Topic on Project:Support desk

Hello, I just installed a new wiki and for some reason I cannot save page edits. I can preview, but as soon as I press 'save page' it gives me a "Fatal exception of type MWException" error. I tried to switch on error display but the errors themselves are cut off the top of the page. Here's what I managed to save:

Warning: preg_match(): Compilation failed: assertion expected after (?( at offset 115 in /home/linweb07/a/anglofur.co.uk-1071752405/user/htdocs/swordtail/includes/IP.php on line 124

Warning: preg_match(): Compilation failed: assertion expected after (?( at offset 115 in /home/linweb07/a/anglofur.co.uk-1071752405/user/htdocs/swordtail/includes/IP.php on line 112

Warning: preg_match(): Compilation failed: assertion expected after (?( at offset 115 in /home/linweb07/a/anglofur.co.uk-1071752405/user/htdocs/swordtail/includes/IP.php on line 88

I am getting errors like that on every page of the wiki, but only saving edits to pages seems to be affected. Previously I had problems with Extensions but I thought I had resolved them.

Hi!

Which versions of MediaWiki, PHP and MySQL are you using? See your Special:Version page in your wiki.

Sounds like this problem: https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=25920

Hello! I can't get to Special:version at the moment because the whole site giving me a 502 Bad Gateway error but I'm using MediaWiki 1.22.0, according to the localsettings.php file. Here is the rest of the info:

PHP version 5.4.14

MySQL version: 5.0.95

I couldn't tell you if it is that bug you linked to or not, I'm afraid.

0k, forum and wiki are back up, but I still can't edit pages. :P

OK, in fact it looks like it is exactly this error: https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=58213 The fix will be part of MediaWiki 1.22.2. It will require at least PCRE version 7.2; MediaWiki will no longer be installable/updatable with older versions.

PHP 5.4.14 by default includes PCRE 8.32 and according to the bug report, the problem should only arise with versions of PCRE older than 7.2, but not with 8.32. Since you have the problem anyway, I guess that your PHP version is compiled with an older version of PCRE. You have to use a newer version of PCRE! Also see Manual:Errors_and_symptoms/PCRE.

You guys are probably not going to believe this, but the PCRE my hosting company is using is PCRE 6.6.

Yes, the version released in February 2006. :P And they have no plans to update. Eash. Does anyone have any suggestions? :P

Change to a better hoster. E.g. to one, who is not using software that is eight(!) years old. That's like stone age! Even PHP 5.3 comes with a newer PCRE version than you have with 5.4.

I really really would but I have no idea which companies are good and which are bad. I know that the one I have is awful but I have yet to see another hosting company that looked remotely trustworthy. :P

Take a hoster from your country, which also charges a bit for his hosting. With a hoster, who gives his stuff away for 0,99 €/month you won't be able to sleep well. Use Google to see, which hoster others found good!

Not sure I understand, but I have been googling this for years. I come up with something I think is good and then I suddenly find out it is a scam or a bad company by reading reviews.

When you find such reviews you maybe want to reconsider whether you still believe that this company is the right one for you and your wiki.

0k, well, maybe I can do that when my hosting rental expires, unfortunately that won't be happening for about a year and I really don't want to try and get my cash back from them as that never ends well.

In the mean time, would I be able to use an old version of the wiki software? To be honest, I don't need the complexity of a wiki, I really just wanted the nuts and bolts - the search function, meta, ease of editing, and the organisation.

I see. You can use an older version, but over time there will most likely be security issues, which become known. So this version is then insecure.

The only thing that was changed by the fix for this bug is what the installer and the updater check when you install or update MediaWiki. Updating means using the maintenance script update.php. You do not need this script for minor updates. That means you will in fact be able to update to 1.22.2 and 1.22.3 and so on as long as you do not run update.php (which you do not have to do for minor updates anyway). But you will not be able to go to 1.23 or 1.24 once they are out.

Oh, 0k. How come it stops me editing if it only affects updates?

Would MediaWiki 1.21.4 avoid this bug?

0k, I just installed MediaWiki 1.21.4 and it is giving me a 'No cache directory configured' error. I tried to chmod the cache to 777 but this didn't work so I am guessing that this is an old bug in the installer. Has anyone got any ideas why it would be telling me this?

I also tried adding this to localsettings.php after finding reference to it in another question but I don't know if it's anything like the right syntax:

wgCacheDirectory = 'htdocs/swordtail/cache';

Please note that downgrades are not supported. There is no code to handle this situation. Especially there is no code to make sure the update script will run properly when you run it a second time after you already used it some time ago. Basically a downgrade on an already upgraded DB - maybe not immediately, but on the long run definitely - will break your wiki.

Argh, you are right. This problem will still be present as long as you use the old PCRE version. The fix only affects installation and upgrade, that is what I actually mean. If you tried installing a version with the fix on an old PCRE version, then MediaWiki would just not allow installation. This is the way this fix works; it does not actually solve your problem. The error will stay.

I deleted everything and started again so there shouldn't be any conflicts, but on neither attempt did it prevent me installing the wiki or tell me why it wasn't working. At the moment I am just completely exhausted with this thing. All I wanted to do was upload a free-to-play RPG ruleset I have made in a searchable database format. :/

The fix has not yet been released in any version. The first version it will be part of is 1.22.2. Older versions will not complain.