Question

I just installed CommentPlugin on my hosted server and it seemed to work OK in terms of displaying the comment boxes. However, when I try to make a comment and save it, I get the following error message:

"The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.

Please contact the server administrator, wwwadmin@skyloomPLEASENOSPAM.com and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have caused the error.

More information about this error may be available in the server error log.

Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request. "

I went back and double checked the location of the installed plugin components and also checked that their permissions were set same as other similar files in those locations. I've tapped out my depth of trouble-shooting knowledge. Any suggestions where I should look for the glitch? I think this is a very useful plugin and I'd love to get it working.

Thanks! .

• TWiki version: Dec. O1
• Web server: Apache
• Server OS: Linux
• Web browser: IE 5
• Client OS: Mac OS X

-- LynnwoodBrown - 17 Mar 2002

Answer

I would need more information. In a nutshell, this doesn't look at all like an error with CommentPlugin

1. Please check the apache error_log to see what problems might be logged
2. Check to make sure that permissions are set correctly on the CommentPlugin.pm and savecomment files
3. Make sure that the http server has been rebooted after CommentPlugin was installed -- sometimes this makes a big difference if everything else works fine -- especially if you're using mod_perl.

-- DavidWeller - 18 Mar 2002

David - Thanks for the suggestions. I've been on the road for several days and have just found your responce and have followed up on them. Here's the results:

• First, I double checked the permissions on CommentPluggin.pm and Savecomment.pl files. They were the same as other files in their respective folders which was 644 and 755 respectively.
• As far as I know, I can't reboot the http server since I am on a hosted domain - so I had to skip over this suggestion.
• I tried the commentplugin and got the same error message as before.
• Here is the error_log output:

[Fri Mar 22 00:14:45 2002] [error] [client 209.12.75.126] File does not exist: /home/skyloom/public_html/twiki/500.shtml
[Fri Mar 22 00:14:45 2002] [error] [client 209.12.75.126] Premature end of script headers: /home/skyloom/public_html/twiki/bin/savecomment.pl
[Fri Mar 22 00:14:45 2002] [error] (8)Exec format error: exec of /home/skyloom/public_html/twiki/bin/savecomment.pl failed

I don't know what the "500.shtml" file is that it is not finding, but that seems be be where it's tripping up. Futher suggestions? Many thanks!

-- LynnwoodBrown - 21 Mar 2002

Yup, if I remember, savecomment.pl must be added to the httpd.conf file to allow savecomment the same permissions as "save". I don't have access to my TWiki server right now, so I can't post an example. However, I can definitely say that since the httpd.conf file is modified, you need to have the http server rebooted. Sorry, there's no getting around that one, I think. Maybe somebody can provide a counterpoint, but I think that's what you need to do.

-- DavidWeller - 22 Mar 2002

I think what's needed is to add the following to the twiki/bin/.htaccess file:

<Files "savecomment.pl">
       require valid-user
</Files>

This could be done in a different way in httpd.conf, but this way it doesn't require a server restart. I haven't actually tried this, but it seems logical. However, I'm not sure it will fix this problem - perhaps you meant some other sort of config but I can't see why else savecomment would be mentioned in the Apache config or .htaccess files.

Not sure what the exec error means, but do check the shebang line on comment.pl is correct.

-- RichardDonkin - 22 Mar 2002

I made the addition to my .htaccess file as suggested. The result was that I was asked to sign in but then still got the same error message as before.

I appreciate the feedback and suggestions. Some of it is beyond my current level of understanding. Here's my current questions:

• Am I right in my assumption that I can not reboot the http server on my hosted domain? If not, how do I do this?
• Richard - what do you mean by "check the shebang line on comment.pl is correct"? I'm assuming you are referring to the savecomment.pl script. but I could not find any reference to "shebang" there.

-- LynnwoodBrown - 22 Mar 2002

• shebang is following red text #!/usr/bin/perl -w as first line of any perl script.
• correct for David means (IMHO): shebang should point to a valid perl compiler. Because other scripts at yout TWiki are are running OK, shebang s/b exactly same as in other scripts.

You may ask your hosting service provider how to reboot your http server, or if they can do it for you. Maybe it is not needed - they should know how .htaccess file should behave after changes.

Also, keep in mind that CommentPlugin has bug (IMHO), does not check for page being locked for edit, and any comments submitted during page lock may be lost. See my recent comments at CommentPluginDev.

Good luck!

-- PeterMasiar - 22 Mar 2002

Thanks, Peter, for further guidance. I checked shebang in the savecomment.pl script and it is identical to that in the other scripts so that looks OK. I've sent a note to customer support on my domain host and inquired about rebooting my http server. We'll see what that brings.... My hunch is my trouble is elsewhere but I don't have any other leads at present.

-- LynnwoodBrown - 22 Mar 2002

Well, I finally solved my problems with CommentPlugin. There were actually two problems, both related to my hosted domain. The first had to do with the need to have comment text files be owned by "nobody." I should have caught this one earlier. The second had to do with a bug in my domain hoster's file editing software what I've occasionally used to edit cgi scripts. When it saves the file, it messes with some of the formatting and thereby crippled the savecomment script. After replacing with a new copy of the script, everything started working.

So...this topic is hereby closed. Thanks again for all who've help me out!

-- LynnwoodBrown - 11 Apr 2002

I had a problem which I struggled with for a while, but found the solution in the text above. I'm running TWiki as an intranet tool, so I'm using the Intranet Login Name to authenticate Twiki Users. Each time I tried to add a comment, it was signed TWikiUser, so I tried fiddling with the CommentPlugin preferences, and even the Perl scripts. I read this thread, and added the line to .htaccess, which worked! I think this should be mentioned on the installation page for CommentPlugin, as I can't see how it can work without it, and I doubt everyone would think of doing it.

-- ClaudeSchneider - 16 Aug 2002

Question

I just installed TWiki on my RH8.0 system and I like it. I added the commentplugin and after some searching it works now, but not completely. I can use the comment form and it works but it will not sign the comments at al. It just looks like this:

test opmerking nr 1

---

test 2

---

It won't recognize any pluginvariable at all, just the parameters I add to the %comment% call work mostly.

Can anybody advice me something. I checked filepermissions and ownership BTW.

-- LucBos - 31 Jan 2003