Error on all pages: touch(): Utime failed

Post by **Robert T** » Sat 16 Jun, 2007 21:13

Hi,

I'm getting this error at the top of all pages:

Warning: touch(): Utime failed: Operation not permitted in /var/www/home/zroad/htdocs/forum/includes/template.php on line 159

Seems to be output before any page content, but the page content itself is okay.

Cheers R.

Boysie · Post by **Boysie** » Sat 16 Jun, 2007 21:35

Hi Robert

So am i

Ray

321bhp · Post by **321bhp** » Sun 17 Jun, 2007 00:37

and me

Zmeagol · Post by **Zmeagol** » Sun 17 Jun, 2007 06:59

It started after I made a change to the banner advert. It doesn't appear to be serious (just one error line) and I plan to have a go at finding the problem this evening.

Tim

Post by **Robert T** » Sun 17 Jun, 2007 10:10

Thanks Tim. I didn't notice the banner advert missing as my browser is set to block certain ads.

Cheers R.

cowboybebop · Post by **cowboybebop** » Tue 26 Jun, 2007 12:50

For a few weeks now i keep getting a warning at the top of each page....

Warning: touch(): Utime failed: Operation not permitted in /var/www/home/zroad/htdocs/forum/includes/template.php on line 159

i wondered if it may be something to do with Vista which i installed not to long ago...

anyone else have this same error message?

it only does it on the zroadster website....

Gimlet · Post by **Gimlet** » Tue 26 Jun, 2007 12:58

No ... I get it too on XP.

Zmeagol · Post by **Zmeagol** » Tue 26 Jun, 2007 13:09

I've put back the strongstrut advert for the moment which has cured the problem.

Tim

BimBeema · Post by **BimBeema** » Tue 26 Jun, 2007 13:10

Yes so do I - have just been ignoring it cos the rest of the site seems to be working as normal!

///M_aniac · Post by **///M_aniac** » Tue 26 Jun, 2007 13:15

It seems to be away now.

///M_aniac · Post by **///M_aniac** » Tue 26 Jun, 2007 13:17

Cheers Tim. Looks much better now.

Alfie · Post by **Alfie** » Tue 26 Jun, 2007 13:56

Nope.
I've still got the "Warning....line 159" across the top AND the SS advert.

A.

JontyP · Post by **JontyP** » Tue 26 Jun, 2007 13:59

Yep, me too. Dunt matter tho eh?

Jonty

Post by **Robert T** » Tue 26 Jun, 2007 16:25

See http://www.zroadster.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=13683

Cheers R.

Post by **Robert T** » Tue 26 Jun, 2007 16:27

Still seeing the error in both Firefox and IE. Strongstrut advert now present.

Cheers R.

madmare · Post by **madmare** » Tue 26 Jun, 2007 19:39

I've still got both - the error and the SS ad?

cowboybebop · Post by **cowboybebop** » Wed 27 Jun, 2007 07:12

Yes i still have this problem....

but i dont see an advert at all

NorwegianBlue · Post by **NorwegianBlue** » Wed 27 Jun, 2007 08:27

Zmeagol - you need to clear the cache folder!! It's a server side problem, so users need not worry.

BimBeema · Post by **BimBeema** » Wed 27 Jun, 2007 08:51

What's going on this morning? lots of errors both on top and bottom of each page!

Zmeagol · Post by **Zmeagol** » Wed 27 Jun, 2007 08:52

Sorry, I was experimenting.

Tim

BimBeema · Post by **BimBeema** » Wed 27 Jun, 2007 08:58

Do you not have a test/local copy of this where you can experiment on your local machine before uploading perrhaps?

Zmeagol · Post by **Zmeagol** » Wed 27 Jun, 2007 09:36

No. And now the forum is really bu%%ered up.

BimBeema · Post by **BimBeema** » Wed 27 Jun, 2007 09:46

Yep - we can see that!

Sorry not being helpful, would like to help, but don't know much about php!

Zmeagol · Post by **Zmeagol** » Wed 27 Jun, 2007 09:58

I cleared the server-side cache, but this has created extra problems. Am working on it but if anyone has any ideas please PM me.

