Search Engine Melodrama

[Somebody]

No error at all, it just...doesn't work. You can try it yourself. No matter what you search for, you just get a link that takes you back to the search page.

I think he was asking about the server logs. It's quite possible that, for security reasons, the server suppresses error messages on the actual page.

[Russ Chappell]

The server logs aren't showing any errors connected with the search page. There are only two errors in the error log from the past 24 hours, and they both deal with Chrissy's Marvelous Zone blog.

In the past, when there have been server errors, it's immediately apparent. Here's it's like the server isn't running into any errors, it thinks it's processing the script, but it just returns...nothing. So I have to think there's some critical php command that the new php interpreter is just...ignoring.

[Russ Chappell]

The only place where the php script writes the word "Back" to the page is in the error management function...

[michel]

Russ, try to copy your code in this PHP compiler with the correct connection identifiers and see if you have error messages.

[Russ Chappell]

Thanks. I tried that, and it reported no errors, which suggests that the problem is not related to accessing the database, but rather with what to do with information it finds. Perhaps the section in displaying the results--building the html code--isn't recognized by the new php. It doesn't generate an error. It just doesn't generate anything.

[michel]

Try to get the result of a basic query using just echo instead of the publishComic function, just to be sure you can access the database.

[Russ Chappell]

I'll try this one over the weekend.

[michel]

Good. If this works, then try using fetch_object() instead of fetch_assoc(), it's the function used in your code.

[Midnighter]

The search is working again!!!

[Russ Chappell]

It's been up about 10 minutes, now.

Eternal gratitude to everyone who contributed ideas.

[Col_Fury]

Yay!

[Russ Chappell]

Would you like to hear a story?

As you're probably aware, we struggled for several weeks to get the search function up and running. I'll admit there were some pretty dark days at MCP Central in early March.

At the first of March, our hosting service upgraded the version of PHP that powers our site. We originally had the option to choose from a number of versions of PHP, but our version of the forum software (phpBB) insisted that we opt for one of the older versions.

There were newer versions of the forum software that could run on newer versions of PHP, but we had held off on upgrading the forum, because experience has shown us that every time we upgrade the forum, our functionality basically gets wiped out, and we have to start over, to regain all the features we like.

Everything was fine, as long as we had the option to run a version of PHP and a version of phpBB that could talk to each other.

That all changed on March 1. They removed the option to use an older version of PHP. There are no recriminations to our provider. We understand their decision. It was the right thing to do. But it put us in a bad spot.

We now had the option to choose between versions of PHP from 7.0 to 7.4. Our provider automatically chose the most advanced version, 7.4, which crashed the forum. So I manually went into our control panel and reverted PHP down to 7.0, which our forum could understand.

And we were back, and all was well.

Or so we thought.

We had not realized that the search page, which also ran on the older version of PHP, had also crashed, and this time, there was no "newer version" of the Search Page to install.

The Search was custom written for us by Jimmy Petersson, many years ago. He originally hosted the search on his own server. Years after that--but still many years ago--he approached me and said that he could no longer dedicate the time and space to host and manage and run the search, but he offered it all to me, and helped me set it up here at chronologyproject.com.

Over the years, we've added new tweaks to our listings (weird issue numbers, recursive flashbacks, alternate dimension pages, collapsing and exploding listings) and I've learned juuuuussssttt enough PHP to tweak the scripts that actually build the database, and then scrape that database for the search page.

A few years ago, Jimmy briefly stepped back in to help us patch a security breach.

But this was something else. I feared that a completely new version of PHP would require a complete overhaul of the script, something that I just didn't have in me. I'm getting on in years, and I'm really not up to a complete rebuild. So I was ready to cash in the search engine and let it wither.

But some of you weren't quite ready for that.

Quietly. Quietly. Behind the scenes, there was movement down two parallel tracks.

Michel--if you've spent any time in the forums, you're familiar with michel--had many discussions with us, offering us his expertise and his insights. You saw some of them here in the Bug Reports forum, in this very thread. There were many more than you didn't see. Every day, almost every hour that I logged in, I would find Private Messages from michel, suggesting that I try this, or tweak that.

Running separately--but at the same time, in tandem--Col_Fury was consulting with his niece Debra. Debra doesn't know us, nor does she know much about what we're trying to accomplish, but she knows more than a little about databases. So, likewise, we were receiving advice from her on a regular basis, and she was pointing us in the right direction.

Eventually, these two parallel tracks converged. Both of them had come to the separate but equal conclusion that the script itself was healthy, and could run on PHP 7, but the problem was in how PHP was hashing the database password.

Michel had been pushing for a consultation with our hosting provider's technical support, where we would ask them to basically alter the way that PHP sees our password (I know I'm not explaining it well; perhaps michel can do better). He provided some links to sites that explained the problem, and encouraged me to share those links with tech support.

I committed to place a call to tech support this weekend, when I had some time away from my real-life job.

In the meantime, we also shared the fruits of michel's research with Debra. Something she read in michel's links set off a light bulb over her head. She said, basically, "I agree. But there's the possibility it may not be as complicated as we're making it."

She suggested changing the database password. She believed that PHP 7 would automatically rehash the password to something it could work with. So I logged into the website's control panel, changed the database password, likewise changed the password in the search script, uploaded the script to the server, crossed my fingers, and hit the search button.

Voilà.

So our eternal thanks to michel and Debra. And you should thank them, too, when next you see them.

As a footnote: In the middle of all this, we decided to go forward with updating the forum software. And SURE ENOUGH, we lost ALL of our functionality. We're slowly making process on that front--again, behind the scenes--but that, my friends, is another story.

[Col_Fury]

That's my niece, LADY CODE-MASTER, Esq.! Can you believe she was the flower girl at Sarah and I's wedding almost 20 years ago? Where does the time go?

A great big thanks to michel and Debra! We couldn't have done it without you!

[Midnighter]

Great job! Thanks to all of you and thanks to Debra!

I notice that the chronology theme of the forum also seems to be working now.


"And there came a day unlike any other, when earth's mightiest chronologists were united against a common threat! On that day the Avengers were born! -- To fix a bug that no single chronologist could withstand!"