works with cmd line but not browser

Tswitz00

I have a php script that calls a local vbs script on my server and the script works fine if I call it from the command line "php myscipt.php" but if I run it from localhost in my browser it hangs and never completes the script.

All that is in the php script is

try {
 echo exec('cscript mydir\temp.vbs');

}
catch (Exception $e) {
  echo $e->getMessage();
}

In the vbs script it creates an object, logs on and tries to update a record and then logs out. It will get to the point where it creates the object and logs on but after that it hangs when run from the browser but has no problem if ran from cmd line.

Any thoughts?

Im running php 5.1.3 on a windows 2003 machine.

MarkR

Almost certainly you're doing something with COM which causes it to pop-up an invisible dialogue box.

This is the scourge of OLE automation and what makes it often unusable in back-end systems.

Bear in mind that under some Windows web servers (IIS), the user does not have a proper profile loaded so some things simply don't work as they would if you were "properly" logged on.

Maybe you can try to debug this by running IIS in its special debug mode where it can run as a normal user from the CLI (Yes, it is possible, read the docs).

Then again, maybe if you do that, it won't fail. This is frequently a problem.

Your best bet is to NOT USE OLE Automation in non-interactive applications. Most OLE automation things (MSword, Excel etc) do not handle errors in a way which is remotely suitable for non-internative use.

Mark

MarkR

Obviously if you want people to help futher, post the contents of temp.vbs

Mark

PS: Most functions in PHP will not throw exceptions if they fail - unless you have an error handler which converts errors or warnings into exceptions

Tswitz00

Cotents of vbs script

Dim DB
Set DB = WScript.CreateObject("company.Object")
DB.Open "param1", "param2", "param3", "param4"
DB.Login "Username", "Password"
DB.Contact.NewRecord
DB.Contact.Value("LAST_NAME") = "ZZxxtester"
DB.Contact.Value("FIRST_NAME") = "ZZtest"
DB.Contact.Update
DB.Logout
DB.Close

thorpe

Have you tried to write this vbs script in php using the [man]com[/man] function? Not sure if it will help at all but it might be something to try?

Also... you might try running the script via wscript as I think its non interactive. eg;

exec('wscript mydir\temp.vbs');

Tswitz00

Ya I tried the COM originally but when I go to set the value like it is in the vbs script

$DB->Contact->Value("LAST_NAME")="zzTester";

I get an error
"Fatal error: Can't use method return value in write context in ........"

I looked around for that error and the best I found was that it was a bug in 5.1.x so since I knew the vbs script worked I just opted to call that.

Also as far as cscript and wscript I tried them both.

MarkR

Ok, the problem is obviously happening inside the COM class you're using. Do you have the source code? Have you tried attaching the debugger to see where it's failing?

It's a pity that it's not generally possible to find out the contents of these invisible dialogue boxes. Is there a way? Anyone know (This is really a win32 question)

Mark

Tswitz00

No I dont have access to the source code, I havnt attatched a debuger to it yet I guess I can download one and give it a try.

MarkR

A debugger will only really be useful if you have the source code of the class.

I guess you should report the bug to the providers of this COM class. It's not working in a non-interactive context.

This is a common problem with Windows components - a lot of them (especially MSOffice) are designed for interactive use only and either don't work right, or report errors by popping up dialogue boxes.

I imagine that it's got an invisible dialogue box with the error in.

I take it you've tried logging on interactively as the same (unprivileged) user it's running as and running the script from the command line, and it still works?

Mark