Tim

Post by **Robert T** » Wed 27 Jun, 2007 10:13

Hi Tim,

I am now seeing the following:

Code: Select all

Warning: fopen(): SAFE MODE Restriction in effect. The script whose uid/gid is 2025/2025 is not allowed to access /var/www/home/zroad/htdocs/forum/cache/subSilver owned by uid/gid 33/33 in /var/www/home/zroad/htdocs/forum/includes/template.php on line 155

Warning: fopen(/var/www/home/zroad/htdocs/forum/cache/subSilver/viewtopic_body.tpl.php): failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /var/www/home/zroad/htdocs/forum/includes/template.php on line 155

Warning: fwrite(): supplied argument is not a valid stream resource in /var/www/home/zroad/htdocs/forum/includes/template.php on line 156

Warning: fclose(): supplied argument is not a valid stream resource in /var/www/home/zroad/htdocs/forum/includes/template.php on line 157

Warning: touch(): SAFE MODE Restriction in effect. The script whose uid/gid is 2025/2025 is not allowed to access /var/www/home/zroad/htdocs/forum/cache/subSilver owned by uid/gid 33/33 in /var/www/home/zroad/htdocs/forum/includes/template.php on line 159

Safe mode should really be left on (it is set in php.ini), so I think it is a file ownership problem with the files in the cache, or with the script that is trying to read them. Did you chown the cache files in order to wipe the cache?

Cheers R.

Zmeagol · Post by **Zmeagol** » Wed 27 Jun, 2007 10:37

Robert T wrote:Did you chown the cache files in order to wipe the cache?

I don't have unix command line access, just FTP, so I deleted them. Cache directory attributes are set to 777.

I don't think I have access to php.ini as the site is is running on a shared host.

Tim

Post by **Robert T** » Wed 27 Jun, 2007 10:54

Hi again Tim,

It looks like it is expecting a "subSilver" subdirectory in the cache - maybe it can't re-create it automatically - you might try mkdir'ing and seeing what happens.

The only other thought I have at this time is that the php scripts for the site were ftp'd in using the wrong user, if that is possible. If you don't have root access then they nothing can have been chown'ed.

Cheers R.

NorwegianBlue · Post by **NorwegianBlue** » Wed 27 Jun, 2007 16:44

777 gives the folder full rights to everyone, so that should be ok. With the "subSilver" subdirectory in the cache make sure it exists and set the rights to 777 too.

Zmeagol · Post by **Zmeagol** » Wed 27 Jun, 2007 21:01

the cache directory and subdirectories are set to 777. The problem is due to the cache directory being created by a different user. My ISP is being predictably obtuse.

Tim

erdnase · Post by **erdnase** » Thu 28 Jun, 2007 21:35

Wow, it took me a few days to figure out to scroll down - I just assumed the forum was knackered! Hi again everyone

Erd

pdwarren · Post by **pdwarren** » Thu 28 Jun, 2007 22:23

It seems the files in the cache have been created by PHP scripts running as the httpd/apache user (I'm pretty sure that's what uid 33 will be) and now, because safe mode is turned on, its complaining that those don't match your uid.

What I don't understand is how this ever worked or how it's supposed to work... You can probably fix it my changing the ownership of those files to be 2025.2025. You should be able to do that because you own the directory, but it's not straightforward.

I run an ISP so have some idea about this stuff, but we don't use safe mode... Drop me a PM if you want a hand.

Paul

Post by **Robert T** » Fri 29 Jun, 2007 10:08

AFAIK chown can only ever be user to change file ownership if run by root, so without root access you aren't going to be able to fix the ownership manually. You can however use chgrp to change the group of files you own.

The errors seem to be indicate that the scripts are owned by the user with uid 2025 (Tim's user account), and that the cache files are owned by the user with uid 33 (apache/httpd). This could have come about because part of the phpbb install is still owned by the apache user and only those files which Tim has changed recently are now owned by his user. The cache directories were then re-created by the apache owned script files, and now the ones Tim modified can't write to them.

I could mock this up on my Linux server here at the weekend if you want me to try and help figure it out.

Cheers R.

pdwarren · Post by **pdwarren** » Fri 29 Jun, 2007 12:56

Robert T wrote:AFAIK chown can only ever be user to change file ownership if run by root, so without root access you aren't going to be able to fix the ownership manually. You can however use chgrp to change the group of files you own.

You can't use chown, but you can change the ownership of files if you have write permissions on the directory:

mv foo bar
cp bar foo
rm bar

Will give you ownership of foo provided that you were able to read it in the first place.

