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#1 2011-04-26 10:02:40
- marjoleink
- Member
- From: Amsterdam, NL
- Registered: 2011-04-26
- Posts: 18
Problems with forum registration
Brand-new forum member – and yes, I did get in… but encountered problems on the way here.
1. signup form – no problem, filled in my data (chosen user name, email) and submitted
2. The result was a page telling me there was an error:
Internal Server Error
The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was
unable to complete your request.
Please contact the server administrator, web@joyent.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.
3. So, trying to be helpful, I went to my email and fired off an email to the given address… which was promptly refused; the mail server returned this error:
550 550-5.1.1 The email account that you tried to reach does not exist. Please try
550-5.1.1 double-checking the recipient’s email address for typos or
550-5.1.1 unnecessary spaces. Learn more at
550 5.1.1 http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=6596 un6si12215210icb.81 (state 14).
4. to my relief I did receive a welcome email (including an assigned password).
Still, it seems there are at least 2 bugs here: the internal server error and the given contact email address.
Cheers,
Marjolein
Marjolein Katsma ¤ Hacking a theme to learn tags now ¤ nul = nada — lt = very little — why is there even a site there?
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#2 2011-04-27 23:04:00
- els
- Moderator
- From: The Netherlands
- Registered: 2004-06-06
- Posts: 7,458
Re: Problems with forum registration
Hi Marjolein, thanks for the report. I can’t find any occurrence of this email address in the forum settings, so I’ll ask if someone with server access can have a look.
And welcome to Textpattern!
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Re: Problems with forum registration
Internal Server Error
Please contact the server administrator, web@joyent.com and inform them
of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that
may have caused the error.550 550-5.1.1 The email account that you tried to reach does not exist.
500 errors return a server message and not a site specific one.
Yiannis
——————————
NeMe | hblack.art | EMAP | A Sea change | Toolkit of Care
I do my best editing after I click on the submit button.
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#4 2011-04-28 07:26:03
- els
- Moderator
- From: The Netherlands
- Registered: 2004-06-06
- Posts: 7,458
Re: Problems with forum registration
colak wrote:
500 errors return a server message and not a site specific one.
Of course. So it’s just Joyent needing to update their server config. To be honest, I never even tried to send something to email addresses mentioned in server errors… ;)
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#5 2011-04-28 10:00:43
- marjoleink
- Member
- From: Amsterdam, NL
- Registered: 2011-04-26
- Posts: 18
Re: Problems with forum registration
Els wrote:
Of course. So it’s just Joyent needing to update their server config. To be honest, I never even tried to send something to email addresses mentioned in server errors… ;)
Well, I do — sometimes. A 500 error suggests a configuration error that might have wider implications (and in this case could affect anyone trying to sign up for this forum — and possibly others!).
At least someone, somehow, should try to contact Joyent and point out both bugs (the 500 server error and the non-existent email address). I tried, and failed, and don’t have alternative information to contact them, so it’s up to “Textpattern people” now. :)
But since the 500 error occurred when the forum should have been sending a confirmation page or something and right after it already sent me a confirmation email, the “configuration error” might also be somewhere in the way the forum is installed.
At least Joyent should be told about the non-existent email address that is produced in the server error page.
Cheers,
Marjolein Katsma ¤ Hacking a theme to learn tags now ¤ nul = nada — lt = very little — why is there even a site there?
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Re: Problems with forum registration
Thanks for reporting this.
The HTTP 500 error was caused by an unresponsive 3rd party service, used by the forum software to check for disposable email addresses (looking at the error logs, that service has been down since march 8th 2011). I’ve disabled that check to make the error message go away.
Changing the email address is something anyone with access to the server can do. Someone just has to decide which email address to put in there (and I’m not sure if it’s Joyent that maintains the software on the server; possibly this is now the responsibility of one of the TXP devs). It can be changed in the webserver configuration files for each of the hosted websites.
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#7 2011-04-28 16:10:28
- marjoleink
- Member
- From: Amsterdam, NL
- Registered: 2011-04-26
- Posts: 18
Re: Problems with forum registration
ruud wrote:
Thanks for reporting this.
The HTTP 500 error was caused by an unresponsive 3rd party service, used by the forum software to check for disposable email addresses (looking at the error logs, that service has been down since march 8th 2011). I’ve disabled that check to make the error message go away.
Thank you Ruud! Of course I have no idea how the hosting at Joyent works (I’m not using them) but it’s good to know what the cause was and that it has been resolved: now I know others won’t rub into this any more.
I do understand the reason for a check for disposable email addresses. ;) (Maybe there’s another service?)
Cheers,
Marjolein Katsma ¤ Hacking a theme to learn tags now ¤ nul = nada — lt = very little — why is there even a site there?
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Re: Problems with forum registration
I do understand the reason for a check for disposable email addresses. ;) Maybe there’s another service?
There is stopforumspam. The latest punBB has a plugin for it but it unfortunately does not stop much of the spam.
Yiannis
——————————
NeMe | hblack.art | EMAP | A Sea change | Toolkit of Care
I do my best editing after I click on the submit button.
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#9 2011-04-28 18:14:00
- marjoleink
- Member
- From: Amsterdam, NL
- Registered: 2011-04-26
- Posts: 18
Re: Problems with forum registration
colak wrote:
There is stopforumspam. The latest punBB has a plugin for it but it unfortunately does not stop much of the spam.
As an experienced spamfighter I’d say: every little bit helps. No single tool can fight every type of spam, there are far too many, and spam evolves… What does help, too, is showing there’s an active policy to combat spam: easier pickings are — well, easier. :)
Instead of throw-away email addresses spammers sometimes use a single domain with wildcard email addresses, so they’d go under the radar when checking for specific ‘throwaway” email domains. As an alternative, disabling an account that has never been active (posting) after a set period since signing up might also help with ‘profile spam’ – or is something like that in place already? (or shouldn’t I ask? ;))
Anyway, good to know of such a service – not something I’d looked at lately. Thanks!
Cheers,
Marjolein Katsma ¤ Hacking a theme to learn tags now ¤ nul = nada — lt = very little — why is there even a site there?
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#10 2011-04-28 20:09:06
- els
- Moderator
- From: The Netherlands
- Registered: 2004-06-06
- Posts: 7,458
Re: Problems with forum registration
marjoleink wrote:
What does help, too, is showing there’s an active policy to combat spam: easier pickings are — well, easier. :)
We do have quite a lot of attentive moderators, so the spam posts that do pass never last for long :)
As an alternative, disabling an account that has never been active (posting) after a set period since signing up might also help with ‘profile spam’ – or is something like that in place already? (or shouldn’t I ask? ;))
Yep, we also do that on a regular basis :)
Anyway, all users are encouraged to use the ‘Report’ link at the bottom of each post to report spam messages!
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