Unable to perform action: checkAuth

MartinS · 2014-09-12 00:34:55

Good afternoon from an experienced and faithful CE2(!) user who has finally decided to go for a major overhaul of his website and use CE4. I have downloaded the full publishing package and, being able to refer to CE2 installations, have had no trouble installing anything when following the excellent instructions online, up to the point where Lightroom Publishing Manager is called upon in the section "Publisher API Details".

I know that I am not the first person to experience problems here but I cannot seem to find any universal solution and therefore take the liberty of asking an expert on such matters to help as trying to solve it myself has not been successful. I could not do without CE2 galleries and these have been used intensively for several years. It is the fact that they are so flawless that has made me keep off upgrading.

I have an existing /galleries/ folder in my root which works fine. I have now added a /ttg-be/ folder next to it and installed a publisher sub-directory there. So far, so good. I can access the directory on the web at http://www.martinsharrott.com/ttg-be/publisher/ and see an empty screen and no error messages.

But checking authorisation using TTG's default API Key (how would I change this anyway?) returns the message "Unable to perform action: checkAuth. No response was returned."

If I change permissions in /publisher/ and subdirectories to 777, a different message is returned: "Error performing function. (Code: 500)".

Having seen the first-class help that others have received, I am confident of being able to solve this hiccup shortly. Thank you in advance.

rod barbee · 2014-09-12 00:58:08

I can access the directory on the web at http://www.martinsharrott.com/ttg-be/publisher/ and see an empty screen and no error messages.

You actually should be seeing this message:

{"status":"error","message":"The page sent an action which was not available."}

You should be able to go here: http://www.martinsharrott.com/ttg-be/ and be presented with a login form. That's not happening.

But checking authorisation using TTG's default API Key (how would I change this anyway?)

You need to be able to log in to ttg-be and go to the Publisher settings area.
http://ce4.theturninggate.net/docs/doku … r_instance

You may be experiencing some hosting incompatibilities. Until Ben can chime in try taking a look here: http://community.theturninggate.net/top … ing-ttgbe/

MartinS · 2014-09-12 02:40:11

Thank you, Rod, for your message. Until the "check authentication" matter is sorted out I don't think I can get any further. I'll await any input from Ben in due course. If I need to ask my hosting provider (powweb, who have good support) any questions, it would help me if those questions could be as specific as possible so that I can relay them verbatim in the hope of getting to the root of any problem at their end. Or mine.

rod barbee · 2014-09-12 03:04:34

That's what Ben excels at

In the mean time you should be able to check on some of this stuff via your host's CPanel/PHPadmin, like whether or not those database modules are enabled

Ben · 2014-09-12 10:56:26

Hi Martin, I'm seeing a 500 error at http://www.martinsharrott.com/ttg-be/publisher/
Do you still have the permissions set to 777 for galleries? If so, can you first try changing it to 755.

MartinS · 2014-09-12 14:19:24

Hello Ben,
As far as I can see, all my directories, including /galleries/ (which is still unchanged as part of my CE2-build site) and the newly uploaded, as yet unused, /ttg-be/ are set to 755. This has been working correctly for many years.

MartinS · 2014-10-29 18:52:42

Perhaps someone will be able to help me progress. I have been using CE2 for many years and have now delved into CE4 and am able to produce the output I am looking for (at least, not yet bothering too much about layout, details etc).

Having tried to login, unsuccessfully, to ttg-be/admin, I submitted a support request to my provider. They reacted with the following:
QUOTE
Thank you for contacting us.

We are sorry to hear that you are getting blank page.

I have restored all the website files from backups, changed the php version and added the default php.ini file but the issue persists.

The issue you are experiencing is due to scripting. So, please refer the error logs at: https://www.powweb.com/controlpanel/cgi … rorLog.bml and correct the scripting from your end.
Also, many of the application files are missing. So, please restore all the files and verify the issue.

However, the test php script: http://martinsharrott.com/ttg-be/admin/phpinfo.php working properly without any issues.
UNQUOTE

Well, since I am not keen to interrupt my working CE2 website whilst trying to implement CE4, I created a folder MSSP2014 inside my root directory and am uploading CE4 output to this, having defined this as the site root within CE4. Currently, the CE4 output works in principle - that is, masthead and navigation bar and links all work, but the page content is blank every time. This is also the case when I try to access MSSP2014/ttg-be/admin to log in. The page is blank. To create the new site I have used CE4 Pages, CE4 Gallery and CE4 Auto Index so far (just as with CE2).

I show below recent contents of my provider's error log file, which I am too ignorant to understand except that apparently scripts are not working as expected. It looks as though the problem is repetitive and therefore hopefully easy to solve.

