Movable Type & Scode Captcha

[CHUD]

I'm on my 2nd go-round trying to install the scode captcha to my Movable Type 3.15 installation and I'm getting nothing but headaches. I'm fairly sure I've installed everything correctly, but it still isn't working. At all. Again. And I can't even trouble-shoot it because I can't get the stinking scodetest.cgi to work to tell me what I've done wrong.

 

So let's start there, at trying to get the stinking troubleshooting component working. When I try to run scodetest.cgi at http://www.deadpan.net/scgi-bin/scodetest.cgi, I'm getting a 500 Internal Server Error. Scodetest.cgi is installed in the same directory as mt.cgi, which does work. It is chmodded to 755. My temp directory is set up as "captcha" as a subdirectory of /tmp/ in my root, it is chmodded to 755, it is ref'd as such in my Scode.pm file, which is in the /lib/MT/ folder with chmod of 644.

 

I'm stumped and getting hugely frustrated. Can ANYone help me with this? Please?

[CHUD]

I'm still poking around in there. Despite the fact that scodetest isn't working, the actual mt-scode.cgi does seem to be working -- sort of. It looks like it's almost doing what it's supposed to be doing -- what it's doing wrong is it's NOT displaying the captcha image.

 

The scode FAQ says no image means "100%, without fail, everyone who fails to get an image is because *they did not have GD and GD perl lib*."

 

So...What's up wit' dat?

[annie]

I didn't get it to work either, on another webhost. Haven't tried on TCH. And I DID have GD and GD perl lib.

 

So something else can go wrong, and did.

 

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[TweezerMan]

I tried installing the SCode plugin and get it working on a brand new copy of MT 3.15 and MT-Blacklist v2.03b. The instructions for installing SCode on MT 3.x are not the best I've ever run across. I made a couple of mistakes while installing SCode, but once I worked through them, I was able to get SCode working.

 

While it would be nice for the scodetest.cgi script to work, it does not test for every possible mistake and so it will not detect every possible error that you could make.

 

The first thing you should check is whether the GD perl module is installed on your server. Go into your CPanel, and in the left column, next to "Installed Perl Modules", click on the "Click to View" link. Use your browser's Find function to see if "GD" is listed anywhere on the page.

 

My server already had GD and the GD perl module installed. I suspect you may have a problem with either GD or the GD perl module, as your mt-scode.cgi script does not work correctly. When called directly from a browser, it should display a sample SCode image of "999999". Your mt-scode.cgi script returns the following error instead:

The image “http://www.deadpan.net/scgi-bin/mt-scode.cgi” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.

Beyond that, there's dozens of ways that the SCode installation could be messed up and cause a problem. What I did to get an error message was to create a cron job that runs the scodetest.cgi script. When the cron job runs, any errors as well as regular output will be e-mailed to you.

 

Hope this helps...

[TCH-Rick]

There was an extra line in the scodetest script that I removed and it should run fine now.

[CHUD]

Thanks for the help, Rick and David. We're making progress! The scodetest.cgi is indeed running now and shows that GD and GD lib are installed, but scode itself still generates the "image cannot be displayed because it contains errors" message.

 

It looks like the required files are being created in the /tmp/captcha/ directory and that the code is being sent to my comment entry window, but the image itself isn't generating. The plug-in's author is pretty adamant that when the image doesn't show, GD and GD lib are the problem. Since scodetest and my cpanel both shows both are installed, that suggests to me a related problem the author suggested: that perhaps they need to be reinstalled in a particular order: "Once GD is installed, then install the GD perl lib, the image pop-up. (Note the sequence. You install GD first then GD perl lib..the other way round wont work.)"

 

Is it possible to have someone reinstall them in that order to see if that's the problem? (I'm sorry, I don't know if this is something that can be done just for my site or if I'm asking for a TCH-wide action -- if the latter, nevermind.)

 

Thanks,

Chuck

Edited April 17, 2005 by CHUD

[TweezerMan]

Is it possible to have someone reinstall them in that order to see if that's the problem?  (I'm sorry, I don't know if this is something that can be done just for my site or if I'm asking for a TCH-wide action -- if the latter, nevermind.)

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I'd suggest submitting a ticket to the Help Desk and asking them. If something is done with GD and/or the GD perl library, it would affect your server only (not just your site but not TCH-wide either).

[CHUD]

Well, the Help Desk has pretty emphatically said that GD is installed and running and that I can't expect any further help on this issue from them. So if anyone reading this has been able to get the MTSecurityCode captcha to work here at TCH and is willing to spend some time helping me figure out why mine isn't working, I'd sure appreciate it.

[IndigoJo]

Well, the Help Desk has pretty emphatically said that GD is installed and running and that I can't expect any further help on this issue from them. So if anyone reading this has been able to get the MTSecurityCode captcha to work here at TCH and is willing to spend some time helping me figure out why mine isn't working, I'd sure appreciate it.

 

Do you have facility for blind people to work around the captcha? I know one blind woman with a blog who recently moved to TypePad (quickgm28.blogs.com) because Blogger offered her a choice of either the spam, or the image which she couldn't see and thus could not comment on her own blog.