Simplecache on causes problems with certain characters (was: Certain characters break profile photo in Elgg 1.6.1)

[tomv]

As described in ​http://community.elgg.org/mod/groups/topicposts.php?topic=259752&group_guid=212067

Users with a "." in their user name can not see, upload or change their profile photo.

For example we have usernames like:

# ...pg/profile/em.van.buuren
# ...pg/profile/gpm.huijgen
# ...pg/profile/j.repping@…

And they all break. Seen in 1.5, 1.6 and 1.6.1

[tomv]

Temporarly patch to avoid wrong usernames in the system:

in ..\engine\lib\users.php , I commented out line 1142-1160 and instead:

// Patch by TVld
if(preg_replace('/[a-zA-Z0-9]/', '', $username) )
   throw new RegistrationException(elgg_echo('registration:invalidchars'));

[brettp]

I cannot duplicate this error. It has been reported by another user, so it must happen under certain server configurations. Please provide details about your server and php settings.

[tomv]

Hm, as long as the other user is not me and myself ;)

It happened on our hosted production and we easily replicated on our testserver ubuntu 8.1. Complete different OS/PHP setups but both Elgg 1.6.1. Attached the phpinfo of the production server.

Have you tried to create a new user with username "th.isname" ? If we do, we can not upload a profile photo. If you can, it must be a plugin causing the trouble?... any clue which one it might be..?

[tomv]

PHPInfo of production server

[darkwingduck]

on test server, just disable all 3rd party addons, then try it enabling one addon each time, so you can find out which addon makes the problem, if it's an addon.

[tomv]

@ dduck: of course; all users should rule out plugin causes before submitting to track.

What we did is:

1- disable *all* plugins and then just enable the profile plugin, as that is min to test upload of photo.
2 - Create user with username "ja.ntje"
3- and guess what, again no photo upload possible.

Remember this only happens in 1.6 and 1.6.1 With 1.5 all was ok. I replicated this successfully on 3 different servers; including 2 clean installs.

No, guys, regular bug in the core.

[tomv]

Seems an viewcache issue... deleting the directory and in the site settings viewcache, we have some progress...

[tomv]

It seems a cache issue. Can simplecache/viewcache stumble over "." in usernames ???

[tomv]

Simplecache - off - all is fine / Simple cache on: users with "." in their usernames have problems

[brettp]

Reopening this with a different title so it doesn't get lost. Thanks for all the investigating everyone!

[cash]

I can't see how this has anything to do with simplecache (that is the profile photos disappearing). revision 3329 caused this by changing the filestore path of users who have a . in their usernames.

[c.west]

We are seeing the exact same problem. All usernames with a '.' in them (most of them in our case) lose and cannot change their profile icon with simplecache on. Switching it off cures the problem.
Also, Group icons disappeared.

[c.west]

...and uploaded files that are images have disappeared also. Other files are fine. These haven't returned after simplecache is turned off

[koskos]

The same problem, also all files uploaded before upgrade to 1.6.1 are unavailable.

And I suppose that 1.6.1 interprets logins differently than 1.5. In 1.5 there were l, o, g, i, n folders, but in 1.6 the dot got a “_” sign, so the folders are: l, o, g, _, i, n . That’s why the files that used to be uploaded are not available for me.

(I described that here: ​https://trac.elgg.org/elgg/ticket/1260)

[brettp]

I have a solution to this but need someone using Windows to answer a few questions. Is anyone using Elgg on Windows in this thread?

[darkwingduck]

Just shoot it, so someone who does can answer. I use windows but currently have some urgent stuff to deal with. I can answer too, when I have some time to breathe and install 1.6.

[brettp]

From a Windows user who has this problem and either migrated to 1.6 OR is still running 1.5 I need:[BR]
*A full list of their data directory
*A full list of their users
*The type of FS their data directory is on.

[cash]

We had the issue on Linux with file system ext3.

[brettp]

Yes, this problem will exist in any 1.5 -> 1.6 migration, but I need to know how Windows dealt with the original directory structure in order to write a migration script. Linux-based system silently failed when trying to create a dir with an invalid character. I don't know if Windows will react the same, so I need to test the data migration script on a Windows source to make sure there is no data loss.

[brettp]

Please test the solution tagged as 1.6.2 in SVN at ​http://code.elgg.org/elgg/releases/core/elgg1.6.2/

I'm holding off releasing this until I get some feedback about migrations from more users than me.

[cash]

We had already fixed it in our version. Sorry :(

[tomv]

​http://code.elgg.org/elgg/releases/core/elgg1.6.2/ is asking username/password...can we also use ​http://code.elgg.org/elgg/trunk ?

[tomv]

Ignore that please... Tortoise tricked me

[brettp]

This should be fixed with the 2009102801 code update.