[Resolved] Critical Error - Pages displaying lots of wierd characters

[tuf-web_co_uk]

hi,

i'm not exactly sure what the problem is, probably just another one of those server things, but when i go to my website http://www.theutherfish.com everything is displayed normally, then when i click a link (eg. Blogs) there are alot fo characters which shouldnt be there which are there

eg.

¯7LHq ¯¯¯ s¯8¯7ô—o ¯¯¯¯(¯° s±;]ï¿ ¤Šq ± s±B=±= ± s²;]ï¿ ÄŠq ² s²B=²= ²>³1H{q Ø…q ˆq ÄCq i¨…q @†q T{q t4o ¬8o t‹q ;

everything was working fine earlier today, but for some reason this is happening now, in one instant information (pictures, text, links) from a different website altogether, which has no relevance to my site or even linked to from my site, was displayed

if someone coud please suggest what the error is i could find the relevant code and post it here (if necessary)

[tsinka]

Hi,

if I understood you right ... there are more websites affected by this, not only yours ?

Something might be wrong with some of the scripts (hard disk failure ?).

Download blogs.php from your site and look if it is still ok. Additionally, something might be wrong with the web server if e.g. compression is enabled. Looks like a mixture of standard and compressed data. Hard to imagine anything ... the first step is to check blobs.php.

Thomas

[tuf-web_co_uk]

hi, thanks for the reply as always

if i open up (in ZDE) template.php (the file which puts together blogs) everything seems fine, as does blogs.php, the page containing the actual content of the script.

not only this page does it however, i checked a few of the others and they seem fine

in answer to your question(/statement)

"there are more websites affected by this, not only yours ?"

from what i said in my first post, no they're arent any other websites affected that 'i know of', its more a case of other websites being displayed on my webspace within my page

[tsinka]

Hi,

PHP itself seems to be ok ... at least your phpinfo page works.

I get different garbled content each time I load the page (even on index.php) and the garbled output starts after

<title>theutherfish.com

every time. So do you have any php code after theutherfish.com or is the head of the documents always static ?

Thomas

[tuf-web_co_uk]

the header changes

heres some of the code upto and including the header

<?php

session_start();

include ("includes/common.inc");
include ("includes/functions.inc");
$timekeeper = array();
$timereport = array();

$timekeeper = start_track("Page Loaded In", $timekeeper);

include ("includes/template.inc");

$sql = "SELECT * FROM `pageinfo` WHERE `page`='".$_SERVER['SCRIPT_NAME']."'";
$qry = mysql_query($sql, $conn) or die(mysql_error());

$row = mysql_fetch_array($qry);

$index = $row['update'];
$sql = "SELECT * FROM `update` WHERE `id` = '$index' LIMIT 0,1";
$query = mysql_query($sql, $conn) or die(mysql_error());
$test = mysql_fetch_array($query);
if ($_GET['updig'] != "dontshowup") {
	if ($test['updating'] == '1') {
		$url = "http://".$_SERVER['HTTP_HOST']."/update.php";
		die(Header('Location: '. $url));
	}
}
$host_ad = str_replace("www.", "", $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST']);
$_SESSION['host_ad'] = $host_ad;

$time = date('H:i dS F');
$ip = get_ip();

$prev = $HTTP_REFERER;
$brow = $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'];

$sql = "INSERT INTO `users` (`time`, `ip`, `referer`, `browser`, `page`) VALUES ('$time', '$ip', '$prev', '$brow', '".$_SERVER['SCRIPT_NAME']."')";
$qry = mysql_query($sql, $conn) or die(mysql_error());

$tpl = new Template("templates", "remove");

$tpl -> set_file(array(
		"header" => "header.tpl",
		"footer" => "footer.tpl",
		"style" => "style.tpl",
		"body" => "body.tpl",
		"message" => "message.tpl",
		"messagem" => "messagem.tpl"));

$menuitem = $row['menu'];
$tpl -> set_var(MENU, menu($menuitem));