The errors seem to be indicate that the scripts are owned by the user with uid 2025 (Tim's user account), and that the cache files are owned by the user with uid 33 (apache/httpd). This could have come about because part of the phpbb install is still owned by the apache user and only those files which Tim has changed recently are now owned by his user. The cache directories were then re-created by the apache owned script files, and now the ones Tim modified can't write to them.

But how did part of the install become owned by apache?

The scripts will get run as uid 33, irrespective of who owns them, so it's quite possible for those cache files to get created by phpBB, and then for them to be unreadable by other parts because their ownership doesn't match the ownership of the scripts so safe mode complains.

The only way I can see around this (other than by manually changing ownership as above) is to run whatever script creates the cache files as uid 2025, which is only possible if you have shell access to the machine.

The other possibility is that the ISP may have set up safe mode to do a group id check only, in which case you can fix it by changing the group on the files in question, but judging by the error message, I think it's doing a full uid/gid check.

Paul

Zmeagol · Post by **Zmeagol** » Fri 29 Jun, 2007 13:02

I have a thread running on the phpBB community board: http://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtopi ... 1&t=559839

though without much luck at this stage.

My only access is CuteFTP (other than the forum) and I don't know whether I can correct whatever is wrong using FTP or whether I have to ask the ISP to do something. At this stage I don't know what to ask.

Tim

Post by **Robert T** » Fri 29 Jun, 2007 16:35

Hi Tim,

I have just stuck phpBB on my server now. I can't reproduce the error
messages in the forum pages, but I do get the same errors in the server log.

It seems that the cache directory must contain a "subSilver" directory owned by the same user (your ftp user) as all the php scripts with permissions 777 and then inside there there needs to be an "admin" directory also owned by your user with permissions 777. The actual cache files do get created as the apache user.

Initially I was running with safe mode turned off and these directories were being created for me, but with it on, they do not get created, so I had to do it by hand. I wonder if something changed since you installed the board or last cleared the cache?

I had a quick read of your php forum posts. Make sure your are actually in the cache subdirectory when you try to chmod subSilver.

Cheers R.

Zmeagol · Post by **Zmeagol** » Sat 30 Jun, 2007 10:08

Problem resolved. Because users were ignoring all the error messages and continuing to use the forum (I couldn't get to the screen that restricts access), the subSilver directory was getting recreated by the script.

I waited until a period of inactivity, deleted it, created it and chmodded it. Everything seems OK (cross fingers and toes).

Tim

daverave · Post by **daverave** » Sat 30 Jun, 2007 10:32

Thats the only problem with having such a popular forum. There's always someone on it

Glad you got it sorted out. The scroll finger was getting rather sore

Gazza · Post by **Gazza** » Sat 30 Jun, 2007 10:56

Ahhhhh nice to be back to normal

Gazza.

Post by **Robert T** » Sat 30 Jun, 2007 10:57

Good man, Tim. All seems fine now.

If you were still struggling, I was going to suggest turning the caching feature off temporarily.

Cheers R.

cowboybebop · Post by **cowboybebop** » Sat 30 Jun, 2007 19:13

Nice to be back to normal again

kruisn · Post by **kruisn** » Sun 01 Jul, 2007 03:18

Thanks for your I.T. sleuthing Tim. It must have been frustrating.
Nice to have things back to normal. No idea what you were all talking about though? ? ? ?

stu · Post by **stu** » Sun 01 Jul, 2007 09:05

Brilliant, now I don't have to worry about the RSI from scrolling down all the time

BimBeema · Post by **BimBeema** » Sun 01 Jul, 2007 12:33

Nice one Tim - cheers.

Ian_C · Post by **Ian_C** » Sun 01 Jul, 2007 13:16

Thanks for your efforts in sorting this out Tim.

321bhp · Post by **321bhp** » Sun 01 Jul, 2007 13:45

cheers,great to be back to normal

spokey · Post by **spokey** » Mon 02 Jul, 2007 16:43

stu wrote:Brilliant, now I don't have to worry about the RSI from scrolling down all the time

Is that what you're attributing it to?

Zmeagol · Post by **Zmeagol** » Mon 02 Jul, 2007 18:29

LOL

Tim

(woops! put me in the sin bin)

Error on all pages: touch(): Utime failed

Error on all pages: touch(): Utime failed

Error message at the top of the page..