[Closed] PHP Problem

[nate_s_]

Hopefully this will get more attention if I post it than I seem to be getting via the support/phone/MSN support channel.

I discovered this morning that every single website under my reseller account [on the 69.93.8.194 server] that relied on PHP to do an XML translation through XSL to HTML was broken and returning an error.

I opened a trouble ticket at roughly 10:30am EST, noting that it was urgent because many of our clients had important information being displayed through those transformations and anyone accessing their sites got an error saying:

Warning: Sablotron error on line 1: XML parser error 2: syntax error in /home/*/public_html/filename.php on line ??

Every one of these scripts was functioning perfectly at least as of Tuesday night, and I am fairly confident that they were functioning Wednesday as well. Without making any changes to the scripts on any of the sites, Thursday morning they were all broken.

About 45 minutes later, having received no response to my email other than the automated 'someone will get back to you', I contacted the support tech at support@hostgator.com on MSN. This person informed me that I would just have to wait, and could give me no estimate on how long it would take before someone would look at this.

With panicked clients starting to contact me, I called Hostgator directly via the 1-866 number around 11:30am. I spoke with a person whose name I could not catch, but sounded something like "Brent" or "Brad". This person informed me that he would look into the problem and have someone inform me when it was resolved.

Since I could not stand just sitting around doing nothing, a bit of googling revealed that the particular Sablotron error could have been due to the way scripts were importing XML data - my first clue, but a red herring in and of itself. I created a sample script that echoed to screen the results of the PHP file() functions loading the XML/XSL data to ensure that I was indeed loading only the XML data and not a reference to the file or non-XML data somehow.

To my surprise, the file() function was importing the XML data correctly, but was adding slashes to any quotation marks - something it was not doing as of yesterday!

Someone had enabled the 'magic_quotes_runtime' configuration directive in the php.ini file on our server and did not inform us of the change. This, of course, breaks any file() functions in PHP coded with magic_quotes_runtime is off, as PHP will add slashes to quotation marks in external data acquired by almost any function with that directive on.

Thus, an XML statement like:
<?xml version='1.0'?>
becomes
<?xml version=/'1.0/'?>
, which breaks in Sablotron when the XSL processor attempts to run.

At around 11:50am, I fired off an email stating the problem, and asking that an explanation for the change, an explanation of why we were not informed in advance of a critical PHP runtime configuration directive being altered, and if the configuration directive could be changed back or would I need to alter/have my clients alter all the .php scripts utilizing that file() function with XML.

Around 12:10pm, it occurs to me that maybe I can override the php.ini configuration directive with a .htaccess file consisting of the following line:

php_value magic_quotes_runtime 0

[0 = off, obviously]

Fortunately, this worked, so I sent another email:

"TEMPORARILY fixed this problem myself by using an .htaccess file which overrides that php.ini configuration directive.

I would still like to know why it changed, why we weren't notified, and whether you can change that directive back to the way it was yesterday."

Around 12:35pm, Hostgator responds:

"Hi,

Thank you for writing in.

Sorry for the inconvenience caused. We are having a close look at your issue. We will get back soon with the updates.

Please feel free to write in if you have any questions. We are more than happy to hear from you.

Warm Regards,
Support Staff."

Obviously this does not help me at all.

I would like to know why this changed, whether or not it's going to stay changed, and most importantly, why we weren't informed in advance of a runtime configuration directive change. I personally don't think this is a lot to ask for, but I haven't heard anything from Hostgator since just after noon, and the workday is about over here (it's just before 5pm). What adds insult to injury is that my last trouble ticket in regards to an SMTP problem was also troubleshooted by me, after an equally frustrating day of being kept in the dark by Hostgator Support.

*SCREAM!!!*

[GatorJustin]

nate, sorry for the delay in responding. I am going to forward this post to someone higher up than myself and ask that they offer a response here. Please check back soon.

-Justin

[nate_s_]

Now somebody just recompiled PHP and left the Sablotron XSLT processor out entirely.

This seriously sucks.

[GatorJustin]

nate, I apologize for the inconvenience. Everything should be functioning properly as of now. Any other problems, please let me know.

-Justin