Wazoo, you know the forum, I haven't got an answer and wondered if its a big issue.
In ACP system vars page doesn't come up, I haven't found what to do yet, could it be a cause for concern?

Due to a number of reasons, I'm way behind in my normal monitoring of the other half-dozen sites & forums I normally monitor in order to support this Forum. Not sure at this point whether I'll get back into putting that much effort into things .. but, that's my issue .. just pointing out that if you've asked this somewhere else, I've not been there to see it. With that out of the the way ...

I didn't research how you might be hosted, but if I remember correctly, your e-mail was handled by an ISP that had over 1700 Domains under their control ... (I may be thinking of another user?) ... this would suggest that you're dealing with shared tools and system bits. Also pointing out that this is still on 2.0.4 and you're running 2.1.3 ... When I pull up the only "System Var" screen I can find, this is relating to the configuration of the MySQL database engine used on this Forum's (dedicated) server, so I'll relate my answer to this configuration. If your (shared) system is running under *NIX (Linux, Unix, Ultrix, etc) and is also running MySQL, then I would go with that you do not have "permission" to access the MySQL (configuration) files. If this is the case, no worries, no problems (as long as things go smoothly <g>) .. actually perhaps some thanks to Matt's coding that trying to call up something with "no access" didn't result in a crash <g> ... If there was an issue dealing with some of these bits of data, then everyone on that host using a MySQL database would be having problems, and only the ISP / host could get in there to fix things up.

If you're being hosted on a Microsoft/Windows server that uses something like Oracle for the database, I'm not going to try to offer a specific guess, but am thinking that it would probably be something along the same line.

Linux, shared, 2.1.3, I get an error page, and all mysql is working normally.
There was a bad scri_pt on the server that had to be fixed causing spam to get through.
But that appears to be different from my own problem, it just came up in checking mine.

If there was a specific file I'd check the chmod, but I don't think there is one that I know of.

Thanks for your help, I'll assume its a block on the server, unless I see other problems.

MySQL is a "system" level program. You and your Forum are just users of that tool.

Typically, what this usually means is that someone installed a scri_pt for "form-mail" and it was a version that is easily abused .... result not that spam "got through" .... more typically that the scri_pt was used to "send" the spam. (Which would also fit into the "your server got on the BlockList scenario" .. spam went out, complaints were made, the server got listed, ISP removed the scri_pt, spam spew stopped, server was delisted .... everything worked as designed)

Not a "block" .. it's that the ISP set the MySQL engine up and allowing any one of the possible 1700+ users access to the configuration tables of that "system" tool would be a bit suicidal <g> Your Forum has a "named" database, your forum has access to that specific database .. whereas there maybe over a thousand other databases in use by those other Domain holders.

Another way to try to state it, the configuration files would be found in folders/directorues above where you are allowed access on that server.

Thank you Wazoo,

I appear to understand you better, maybe because I'm more familiar with forums than email.

My concern was if system vars page going to an error page, could be interpreted as a hole that may have any email consequence that I was unaware of.

I will figure it out, maybe its actually a blessing in disguise that the page is inaccessible.

I'm still following up on new returned forged mail headers. Meanwhile member publishing to the large site database has been postponed.

Regards

If 2.1.3 still offers an entry for "SQL Toolbox" .... enter that section. There should be a box available to enter in some command data. (Titled "Manual Query" with a butto to "Run Query" close by.) Try typing in (without quotes) "SHOW VARIABLES" .... the resulting page should be the same (long) page of data that clicking on the "System Vars" link is supposed to generate. If not, then one would have to track down the information on the error that shows up.

I looked at some of the Forum code and there are a number of errors that are already programmed in, though none should be showing up after clicking on a (also programmed in) link. Typing in the 'command' should bypass a portion of the programming (though also using some more <g>) ....

No idea what or how you access your system, but ... phpMyAdmin, CPanel, ???? something else available that might let you access things from "outside" of the Forum, perhaps to try to run the above command that way to totally rule out the Forum codebase.

Wazoo,

Queries worked. Safari still crashes on this version, I hoped for standards compliant.
I'll do more error checking later.

Thank you!

I'm confused again. You started with "system vars page doesn't come up" .. your next post said "I get an error page" .. then you say "system vars page going to an error page" ... I was going with this error being seen via an IPB/ACP screen ... but now you talk about Safari crashing ???? That's something else entirely.

You don't mention the version of Safari (or OS-X for that matter) ... My iBook is down for th count, but was also still running 10.2.x .... way out of date, but it's that money thing .... even trying to resurrect it one more time requires finding a 4-5 hour block of time and being in the mood to look at disassembling (and reassembling) the dang thing again .. and even that final result depends on just how bad the circuit card looks when I get down to that level ....

Beyond that, I'm also back to that I've only seen the 2.0.4 code. The owner of this system hasn't seen the need to obtain the current version (as this one is running OK) I know that Matt has used AJAX elsewhere in the code and pused a lot more tricks, but this section shouldn't be using any of that stuff ... just translating the links into MySQL command lines and passing on the results ...??? I can't guess why there'd be code that would be damaging to any browser .... of course that said after spending a few ours today adding in lines to my firewall to block some traffic so I could browse e-bay .. some garbage they've added to their web-pages was locking up my system totally while trying to load the main/front page .....5 IP addresses locked out (browser no longer allowed to try to go to them) and I was able to actually get somewhere and look at auctions again .... and this was after uninstallin/re-installing te Sun JAVA SDK & runtime tools, running a Repait on IE 6, disk clean-up, Registry /FIX, on and on ..... so don't feel like the lone ranger <g>

msql command brings it up - no clue as to what I'm looking at.
Same thing on the error page coming up, url ends in =system

imac safari only goes up to 1.3.1 hence the crashes.
rely on donated computers always one system behind, but its been good uptill now.
Reported 2.1 instability with Safari before public release.
Run out of support end of month, of course something had to slip pass, I'm in trouble for updating while I had the chance.

FYI maz, you can install FireFox on your imac (Mac OS X 10.2.x and later), that may help you out a little. Here's a link to where you can download it http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/