Forum: incomplete submits and security questions

[mvlcek]

I've noticed that in the last about two weeks often only part of a reply is committed to the forum.
For me it mostly happens if I have to enter the security question in between.
(Often I see it at once because I get an error, if the text dropped contains a required bbcode end tag)

Also on one of my computers (Windows 7, Firefox) answering the security question after submitting a post only displays another security question and so on. I can only save the post by pressing F5 (refresh) after an answered question or going back and submitting the post again.

[Connie]

I saw the same situation, but I did not encounter it myself

but it started to happen in the last 2 weeks or so

[ccagle8]

i think its a spam prevention plugin that we are using... the sad part is that it has cut down the spam registrations from 100+ to 30 or so... so its useful... but its causing this problem.

Someone once mentioned that they think it happened when they put a & in their post

[polyfragmented]

I encountered mvlcek's described problem with the perpetual security questions once as well.

[Vulch]

Someone once mentioned that they think it happened when they put a & in their post

Might have been me. If it's the same plugin as you were using earlier in the year it doesn't pass some of the special characters through properly but I forget which one...

I could test though!

Double quote

Edit: And there we go, should have been a double quote at the end of that line, plus lines saying Single quote and Ampersand with the appropriate symbols...

[ccagle8]

Here is the plugin that works pretty well to stop spam... but causes this partial posting problem. If anyone could find the problem... id be very grateful.

[mvlcek]

Double quote

Edit: And there we go, should have been a double quote at the end of that line, plus lines saying Single quote and Ampersand with the appropriate symbols...

Yes, I can confirm that everything after double quotes is removed.

[Vulch]

Here is the plugin that works pretty well to stop spam... but causes this partial posting problem. If anyone could find the problem... id be very grateful.

In pun_stop_bots/views/question_page.php change line 22 from...

Code:

<input name="<?php echo $hidden_key; ?>" value="<?php echo $hidden_value; ?>" type="hidden">

...to...

Code:

<input name="<?php echo $hidden_key; ?>" value="<?php echo htmlspecialchars($hidden_value); ?>" type="hidden">

...which seems to fix it without breaking things later.

The problem seems to be the text is put unquoted as the value attribute of a hidden input field, so the double quote terminates the attribute leaving the rest of the text dangling.

[ccagle8]

Thanks Vulch...i've updated the plugin so lets see what happens!