[Pro] PHP problems all over the place -help!

Freeway
1

I’m nearly beside myself right now because of form problems that are occurring on two separate client sites.

One resides at Whitehall | Nursing & Rehabilitation - Boca Raton, FL

This is an extensive online job application form. Up until a few weeks ago, but brought to my attention just yesterday, it worked beautifully. Now, however, the form never sends. I’ve changed parameters in my PHP Feedback Form action numerous times. Nothing I do changes anything. (My action is version 2.3.2) I’ve also employed and then removed spam filters, just in case those were somehow creating an issue. No change.

I even created a very, very simple test form at Whitehall | Nursing & Rehabilitation - Boca Raton, FL

My attempt with that was to keep things excruciatingly simple. Even THAT won’t send.

Either something has occurred at the client’s server side, or I’m doing something boneheaded that I can’t figure out.

Please – can someone with expertise look at the source code or something and tell me what the heck is likely the problem? It worked. Then it didn’t.

My other problem deals with another client site at http://www.empathycare.org. Forms there DO send, but will not return information to anyone designated with an empathycare.org e-mail address. They’ll go to any of my own e-mail accounts as intended recipient, but not to empathy. Email headers returned to me indicate a bunch of X-header stuff that suggests something weird is happening.

In both cases, the clients are on Microsoft Exchange, with which I’m not familiar. They also use the same IT person to control things on their end. Empathy, however, has its web site on have-host, and I am unable to find James Wilkinson to see if somehow that problem is generated from that end. Oddly, though, Empathy controls e-mail on its own server. Somehow. I don’t pretend to understand.

I’m willing to pay someone a reasonable fee to help me resolve this.

Anyone? Please?

Laura

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2

Please — can someone with expertise look at the source code or something and tell me what the heck is likely the problem? It worked. Then it didn’t.

We cant see the source code of a php (onlineapp-go.php) file only of the form page itself.

As to your Test form

<form action="" method=post>

Tells me that the action has not been applied - you should have something like

<form method="post" action="testform-go.php">

Did you use the phpff action on the test page?

David

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3

And 2.3.3 is I think the latest version at http://www.freewayactions.com/product.php?id=019

D

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4

Hmm . . . what I have is the PHP feedback form applied to the table I created, and something called PHP Form Action applied to the page. At one point, I deactivated the PHP Form Action, but that made no difference. Just now, I’ve added it back with the “Patch for PHP 4.2” checked.

Meanwhile, I’ll go look for the updated version of PHP Feedback Form.

When both of those things are ready, I’ll reupload and see if that makes a difference. I am really so, so perplexed.

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5

The PHP Form Action throws this stuff into the boxes that are visible to the user:

<?php echo $name; ?> <?php echo $email; ?> <?php echo $comments; ?>

Even if I write over them with real information, the form still doesn’t send. And now I’ve updated to the latest version of PHP Feedback Form, 2.3.3.

No change. No joy.

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6

I haven’t really used the ‘PHP Form Feedback’ action but I do know it sets the pages form tags ‘action’ content to a script the ‘PFF’ action creates, the test form at Whitehall | Nursing & Rehabilitation - Boca Raton, FL doesn’t have anything in the form tags action so that is the problem you are having, why it is such I don’t know… are you sure you have the PHP Feedback Form action applied as it is supposed to be?

BTW, If you need to use the ‘PHP Form’ action for something on a page then the page will need to end in .php and not .html

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7

If you need to use the ‘PHP Form’ action for something on a page then
the page will need to end in .php and not .html and that is why you
are getting this content in the fields.

HTH

On Feb 6, 2010, at 8:35 PM, LauraB wrote:

The PHP Form Action throws this stuff into the boxes that are
visible to the user:

<?php echo $name; ?> <?php echo $email; ?> <?php echo $comments; ?>

Even if I write over them with real information, the form still
doesn’t send. And now I’ve updated to the latest version of PHP
Feedback Form, 2.3.3.