$title = $row['pagename'];
if($title=='' || !isset($title)) { 
	$tpl -> set_var(TITLE, $host_ad." - [Home] - the best thing since sliced bread");
}
else {
	$tpl -> set_var(TITLE, $host_ad." - [".ucwords($title)."] - the best thing since sliced bread");
}
?>

and here is header.tpl

<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Language" content="en-gb">
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=windows-1252">
<meta name="description" content="Comms, And Pager Bring You Games, Entertainment, Jokes Cheats, Waypoints And More Free Stuff At theutherfish.com">
<meta name="keywords" content="comms, pager, rufus, doa, art, pictures, guestbook, guest, forum, post, cheats, playstation, 2, ps2, gc, gba, xbox, x-box, game, cube, boy, adavcned, games, jokes, blondes, blonde, blond, bar, general, animal, Chat Up Lines, Educational, Religious, Law, Limericks, Ya, Mamma, Medical, Q&A, Sex, Sport, Work, waypoints, polyphonic, phone, podbot, counter, strike, bot, download">
<title>{TITLE}</title>
{header_out}
</head>

<body>

[tsinka]

Ok,

that makes things clearer I think. Seems like something is wrong with $host_ad or in this case maybe with $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'] because I noticed that the only places where the garbled code appears do begin with
www.theutherfish.com<garbled code>

Hard to guess anything ... just search in that direction. On the other hand ... $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'] looks fine on the phpinfo page ... 😕

Add this to your phpinfo page:

echo $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST']."<br>\n";

to check ... really confusing.

Thomas

[tuf-web_co_uk]

yes, very wierd, i echoed out $host_ad and it each time the garbled code appears its exactly the same.

i checked games.php and these links worked

Home
Trick-Tips
Games
Cheats
Waypoints

however all the rest didnt.

i placed echo $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST']."<br>\n"; in my phpinfo page and it just showed www.theutherfish.com

[tsinka]

Ok,

it's getting worse ... each time I open your site I just get only garbled code (all starting with www.theutherfish.com). No menu, no links, nothing.

One time I saw the message "Template Error" in between the garbled code.

What happens if you use a static value for $host_ad like

$host_ad = "theutherfisch.com";

One question: are your scripts encoded (Zend Encoder) ? I don't think so but just to make sure.

Another thing to try:

What do you get if you add print_r($_SESSION) somewhere in the code ? Maybe some session problems.

Thomas

[tuf-web_co_uk]

hi, thanks again for the reply

erm no my code isnt zend encoded, i know its some form of protecting php code, but i've never used it

erm print_r($_SESSION) gives me

Array ( )

however when i go onto another page i get

Array ( [host_ad] => theutherfish.com [pagetime] => 0.026344060897827 )

i also changed the host_ad to a static and that brought no luck either

[tsinka]

On cheats.php I got

Array ( [host_ad] => theutherfish.comûÀ4‚ x7LŽ x7ÙC!@þÀ@þÀdŽ x7ÙC4yˆ x7|Ž x7ÙC”Ž x7¬Ž x7ÙCÄŽ x7+q ÜŽ xPÙCôŽ x8Xï¿x7ÙC Ž x7Xï¿$Ž x7Xï¿<Ž x7TŽ x7T mlŽ x7_id„yˆ x7„Ž x7zˆ œŽ x7Xï¿´Ž x7ÌŽ x7P} äŽ x7üŽ x7r_iŽ 08Þ… (N} 4O} Ü.˜ yˆ 9øM}N} (ÿž lN} ÄO} Ì€ halti(N} ÈN} TÞ… ÌØr üØr ô>} ........................

So in this case it seems like the garbled host_ad has been saved in the session or the data saved in the session has been garbled in some way.

Thomas

[tuf-web_co_uk]

hi,

i commented out the session_start() at the top of my template page and now there are no errors at all

its easy to say from now onwards dont use session but a few of my pages need them

any suggestions?

[tsinka]

Hmmm,

what happens if you use different names for session keys and variable names like e.g.:

$_SESSION['sess_host_ad'] = $host_ad;

and use $SESSION['sess_host_ad'] instead in scripts that need the session data (but not $sess_host_ad = $SESSION['sess_host_ad'] in the other scripts, rather $host_ad = $_SESSION['sess_host_ad'])

It might be a problem to use same names since register_globals is set to on. So each time you do something with $host_ad you would probably manipulate the session value also even if you don't want to.

But ... I wonder if this "different names" stuff is really the problem since it worked fine 'till today.