20141029T052843: www.martinsharrott.com/MSSP2014/index.php
PHP Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_STRING, expecting T_OLD_FUNCTION or T_FUNCTION or T_VAR or '}' in /hermes/waloraweb070/b2342/pow.martinsharro/htdocs/MSSP2014/lib/php/Parsedown.php on line 60

20141029T052851: martinsharrott.com/MSSP2014/galleries.php
PHP Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_STRING, expecting T_OLD_FUNCTION or T_FUNCTION or T_VAR or '}' in /hermes/waloraweb070/b2342/pow.martinsharro/htdocs/MSSP2014/lib/php/Parsedown.php on line 60

20141029T052903: martinsharrott.com/MSSP2014/info.php
PHP Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_STRING, expecting T_OLD_FUNCTION or T_FUNCTION or T_VAR or '}' in /hermes/waloraweb070/b2342/pow.martinsharro/htdocs/MSSP2014/lib/php/Parsedown.php on line 60

20141029T052905: martinsharrott.com/MSSP2014/services.php
PHP Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_STRING, expecting T_OLD_FUNCTION or T_FUNCTION or T_VAR or '}' in /hermes/waloraweb070/b2342/pow.martinsharro/htdocs/MSSP2014/lib/php/Parsedown.php on line 60

20141029T052907: martinsharrott.com/MSSP2014/about.php
PHP Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_STRING, expecting T_OLD_FUNCTION or T_FUNCTION or T_VAR or '}' in /hermes/waloraweb070/b2342/pow.martinsharro/htdocs/MSSP2014/lib/php/Parsedown.php on line 60

20141029T052909: martinsharrott.com/MSSP2014/contact.php
PHP Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_DOUBLE_ARROW, expecting '(' in /hermes/waloraweb070/b2342/pow.martinsharro/htdocs/MSSP2014/contact.php on line 113

20141029T052915: martinsharrott.com/MSSP2014/index.php
PHP Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_STRING, expecting T_OLD_FUNCTION or T_FUNCTION or T_VAR or '}' in /hermes/waloraweb070/b2342/pow.martinsharro/htdocs/MSSP2014/lib/php/Parsedown.php on line 60

20141029T053011: martinsharrott.com/MSSP2014/ttg-be/admin/index.php
PHP Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_STRING, expecting T_OLD_FUNCTION or T_FUNCTION or T_VAR or '}' in /hermes/waloraweb070/b2342/pow.martinsharro/htdocs/MSSP2014/ttg-be/framework/Framework.php on line 5

The htdocs folder listed is my standard root directory as determined by the provider. My current index.html home page resides there.

Is anyone able to help me? Thanks a lot.
Martin

rod barbee · 2014-10-29 21:45:22

I'm getting nothing but internal server errors (500)

you've uploaded the unzipped ttg-be/ folder to the /MSSP2014/ folder?

MartinS · 2014-10-29 22:05:29

Hi Rod,

The internal server errors have started since I wrote my last post. In the meantime I had been studying the provider's php help pages and saw that the default php version on my site was v4. I selected to use v5 as TTG states minimum 5.2.6 is needed. I thought that might help. But now we see these server errors, which generate the following log on the server:
20141029T080831: www.martinsharrott.com/MSSP2014/index.php
suexec policy violation: see suexec log for more details
Since I have no idea what that means, I have applied to the provider for an explanation.
But since you will not be able to help on the scripts question so long as the 500 error occurs, I shall try setting the php version back to v4. Now done, and the 500 server error is eliminated. Well, at least the php version 5 is causing a problem somewhere! You should now be able to see my new site on www.martinsharrott.com/MSSP2014/index.php. And yes, the entire extracted, unaltered, ttg-be directory and sub-directories is in the same directory as index.php, galleries.php etc.

rod barbee · 2014-10-29 22:32:27

just a guess on my part, and Ben will have to look at it, but I'm guessing that the problem is with your host's php configuration.

PHP 4 won't work, that's for sure.

MartinS · 2014-10-29 23:32:01

Guess what? My host support desk has already responded with the following:

QUOTE
I have updated the version of PHP to 5.3 and was able to access http://martinsharrott.com/MSSP2014/index.php without any issues. Could you please check this after clearing browser cache and cookies.
UNQUOTE

And it works (mostly). The texts in the /fragments/ folder are loaded now. So you were right, Rod, apparently, that the php configuration was to blame. But I still cannot log in to ttg-be/admin/.... A whole lot of error text is generated:

session_start(): open(/var/php_sessions/sess_af008a731f4b0f746559f8a45450fbc9, O_RDWR) failed: No such file or directory (2)|#0 [internal function]: ErrorHandler::handleError(2, 'session_start()...', '/hermes/waloraw...', 94, Array) #1 /hermes/waloraweb070/b2342/pow.martinsharro/htdocs/MSSP2014/ttg-be/framework/init.php(94): session_start() #2 /hermes/waloraweb070/b2342/pow.martinsharro/htdocs/MSSP2014/ttg-be/admin/index.php(17): require_once('/hermes/waloraw...') #3 {main}|URL: /MSSP2014/ttg-be/admin/index.phpUnknown: open(/var/php_sessions/sess_af008a731f4b0f746559f8a45450fbc9, O_RDWR) failed: No such file or directory (2)|Unknown|0