No change. No joy.

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8

Now I’m even more confused. Are you saying that any page on which I have a form should end in php, not html? I’ve never done that and as I said earlier, these problems just seemed to pop up on their own – unless it’s somehow related to my having recently upgraded from Pro 4 to Pro 5.

Anyway, on my own personal web site, I have a contact form that works just fine. It’s at http://www.laurabelgrave.com/contact.html and seems to take care of business efficienty. What’s different?

On 6 Feb 2010, 6:36 pm, Mike B wrote:

I haven’t really used the ‘PHP Form Feedback’ action but I do know it sets the pages form tags ‘action’ content to a script the ‘PFF’ action creates, the test form at http://www.whitehallboca.com/testform.html doesn’t have anything in the form tags action so that is the problem you are having, why it is such I don’t know… are you sure you have the PHP Feedback Form action applied as it is supposed to be?

BTW, If you need to use the ‘PHP Form’ action for something on a page then the page will need to end in .php and not .html

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9

On Feb 6, 2010, at 8:47 PM, LauraB wrote:

Now I’m even more confused. Are you saying that any page on which I
have a form should end in php, not html? I’ve never done that and as
I said earlier, these problems just seemed to pop up on their own –
unless it’s somehow related to my having recently upgraded from Pro
4 to Pro 5.

No, what I said was:

If you need to use the ‘PHP Form’ action for something on a page then
the page will need to end in .php and not .html and that is why you
are getting the PHP code in the form fields. I have used ‘PHP Form’
action for the name above and not ‘PHP Form Action’ or ‘PHP Form
Action-Page’, not sure which you are using with the “Patch for PHP
4.2” checked.

So, you can do one of two things here:

  1. Change the form file ending to .php from .html (as suggested when
    using this action).

or

  1. Remove the ‘PHP Form Action-Page’ action from the page.

Then you will not get the following in the fields:

<?php echo $name; ?>
<?php echo $email; ?>
<?php echo $comments; ?>

Anyway, on my own personal web site, I have a contact form that
works just fine. It’s at http://www.laurabelgrave.com/contact.html
and seems to take care of business efficienty.

Your other form has the form action tag ‘value’ set as the ‘PHP Form
Feedback’ action does and that is probably why it works. :slight_smile:

What’s different?

I don’t know, thats why I was suggesting: ‘…are you sure you have
the PHP Feedback Form action applied as it is supposed to be?’.

But… one step at a time, if you sort out the ‘PHP Form Action’ thing
and then if the form doesn’t work we can go to the next stage.

Mike

On 6 Feb 2010, 6:36 pm, Mike B wrote:

I haven’t really used the ‘PHP Form Feedback’ action but I do know
it sets the pages form tags ‘action’ content to a script the ‘PFF’
action creates, the test form at http://www.whitehallboca.com/testform.html
doesn’t have anything in the form tags action so that is the
problem you are having, why it is such I don’t know… are you sure
you have the PHP Feedback Form action applied as it is supposed to
be?

BTW, If you need to use the ‘PHP Form’ action for something on a
page then the page will need to end in .php and not .html

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10

Okay, thanks. Let me look over all your suggestions, Mike, and see where I go from there. I’ve spent hours and hours on this and by now I’m a little crazed. Sorry I overlooked the specifics of your earlier message. Let’s see if I can sort this out. I’ll report back shortly.

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11

Still no joy. I have removed the PHP Form Action-Page. I still get the error message for this very simple form. The thing just stubbornly refuses to send. (I honestly don’t know what the PHP Form Action-Page is for, anyway, but someone suggested I add it, which is why I had tried it out.)

You also said that “Your other form has the form action tag ‘value’ set as the ‘PHP Form Feedback’ action does and that is probably why it works. :)”

I’m sorry for my ignorance, but I don’t know what this means, Mike. When I look at the parameters on either simple form, they look practically identical to me. The only difference is that on my Whitehall test page, I don’t have any validation actions. That was to keep things as absolutely simple as I could for testing purposes. On the contact form on my own laurabelgrave site, I DO have validation for the name and e-mail address.

