Hi there, I'm one of two developers working on DreamLyrics Message Gaming.

http://www.dreamlyrics.com/forums/

The site used to run on UBB.classic, which apparently had in-built archiver tool (for creating offline archives of forums). We've been tasked with bringing this feature to the new UBB.threads site, but we're running short on man-hours.

Our plan is to simply use HTTrack to generate the archives, but we need spider-friendly URLs to be able to constrain HTTrack (otherwise it'll run off and archive the half the site ;)).

We've tried enabling spider-friendly URLs on the test site, but get the following error when loading any forum page:

CGI Error
The specified CGI application misbehaved by not returning a complete set of HTTP headers.

We're aware of the proviso in the CP:

"Note: The PATH_INFO environmental variable must be available for this feature to function properly."

The site is running v7.4.1 on an IIS server (we have no choice in this matter) and PHP info is reporting cgi_fix.pathinfo is enabled (1).

Can anyone give us some pointers on how to get spider-friendly URLs working?

Hmm, if you bring up a phpinfo() page is it actually filling in the PATH_INFO variable?

Hi Rick. From a phpinfo() page, the ORIG_PATH_INFO displays a path that matches the location of phpinfo.php file.

Hmm, at that point it might require a bit of debugging to see what it's actually sending to the browser resulting in the error. If you want to open a support ticket with ftp and forum admin info we can debug a bit and take a look.

Is not the version 7.4.1 prior to the fix that was applied to use orig_path_info for the iis servers?
File was ubbthreads.inc.php
Should have a line like

Hi - I'm one of the other developers/administrators on that board.

Our copy of the ubbthreads.inc.php file does not have that line. Does that mean that if we upgrade to the current version of ubbthreads, we can get spider-friendly URLs working?

As I recall you can edit the line .
Your version probably is
Just edit it to what I posted and give it a try.

FYI, The fix does not work on all windows servers depends on how the host set up the permissions.
Due to security issues with windows.
Thanking Bill Gates.

That is why I switched from a windows host to a linux host.
It never did work at all, No matter what value I used.

I've edited the line to read
I also disabled the "Verify that file exists" checkbox for the web site in IIS, and turned on spider-friendly URLs in the site, but when I browse to the main forums, I get the CGI error as before for the test site URL

Well then you can let Rick give a try as he suggested. But you will need to open a support ticket with access info.
I just suggested this fix since it works on some windows servers.
If the value is available. So it appears in your case it is not.

memory reminds me the issue with iis is the script mapping value.
If you enable it it opens the site to security issues.
But it was dependent on what versions you were running. IIS5 or IIS6 or IISx.

Hi Ruben

Does that mean you don't know what permissions you need to get it to work, or that despite applying the permissions, nothing changed? If the former, could you let us know what permissions need to be applied, and to what?

It is hard to tell from my perspective.
When I was on a windows host I had limited access to the server settings.
My previous host did not even know what path_info was.
They were willing to change settings on my direction from research I did. But as I recall there was a roadblock that the version I was on did not recommend the changes needed from microsoft.
And cgi_fix was one of the values to address.
There was another value I found in pathinfo that looked promising ,can't recall what it was but it did not work either.

So I gave up on a futile attempt to get it working. And switched to a linux server.

There are some people here that use iss and have friendly urls working. But I don't think most of them know why it does work it just does.

So like I said Rick can peek under the hood if he has access and may find another value to use.

Bottom line is for a test looking here just add /pak to the url
You will see you do not get a 404 error.
Try it at your test site and you do.

HERE is one post on the subject that may help.
It is a old post but...

how do we tell if it is working or not?

well it works on clubadventist,com
Because a url that works is:
http://clubadventist.com/forum/ubbthread...tml#Post367895.

otherwise the url would be something like:
http://clubadventist.com/forum/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=367895#Post367895

thanks!

I agree with you.I just suggested this fix since it works on some windows servers.