Thomas

[tuf-web_co_uk]

again thank you for the reply

i did as instructed, and changed the pages using ['host_ad'] to ['sess_host_ad'] the problem still occured however

i then decided to experiment slightly and stopped calling the $_SESSION var in that script, and now it works perfectly again.

here is the script causing the problem as it stands now (error free)

<?php
function menu($page) {

// Array Of Arrays Of Main Urls
// Format - (Link Mask, Url, Rollover Effect (1=On,2=Off), Open Link In New Window, Title)
$array = array("1" =>
	array("1" => "Home", "/index.php", 1, 0, "Home"),
	array("1" => "Trick-Tips", "/trick-tips.php", 1, 0, "Skateboarding Trick-Tips"), 
	array("1" => "Games", "/games.php", 1, 0, "Flash And Java Games"), 
	array("1" => "Cheats", "/cheats.php", 1, 0, "PS2/GC/GBA/XBOX Cheats"), 
	array("1" => "Waypoints", "/waypoints.php", 1, 0, "Download Counter-Strike PODBot Waypoints"), 
	array("1" => "Forum", "/forum/", 1, 1, "Forum"),
	array("1" => "Blogs", "/blogs.php", 1, 0, "Blogs (Web Logs)"),
	array("1" => "Jokes", "/jokes.php", 1, 0, "Jokes"),
	array("1" => "Poll", "/poll.php", 1, 0, "Poll")
);

$listnum = count($array) + 1; // Add One To Tell The For Loops When To Stop

for ($i=1;$i<$listnum;$i++) {
	if ($i == $page) {
		// Change The Rollover Effect To Suit The Page
		$array[$i][3] = 2;
	}
}

// Start Putting Together The Menu
$display = "";

$display .= "<td width=\"2\" 
style=\"border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1\" 
bordercolor=\"#111111\"></td>\n";

for ($i=1;$i<$listnum;$i++) {

	// Decide Wether Or Not The Item Is Selected
	if ($array[$i][3] == 2)	{
		$rollover = "class=\"highlight\" bordercolor=\"#111111\"";
	}
	else {
		$rollover = "class=\"normal\" onMouseOver=\"this.className='highlight'\" onMouseOut=\"this.className='normal'\" bordercolor=\"#111111\"";
	}

	// If Url Equals 0 Then Dont Create A Hyperlink
	if ($array[$i][2] == "0") {	
		$display .= "<td align=\"center\" ".$rollover." ";
		$display .= "><p><font class=\"user\">".$array[$i][1]."</td>\n";
	}
	else {
		$display .= "<td align=\"center\" ".$rollover." ";	
		$display .= "><p style=\"margin-top: 7; margin-bottom: 7;\"><a href=\"".$array[$i][2]."\" title=\"".$array[$i][5]."\" class=\"nav\" ";

		// Open Link In New Window
		if ($array[$i][4] == 1) {
			$display .= "target=\"_BLANK\"";
		}

		$display .= ">".$array[$i][1]."</a></td>\n";

	}

	$display .= "<td width=\"2\" 
	style=\"border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1\" 
	bordercolor=\"#111111\"></td>\n";

}

// Finish Menu

// Return $display For Echoing
return $display;

}
?>

the array at the top of the page is what i had changed in order to fix it, here is what it looked like previously

<?php
$array = array("1" =>
		array("1" => "Home", "/index.php", 1, 0, $_SESSION['sess_host_ad']."'s Home"),
		array("1" => "Trick-Tips", "/trick-tips.php", 1, 0, "Skateboarding Trick-Tips"), 
		array("1" => "Games", "/games.php", 1, 0, "Flash And Java Games"), 
		array("1" => "Cheats", "/cheats.php", 1, 0, "PS2/GC/GBA/XBOX Cheats"), 
		array("1" => "Waypoints", "/waypoints.php", 1, 0, "Download Counter-Strike PODBot Waypoints"), 
		array("1" => "Forum", "http://www.".$_SESSION['sess_host_ad']."/forum/", 1, 1, $_SESSION['sess_host_ad']."'s forum"),
		array("1" => "Blogs", "http://www.".$_SESSION['sess_host_ad']."/blogs.php", 1, 0, $_SESSION['sess_host_ad']."'s Blogs (Web Logs)"),
		array("1" => "Jokes", "http://www.".$_SESSION['sess_host_ad']."/jokes.php", 1, 0, $_SESSION['sess_host_ad']."'s Jokes"),
		array("1" => "Poll", "http://www.".$_SESSION['sess_host_ad']."/poll.php", 1, 0, $_SESSION['sess_host_ad']."'s Poll")
	);
?>

in the end everything works perfectly, thank you btw, i'll make sure to click 'resolved' when i try to get this last question out of u 🙂

why from doing the above has the problem gone?
in other words why does $_SESSION['sess_host_ad'] contain

theutherfish.comAXjv Èáw +_4‰kv üiv †w host_ad‘ èþÀèþÀ™ ˜Hvt h‹v „I@$æs II@<æs IÙCJ;]ï¿vt JÙCJB

instead of

theutherfish.com

thank you, Jon

[tsinka]