Also, the PHP Feedback Form is applied to the page on my own site. It is applied to the table on the Whitehall site. But that change was made only after I saw no difference when it resided on the page instead.

(I’ve read and read the instructions that come with the PHP Feedback Form, and I downloaded the little sample file that’s made available. I just don’t see any difference.)

Please bear with me. I’m more grateful than you can know for whatever help you can provide.

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12

On Feb 6, 2010, at 9:34 PM, LauraB wrote:

Still no joy. I have removed the PHP Form Action-Page. I still get
the error message for this very simple form. The thing just
stubbornly refuses to send. (I honestly don’t know what the PHP Form
Action-Page is for, anyway, but someone suggested I add it, which is
why I had tried it out.)

That action is to set variable values to the form element items on the
page. PHP changed after 4.1 where it wasn’t a default to send php
variable values across files and that is why there is the ‘Patch for
PHP 4.2’ option, so that the code that the action sets then sets it
for that change.

You also said that “Your other form has the form action tag ‘value’
set as the ‘PHP Form Feedback’ action does and that is probably why
it works. :)”

I’m sorry for my ignorance, but I don’t know what this means,

In the code of a page such as a form like yours there is a tag called

tag, this tag has an 'action' attribute that would contain a value, that value would be where the form goes when say the 'Submit' button is pressed, your forms tag does not have any value set for the form 'action' attribute and that is why it just goes to itself.

Mike. When I look at the parameters on either simple form, they look
practically identical to me. The only difference is that on my
Whitehall test page, I don’t have any validation actions. That was
to keep things as absolutely simple as I could for testing purposes.
On the contact form on my own laurabelgrave site, I DO have
validation for the name and e-mail address.

Also, the PHP Feedback Form is applied to the page on my own site.
It is applied to the table on the Whitehall site. But that change
was made only after I saw no difference when it resided on the page
instead.

But there is a difference, the form doesn’t work! :slight_smile:

The info I just read at softpress knowledgebase says the action should
be applied to the page, so why not remove the action from the table
and select the page then select the PHP Feedback Form action from the
Page actions menu and apply it, then do what you need to do and upload
the form again.

Does this do the trick?

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13

So here’s what I did. I removed the PHP Feedback Form from the table, and added it instead to the page. That’s the way this originally was set up until I ran into problems. I also no longer have the PHP Form Page-Action running anywhere.

Nothing. No change. I’ve reloaded the browser cache and tried in more than one browser. Just . . . nothing.

Could this in any way have something to do with not me or the form, but a change on the Whitehall server?

I also fumbled through the source code, and found this now: <form action=“contact-go.php” Isn’t that what’s supposed to indicate the action is indeed active?

(Is it too early to start drinking?)

Laura

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14

There are two different Actions you can use for this sort of thing.
The one you appear to be using (PHP Form Action, which I wrote)
requires that you also have a form handler application, coded in PHP,
which is not included with the Action, and that you include that
Action into the Before HTML section of your form page.

The other one (PHP Feedback Form, written by Tim Plumb) is a complete
package. It writes the form handler for you, uploads it to the server,
sets up all of the links and form actions and handles a whole lot of
other magic for you.

I suspect that you have both installed, and meant to use the latter
instead of the former.

Walter

On Feb 6, 2010, at 3:34 PM, LauraB wrote:

Still no joy. I have removed the PHP Form Action-Page. I still get
the error message for this very simple form. The thing just
stubbornly refuses to send. (I honestly don’t know what the PHP Form
Action-Page is for, anyway, but someone suggested I add it, which is
why I had tried it out.)

