I’m encountering at least two problems after upgrading to pMachine 2.4.

First, I can’t login anymore. When I debug the login process, I get the following four errors:

Warning: Undefined variable: _COOKIE in ...inc.cp.php on line 56
Warning: Undefined variable: _GET in ...inc.cp.php on line 66
Warning: Undefined variable: _POST in ...inc.cp.php on line 89
Warning: Undefined variable: _SERVER in ...inc.cp.php on line 113

(Just for display here, I replaced the path with ...)

Also, I cannot do searches or post comments any more. Comments return an “Invalid page request” message, while searches return an “Invalid Secure Form Value” error.

I suspect the two (or three) problems may be related somehow, as they all involve forms. Any ideas?

Otherwise, everything else seems to work.

I would suggest downloading a fresh copy of the install files (to ensure you don’t have corrupt copies) and re-uploading the files/directories mentioned in the update instructions.  Be sure to upload in ASCII format and that the files on the server get overwritten.

Some relevant Knowledge-Blog entries:

“Invalid Page Request”

“Invalid Secure Form Value”

1. I downloaded a fresh copy of 2.4 and uploaded the files to our server. I made sure to upload everything in ASCII format. But we still cannot log in to the control panel. The same errors are being reported.

2. I tried setting the $cookie_domain in config.php. No change.

3. I could try to take care of the “Invalid Secure Form Value” error, but I understand that needs to be done by changing a setting in general preferences. But in order to do that, I need to be able to get into the control panel. :(

Are you running PHP 4.1 or newer?  pMachine requires that version as a minimum.

Yes. As I said, everything else works fine, so pMachine is doing its job as far as our readers are concerned. The problems are that we can’t get into the control panel and that no one can post comments or do a searcch.

I ask the question because the variables such as “$_COOKIE”, “$_SERVER”, etc. were introduced in PHP v4.1 and weren’t available in earlier versions.  If your server is running an earlier version of PHP then that could cause problems; including problems with logging in.

Can you link to a phpinfo file on your site/server to verify the version?

If you don’t have one, simply create a file with a name like phpinfo.php and then place this content inside it.

Ah, you’re right. Our ISP has us on 4.06. We’ll have to see about upgrading that to 4.1 or above. But what if we can’t? Can we hack the code to make the control panel work under 4.06?

I’m afraid that pMachine 2.4 only works on PHP 4.1 or newer.  PHP 4.1 has been out for quite a long time now, so I don’t see why your Host wouldn’t want to update to a newer version.  4.0.6 is positively ancient as the “online world” measures time. [grin]