Hi,

don't now exactly, maybe some kind of buffer overflow: I wonder if something like this would also cause such problems:

<?php 
$host_ad = $_SESSION['sess_host_ad'];
$array = array("1" => 
        array("1" => "Home", "/index.php", 1, 0, $host_ad."'s Home"), 
        array("1" => "Trick-Tips", "/trick-tips.php", 1, 0, "Skateboarding Trick-Tips"),  

        array("1" => "Games", "/games.php", 1, 0, "Flash And Java Games"),  

        array("1" => "Cheats", "/cheats.php", 1, 0, "PS2/GC/GBA/XBOX Cheats"),  

        array("1" => "Waypoints", "/waypoints.php", 1, 0, "Download Counter-Strike PODBot Waypoints"),  

        array("1" => "Forum", "http://www.".$host_ad."/forum/", 1, 1, $host_ad."'s forum"), 
        array("1" => "Blogs", "http://www.".$host_ad."/blogs.php", 1, 0, $host_ad."'s Blogs (Web Logs)"), 
        array("1" => "Jokes", "http://www.".$host_ad."/jokes.php", 1, 0, $host_ad."'s Jokes"), 
        array("1" => "Poll", "http://www.".$host_ad."/poll.php", 1, 0, $host_ad."'s Poll") 
    ); 
?>

btw... I'd suggest not to use reserved words as variable names like e.g. $array.

Thomas

[tuf-web_co_uk]

ok thanks for that reserved words tip

i cant use $host_ad inside the function, thats why i was using $_SESSION['host_ad']

another thing

<?php
$host_ad = str_replace("www.", "", $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST']);
echo $host_ad; // echos theutherfish.com
$_SESSION['sess_host_ad'] = $host_ad;
echo $_SESSION['sess_host_ad']; // echos theutherfish.com<and then garbage>

$_SESSION['sess_host_ad'] = str_replace("www.", "", $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST']);

echo $_SESSION['sess_host_ad']; // echos theutherfish.com
?>

i wonder what exactly happens during this process
$_SESSION['sess_host_ad'] = $host_ad;

that causes the garbage

[tsinka]

Hi,

this seems to be a buffer problem.

What happens with this code:

<?php 
$host_ad = str_replace("www.", "", $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST']); 
echo $host_ad; // echos theutherfish.com 
$_SESSION['sess_host_ad'] = $host_ad; 
session_write_close();
session_start();
echo $_SESSION['sess_host_ad']; // echos theutherfish.com<and then garbage> 

$_SESSION['sess_host_ad'] = str_replace("www.", "", $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST']); 

echo $_SESSION['sess_host_ad']; // echos theutherfish.com 
?> 

Thomas

[tuf-web_co_uk]

for that i get

theutherfish.comtheutherfish.comtheutherfish.com<garbled code>
Warning: mysql_query(): supplied argument is not a valid MySQL-Link resource in /home/theuther/public_html/includes/template.php on line 50

[tsinka]

Which parts of the output relate to which lines ?

[tuf-web_co_uk]

i'm guessing

echo $host_ad; // echos theutherfish.com
echo $_SESSION['sess_host_ad']; // echos theutherfish.com

and the last one
echo $_SESSION['sess_host_ad']; // echos theutherfish.com <garbled code>

the mysql error was caused by code later on, so i seperated what you gave me from the rest and heres the output

http://www.theutherfish.com/sess_test.php

[tsinka]

Hi,

change the test script to this code (no other code) and see what it does:

<?php  

session_start();

$text = "";
if (isset($_SESSION['sess_host_ad'])) {
  $text =  $_SESSION['sess_host_ad']."<br>\n";
} else {
  $host_ad = str_replace("www.", "", $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST']);  

  $_SESSION['sess_host_add'] = $host_ad;
  $text = "Session data: ".$host_ad;
}
?>  

<html>
  <head>
    <title>Test</title>
  </head>
  <body>
    Text: <?=$text?><br>
    <a href="<?=$_SERVER['PHP_SELF']?>">Klick</a>
  </body>
</html>

Do you get any garbled output clicking on the link ?

Thomas