You also said that “Your other form has the form action tag ‘value’
set as the ‘PHP Form Feedback’ action does and that is probably why
it works. :)”

I’m sorry for my ignorance, but I don’t know what this means, Mike.
When I look at the parameters on either simple form, they look
practically identical to me. The only difference is that on my
Whitehall test page, I don’t have any validation actions. That was
to keep things as absolutely simple as I could for testing purposes.
On the contact form on my own laurabelgrave site, I DO have
validation for the name and e-mail address.

Also, the PHP Feedback Form is applied to the page on my own site.
It is applied to the table on the Whitehall site. But that change
was made only after I saw no difference when it resided on the page
instead.

(I’ve read and read the instructions that come with the PHP Feedback
Form, and I downloaded the little sample file that’s made available.
I just don’t see any difference.)

Please bear with me. I’m more grateful than you can know for
whatever help you can provide.

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15

Laura, the form seems to send for me now! I have just tried:
http://www.whitehallboca.com/testform.html

although when I fill in the form fields and press submit it reports an
error on the booboo.html page, not sure what you are doing on setting
up the form with the PFF action to be honest as I don’t know what way
it works with it’s error pages but your tag attribute is now
getting set and is now sending the form so that side at least is
sorted. You need to now look into how you have the action set up to
see what you might be doing wrong there to get the error page you are
getting.

Mike

On Feb 6, 2010, at 10:16 PM, LauraB wrote:

So here’s what I did. I removed the PHP Feedback Form from the
table, and added it instead to the page. That’s the way this
originally was set up until I ran into problems. I also no longer
have the PHP Form Page-Action running anywhere.

Nothing. No change. I’ve reloaded the browser cache and tried in
more than one browser. Just . . . nothing.

Could this in any way have something to do with not me or the form,
but a change on the Whitehall server?

I also fumbled through the source code, and found this now: <form
action=“contact-go.php” Isn’t that what’s supposed to indicate the
action is indeed active?

(Is it too early to start drinking?)

Laura

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16

I’d like to think it’s working too, Mike, but if it isn’t showing you the “success” page, then I don’t think it is. I’ve had my husband try on his PC as well, and all we ever get is the “booboo” page. And nothing is returned to me.

Again, however, the nearly identical form on my own contact page DOES work. I get the success page. The form information is properly returned to me.

The thing is, I hadn’t done anything whatsoever to perfectly well-working forms on Whitehall or Empathy, and then both basically broke. Because they’re on Microsoft Exchange and have the same IT guy, I can’t quite help thinking that some change has somehow created these issues.

Well, unfortunately, I’m going out of town to a conference tomorrow and won’t be back until Tuesday afternoon. I can’t in good conscience ask you to continue spending hours with me in trying to figure this out. Guess I’m at a dead-end for now and I’ll have to pick the issue up directly with Softpress when I return. Maybe they can look at the document or something and spot something I simply do not.

But if it’s a server issue on the client’s side or some tough new spam blocks that have been installed, then I’m not sure what I can do. I’ve never, ever run into such a thorny issue as this one.

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17

On Feb 6, 2010, at 10:16 PM, LauraB wrote:

Could this in any way have something to do with not me or the form,
but a change on the Whitehall server?

No, it is probably because you have now applied the action where is
supposed to be… on the page. :slight_smile:

You should look at the setting you have on the form of the other site
and make sure those options are being used on the current form, as I
said, the form now sends but I don’t know what options you have used
within the PHPFF action to know what you might have done wrong, you
have the correct success page selected? you have an email address in
the ‘recipient’ field? these are two thing to start checking.

HTH

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18

On Feb 6, 2010, at 10:41 PM, LauraB wrote:

I’d like to think it’s working too, Mike, but if it isn’t showing
you the “success” page, then I don’t think it is. I’ve had my
husband try on his PC as well, and all we ever get is the “booboo”
page. And nothing is returned to me.

Again, however, the nearly identical form on my own contact page
DOES work. I get the success page. The form information is properly
returned to me.

