Question Problems after importing vBSEO settings

[Bulbagarden]

Just purchased the product today to move away from vBSEO. It seemed to install correctly, and the vBSEO setting import also appeared to work like a charm. The URL Rewrite Settings were copied over exactly as we had them.

However for some reason it seems the URL's aren't actually rewriting. Instead, we're just seeing the standard vBulletin URL's for threads/forums/etc. Can't seem to identify any obvious reason why this would be happening. Double-checked to be sure, and the mod is properly enabled, the .htaccess has been setup according to the readme instructions.

Any ideas as to what might be going on here, and what we might do to resolve it?

 

[Nirjonadda]

I think you can Enable Legacy Forum URL.

 

[Fillip H.]

Just purchased the product today to move away from vBSEO. It seemed to install correctly, and the vBSEO setting import also appeared to work like a charm. The URL Rewrite Settings were copied over exactly as we had them.

However for some reason it seems the URL's aren't actually rewriting. Instead, we're just seeing the standard vBulletin URL's for threads/forums/etc. Can't seem to identify any obvious reason why this would be happening. Double-checked to be sure, and the mod is properly enabled, the .htaccess has been setup according to the readme instructions.

Any ideas as to what might be going on here, and what we might do to resolve it?

Are you behind some form of cache service like CloudFlare? If so, that may be a reason. Try flushing any cache systems you may be running.

 

[Bulbagarden]

Our forums aren't behind any caching system, no.

 

[Fillip H.]

Could you please create and PM me with a temporary FTP and AdminCP account?

For security reasons, we recommend you create a new FTP account only for DBTech support, then disable or delete it after we have both confirmed the issue has been solved and there are no further issues.

The same applies to AdminCP accounts; they should ideally be temporary accounts created for us only. If we have created an account on your site already, you can optionally boost that account to Administrator and then de-admin this account once the issue has been solved.

If you use a .htaccess password protection for your AdminCP directory, it is recommended that you create a new authorised user for DBTech and remove this user once the issue has been solved.

Please test any temporary accounts you create to ensure that the FTP account has access to the forum files, and that the AdminCP account can access the administrative controls for the product we are assisting you with.

Ensuring this is all in order before submitting the information will significantly speed up the process of assisting you. We will alert you via PM if there's any issues with the login information you have provided.

When sending the PM, for your security you should also un-tick the "Save a copy in my Sent Items folder" checkbox. When the access details have been received, we will delete the PM from our inbox. Ensuring you have not kept a copy of the PM reduces the risk of security breaches.

Thank you for helping us debug our products and allowing us to assist you, we appreciate it

 

[Bulbagarden]

Can do, will just be a couple of mins. I'm currently in the middle of importing vBSEO likes to your other mod however, so you should probably hold off a little bit before doing anything drastic. Forums are currently switched off.

EDIT: And sent.

EDIT2: Just finished everything for the vBSEO likes, and am now reopening the forums to our users.

 

[Fillip H.]

Our forums aren't behind any caching system, no.

You have Zend OPCache enabled on your forum, and it is caching PHP scripts, which is rarely a good idea.

It is highly likely this is behind your problem, and in either case it's making debug efforts impossible as it does not correctly refresh files when they are edited on the server.

Please modify php.ini and set opcache.enable = Off then restart Apache. I recommend installing XCache and upgrading to PHP 5.4 / Apache 2.4 as a means of increasing performance, rather than relying on PHP file caching.

 

[Bulbagarden]

You have Zend OPCache enabled on your forum, and it is caching PHP scripts, which is rarely a good idea.

It is highly likely this is behind your problem, and in either case it's making debug efforts impossible as it does not correctly refresh files when they are edited on the server.

Please modify php.ini and set opcache.enable = Off then restart Apache. I recommend installing XCache and upgrading to PHP 5.4 / Apache 2.4 as a means of increasing performance, rather than relying on PHP file caching.

Requested changes and updates have been made. Let me know if there's any more issues with debugging.

 

[Fillip H.]

I will post back when I have more information for you

 

[Fillip H.]

Update: Your PHP Info page is now showing as using XCache instead of Zend Cache, but it is not configured correctly.

Add this to your php.ini file to enable XCache to work as intended:

xcache.var_size = 512M
xcache.var_ttl = 7200
xcache.admin.enable_auth = "off"

 

[Fillip H.]

Update 2: The reason why forum rewrites are not working is that your Forum Cache is corrupt. vBulletin bypasses this by re-querying all forums, reducing the performance of the forum as a whole as a result.

I believe this is due to the é character. I'm going to test whether replacing it with the HTML Entity é will still display correctly in the front-end and if so, replace it in the database for all forum titles & descriptions.

 

[Fillip H.]

Update 3: After an hour of finding invalid characters in your forum descriptions, I have successfully replaced all instances of é with é, an instance of a MS Word-style dash - with a "normal" dash, and I have found 3 forum descriptions that need to be converted to Unicode HTML entities.

forum416: 日本語で話してもいいですよ。

forum492: 日本語で話してもいいですよ。

forum236: 日本語で話してもいいですよ。

I have removed these characters from the listed forums' descriptions for the time being.

 

[Bulbagarden]

Sorry for not replying earlier. Things been a bit crazy this past week IRL.

It's looking like the changes you made fixed the problems, and the addon is now working correctly. Thank you very much for all your assistance. =) Will be installing the update later this week, looking forward to seeing the new features you've added in action. =)