we receive an e-mail>?
I checked my JUNK folder is nothing is there as well.
----
Any way, I have the original 7.3.1 ZIP so I will do an update (I assume I can update a 7.3.1. to 7.3.1 right?)
or should I just copy files from my PC to my server?

Hmm, will need to check and see if the notification went out at all.

Basically you just need to copy the files from your pc to your server. Everything except for the includes, styles and cache_builders/custom

OK. I will copy all but includes, styles and cache_builders/custom

now, if there is a problem on the files under those folder. how can I find it?
I don't know if you remember, but I had a hacker problem couple months ago.

I copy all my original files back to the server.
Still the same problem the captcha image is broken.
Right now it's disabled for new registrations, but I have it on every single forum for new users, so will be a pain to remove from there.
Any other ideas?

You still have the same problem going on. View the source of any forum page and you'll see the blank lines at the top.

Whatever you are using for FTP or whatever mode you're copying in is adding blank lines throughout the code and is creating the problem. You might try using a different FTP client, or maybe look at the files on your local PC and make sure they don't have the blank lines in them as well.

can you give me one file that has the problem?
I'm not a PHP expert, but if I can see the problem I will try to fix it.

Also, is there any way to try out captcha on my server (like a stand alone program), so I can rule out a problem with GD2 on my server?
ps: I'm using Filezila as my FTP program.
and sending .PHP as ASCII and .JPG as BIN

Looks like you got most of them fixed, but there are still blank lines coming from somewhere. Will poke around a bit and see if I can track it down.

Looks like the majority of your language files have the issue. The english ones seem ok, but the portuguese have the mentioned spaces before the opening php tag and throughout the files.

example: languages/portuguese/generic.php

Rick,
could be something else?
I checked and upload all Portuguese files and still the same issue.
I changed one TEST user to English and try and still not showing the captcha even if his language is English.
I can see a blank space on this file:
http://www.MY_SITE_THAT_YOU_KNOW/forum/ubbthreads.php/ubb/newpost/Board/6
(replace the mysitethatyoukno)
but I could not find where that line is coming from.
and on that page, for a NEW USER, the captcha is displayed.
any other ideas?

One blank line at the top is normal when viewing the source, you'll see it here as well.

Can you reply to your support ticket with the updated admin info. Can't seem to login as the admin with the username/pass that was submitted with the ticket.

Rick,
I submit the ticket but also I change the password back to what you had before.

Couple more info:
1) today I received the Ticket Number email from Social Strata. so it's working and it's not on my SPAM.

2) The captcha works on my server, using a diferente program (my "contact us" page use it).

thank you for looking into that.

Just as a note I use Filezilla. I use the transfer mode of auto for threads. Classic is another story unless you edit the filetypes.
Possibly you uploaded a few in binary in error. If you were switching back and forth for each file/folder.
Also I would make sure you are using a fresh extracted zip file for your version and that it overwrites all of the files if it is extracted to the same folder you have been using.

Also in filezilla it has a failed transfers tab at the bottom. check to make sure there are none. If there are then those files were not overwritten.

Another item with filezilla is it prompts you for the same identical files that exist on the site so make sure you select to overwrite them for the same queue at the very least or select the always option.

I used wsftp for years with classic with no problems.
When I upgraded to threads it caused the same problem you have due to it would write a extra file"log.txt" to all of the folders.

So sometimes you need to step back from the monitor take a moment and double check even the most simple tasks that seemed to always work before.

Just a thought ehm1.
Since Rick identified most of the problem now is with the Portuquese language file. Your working copy may be corrupted.
Since you created it to begin with in the language pack forum. Maybe you need to download your own zip file you posted and start over.
It seems to be okay at this site.

It might save you some time???

Thanks, but I changed the language profile of one TestUser and the problem still.
I'm assume there is something wrong on the line Rick is telling me, but I can't find where else.
I already checked every single file on the Portuguese language, since the other ones I just download from the Install Pack.

I responded to your ticket again. It should be working now. Your libs/captcha.inc.php had the blank lines problem which I fixed.

Okay I use v7.5.3 I just installed your language pack made it the default. Logged off. When I attempt to register the captcha works fine it even refreshes with a new display.
Rick is back so he may chime in.

So it looks like Rick was correct! Bad file!
Might want to check your backup to make sure you don't repeat the problem in the future.

I also posted there.
Didn't fix the problem.
Still. I sent you a page with the problem pictured on a browser.

Sorry it's taking that long to solve it and tying up your time.

Well, it was fixed when I posted, but it's broke again and you're back to having some spaces in files. It looks like a couple were uploaded about the same time I was fixing things.

That was my bad.
I was uploading from the original 7.3.1 Install Pack.

Now the captcha is fixed. THANK YOU Rick!!!

still have a log-in problem that seams to be related with the same 'espaces' issue.

I'm still looking for spaces on my files.