Perhaps this will sort itself out in due course. Should you or Ben have a moment to look, I should be most grateful. For what it is worth, I read the following on the host's PHPscripting page:

Path to your Web document root: /home/users/web/b2342/pow.martinsharro/htdocs
This is important, as most of your scripts will need to specify this location. For example, this is required if you'd like your PHP script to upload files.

Thank you again; I have a feeling I am getting somewhere.

rod barbee · 2014-10-30 00:10:56

Ben will have to take a look. That server stuff is presently beyond me.

rod barbee · 2014-10-30 00:16:04

but until Ben can chime in, see this sticky post: http://community.theturninggate.net/top … ing-ttgbe/
there are a few more things you can ask your host about

MartinS · 2014-10-30 04:55:33

Well, in the meanwhile here is an update. My host provided support and replied:
QUOTE
Yes, '/home/users/web/b2342/pow.martinsharro/htdocs' is the session save path for your account 'martinsharro'. I could see that it was not set properly. This is the reason you are getting an error message while accessing www.martinsharrott.com/MSSP2014/ttg-be/admin/ . However, I have corrected it by setting session.save_path in php.ini page. You can check this by going to https://www.powweb.com/controlpanel/cgi … pplus.html and now the admin login link www.martinsharrott.com/MSSP2014/ttg-be/admin/ is working fine. Could you please check it again from your end after clearing cache and cookies?
UNQUOTE

I cannot find this php.ini file anywhere but perhaps it doesn't matter as I am now able to log in to ttg-be/admin at last. Now for the next phase of setting everything up. I have already received a message "It appears that the PHP directive, "register_globals" is enabled. This is bad. You need to disable it before continuing." There was no indication where such message came from, from TTG or otherwise, let alone what I need to do about it. I have every faith in CE4 but am a 62-year old end-user photographer and unfortunately not a computer programmer as well... it's one thing to deal with the LR and TTG aspects on one's own pc, but how a server works is beyond me.

Anyway, I do very much appreciate all input from the community.

rod barbee · 2014-10-30 06:29:34

php.ini is usually found in the root of the site. You should also be able to access it in your host's C-Panel

ttg-be setup is usually hassle free IF your host is configuring things in a standard way.

I don't know where that message comes from. Could be a database error? But it's one of the things Ben will need to look at.

If these problems keep cropping up you might consider changing hosts.

Ben · 2014-10-30 21:42:00

The register_globals warning isn't raised explicitly by Publisher. I suggest asking your host to disable this. It is a security risk.
Here's the kind of thing that can happen with register_globals on. Let's say the Publisher checks that a username and password has been supplied and sets logged_in=true if they match. With register_globals, a malicious user could navigate to a page with a URL such as http://yoursite.com/galleries/your-gall … ed_in=true and bypass the authentication check.
(this is a made up scenario in regards to Publisher, but outlines the general risks)

Last edited by Ben (2014-10-30 21:42:52)

Community @ The Turning Gate

#1 2014-09-12 00:34:55

Unable to perform action: checkAuth

#2 2014-09-12 00:58:08

Re: Unable to perform action: checkAuth

#3 2014-09-12 02:40:11

Re: Unable to perform action: checkAuth

#4 2014-09-12 03:04:34

Re: Unable to perform action: checkAuth

#5 2014-09-12 10:56:26

Re: Unable to perform action: checkAuth

#6 2014-09-12 14:19:24

Re: Unable to perform action: checkAuth

#7 2014-10-29 18:52:42

Re: Unable to perform action: checkAuth

#8 2014-10-29 21:45:22

Re: Unable to perform action: checkAuth

#9 2014-10-29 22:05:29

Re: Unable to perform action: checkAuth

#10 2014-10-29 22:32:27

Re: Unable to perform action: checkAuth

#11 2014-10-29 23:32:01

Re: Unable to perform action: checkAuth

#12 2014-10-30 00:10:56

Re: Unable to perform action: checkAuth

#13 2014-10-30 00:16:04

Re: Unable to perform action: checkAuth

#14 2014-10-30 04:55:33

Re: Unable to perform action: checkAuth

#15 2014-10-30 06:29:34

Re: Unable to perform action: checkAuth

#16 2014-10-30 21:42:00

Re: Unable to perform action: checkAuth

Board footer