PM site down

[Barleymower]

I keep getting the same error message when I send a message and the webmaster email is bouncing back. Can you take a look?

Internal Server Error
The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.

Please contact the server administrator at webmaster@skirtcafe.org to inform them of the time this error occurred, and the actions you performed just before this error.

More information about this error may be available in the server error log.

[crfriend]

I keep getting the same error message when I send a message and the webmaster email is bouncing back. Can you take a look?

Internal Server Error
The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.

A while ago, DreamHost (our hosting provider) installed something, likely "security-related", that scans messages and is misconfigured to the point of causing errors and crashing rather than gracefully degrading. I've had this happen, too, and if I re-word something it'll usually go.

This thing "sits on top of" the phpBB software that drives the forum and I have no access to that layer. I have been unable to reproduce the problem in my lab.

[Barleymower]

OK thanks Carl. I will have a go

[Coder]

Another option might be to use google SMTP servers with a valid Google login? I've had to do that on some hosts - but not all hosts let the server access the correct ports. There's also Amazon SES, but cost would be involved (although cheap) and could be painful to implement.

[crfriend]

Another option might be to use google SMTP servers with a valid Google login?

This problem is happening before the message even leaves the local platform and enters the SMTP layer. The problems is that the web-server is a shared one on a VM and I don't have access to the web-server error logs. I have access to the access logs but not the error logs which would point up the problem in this case.

The giveaway is that the problem is content sensitive and certain words/phrases provoke the behaviour -- including, hilariously, detailed analysis of code, domain names, and other log entries. Thus the suspicion of it being "security" related.

[Coder]

Another option might be to use google SMTP servers with a valid Google login?

This problem is happening before the message even leaves the local platform and enters the SMTP layer. The problems is that the web-server is a shared one on a VM and I don't have access to the web-server error logs. I have access to the access logs but not the error logs which would point up the problem in this case.

The giveaway is that the problem is content sensitive and certain words/phrases provoke the behaviour -- including, hilariously, detailed analysis of code, domain names, and other log entries. Thus the suspicion of it being "security" related.

Gotcha, something like suhosin. DreamHost allows you to configure error logging to a location, unless the plan this site is on doesn't have that feature. The other problem, even if you could see the error log the security tool might not have logging enabled or enabled at a level that would help you diagnose.

[crfriend]

Gotcha, something like suhosin. DreamHost allows you to configure error logging to a location, unless the plan this site is on doesn't have that feature. The other problem, even if you could see the error log the security tool might not have logging enabled or enabled at a level that would help you diagnose.

Usually these sorts of "tools" (nuisances, mainly) either never log anything and just crash yielding nothing for the user or admin or log it to somewhere that practically nobody has access to. BTDT several times and was infuriated with each one.

I'm hoping to get out of this field soon because it's all just gone completely toxic. Not to mention boring.

[Coder]

I'm hoping to get out of this field soon because it's all just gone completely toxic. Not to mention boring.

Yeah, which why I am glad I don't have to deal with WP or Drupal (or any packaged system) anymore - once you've installed/configured/themed/coded a CMS site, they all are more or less identical.

[Barleymower]

It finally worked by splitting the message into four parts.