You mentioned you had the action applied to something different from
it was in the other form, when that was corrected the form action code
was set in the Freeway form… :slight_smile:

The thing is, I hadn’t done anything whatsoever to perfectly well-
working forms on Whitehall or Empathy, and then both basically
broke. Because they’re on Microsoft Exchange and have the same IT
guy, I can’t quite help thinking that some change has somehow
created these issues.

If the form action value was not getting set on your Freeway form by
an action you are using then it is nothing to do with the server! The
form action is getting set now so the original problem is sorted. It
might be a server problem that the form now goes to an error page but
without ‘double checking’ how the action is set up they we cannot be
sure so that is now a good place to start checking.

Well, unfortunately, I’m going out of town to a conference tomorrow
and won’t be back until Tuesday afternoon. I can’t in good
conscience ask you to continue spending hours with me in trying to
figure this out. Guess I’m at a dead-end for now and I’ll have to
pick the issue up directly with Softpress when I return. Maybe they
can look at the document or something and spot something I simply do
not.

Unfortunately I don’t know enough about the PHPFF action ‘without
delving into it’ although I am sure when Tim starts to pick up on this
thread he will get back to you and advise as to why you are now
getting this error.

But if it’s a server issue on the client’s side or some tough new
spam blocks that have been installed, then I’m not sure what I can
do. I’ve never, ever run into such a thorny issue as this one.

But you have just run into this, just now :slight_smile: this problem is nothing
to do with the one you had up to a few moments ago! so hang in there
and wait until Tim picks up on the thread and I am sure you will get
the action error page problem sorted, but are you sure you haven’t
that page selected as the success page?

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19

On Feb 6, 2010, at 10:16 PM, LauraB wrote:

Could this in any way have something to do with not me or the form,
but a change on the Whitehall server?

No, it is probably because you have now applied the action where is
supposed to be… on the page. :slight_smile:

Yes, except that IS where it was originally before all of these problems began and I started experimenting.

You should look at the setting you have on the form of the other site
and make sure those options are being used on the current form, as I
said, the form now sends but I don’t know what options you have used
within the PHPFF action to know what you might have done wrong, you
have the correct success page selected? you have an email address in
the ‘recipient’ field? these are two thing to start checking.

Those are both properly selected. Email recipient is checked and rechecked a thousand times over. I’ve even printed out screenshots of my contact page and the WH test contact page to compare what I’ve set up. All truly seems to be properly completed. I just don’t know why I can’t get a handle on this. I’m not saying it couldn’t be me. I just don’t understand how forms that hadn’t been altered in months would suddenly go awry – unless it had something to do with upgrading from Pro 4 to Pro 5.

Sigh . . . Laura

HTH

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20

I know Tim changed the action to handle setting the -f parameter in
PHP and that some servers are now requiring this for forms to be sent,
but as I say I am sure once Tim picks up on this thread I am sure he
will pipe in on what setting it might be.

Are both form on the same server?

On Feb 6, 2010, at 10:56 PM, LauraB wrote:

On Feb 6, 2010, at 10:16 PM, LauraB wrote:

Could this in any way have something to do with not me or the form,
but a change on the Whitehall server?

No, it is probably because you have now applied the action where is
supposed to be… on the page. :slight_smile:

Yes, except that IS where it was originally before all of these
problems began and I started experimenting.

You should look at the setting you have on the form of the other site
and make sure those options are being used on the current form, as I
said, the form now sends but I don’t know what options you have used
within the PHPFF action to know what you might have done wrong, you
have the correct success page selected? you have an email address in
the ‘recipient’ field? these are two thing to start checking.

Those are both properly selected. Email recipient is checked and
rechecked a thousand times over. I’ve even printed out screenshots
of my contact page and the WH test contact page to compare what I’ve
set up. All truly seems to be properly completed. I just don’t know
why I can’t get a handle on this. I’m not saying it couldn’t be me.
I just don’t understand how forms that hadn’t been altered in months
would suddenly go awry – unless it had something to do with
upgrading from Pro 4 to Pro 5.

Sigh . . . Laura

HTH

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