On our website, sometimes $_POST is relayed empty to the action pages.
This happens for roughly about %1-2 of the forms submitted on a daily basis. This is about 50-100 corrupt form submissions per day currently.
We are certain the data is there on the initial page. We tried sending the same data with $_POST and $_GET at the same time with the exact same values. $_GET reaches the action page all the time, but $_POST can arrive empty.
Often times, this error happens to Webkit besed browsers. Also mobile phone browser seem to be more prone to this.
IE browsers experience this less than the Webkit browsers.
And very rarely it happens to Firefox as well.
Current configuration is like this:
PHP Version 5.2.15
Centos 5
Apache 2.2.3
One thing we are discussing is to upgrade our PHP to 5.3.x.
Does that sound like a reasonable try?
Any suggestions on how we can try to debug this?
UPDATE:
Submission form is as follows:
<form action="submit.php?receiver_user_id=<?php echo $_SESSION['receiver_user_id'];?>&sender_user_id=<?php echo $_SESSION['user_id']; ?>" method="post">
<textarea name="message_text" ></textarea>
<input type="hidden" name="receiver_user_id" value="<?php echo $_SESSION['receiver_user_id'];?>
<input type="hidden" name="sender_user_id" value="<?php echo $_SESSION['user_id']; ?>
<input type="image" name="submit" src="submit.png" value="submit"/>
</form>
Could it be that some sort of input to the form makes the sending fail, or, assuming you judge the 1-2% by empty database entries, makes the storing fail, respectively?
[edit] That sounds stupid... What I meant was, if you have a loop submitting the form 1000 times with the same values, does 1-2% still go empty, or could it be up to what is sent, that the form goes empty?
Adding
<?php header("Connection: close"); ?>
cleared the problem on our end. Apparently this relates to keep-alive and IE. You can read more about it here:
Why does Internet Explorer not send HTTP post body on Ajax call after failure?
Related
I have a script that pulls an XML page and uses a form to update and save the values back. When I click the submit button it works, but then the page loads blank. I just want the page to refresh. There are about 100 different threads on this, and nothing I have tried has worked to resolve the issue. Out of curiosity, I just tried to run the window.location script and nothing else, and this piece actually doesn't work at all.
<?php
//if (isset($_POST['submit'])) {
if ($_SERVER['REQUEST_METHOD'] == 'POST') {
//$ctstatus->nodeValue = $_POST['ctstatusform'];
//htmlentities($xml->save('test.xml'));
echo '<script type="text/javascript">window.location="http://google.ca";</script>';
}
?>
The inner contents of the form don't really matter at this point, I just want it to refresh the page after I hit the submit button.
I previously used isset but from reading it seems like that's obsolete, and my form action="" used to be blank. Either way my XML save works, but nothing to refresh the page. I also tried header and that didn't work either.
<form method="POST" action="<?php echo htmlspecialchars($_SERVER["PHP_SELF"]);?>">
<input class="save" name="submit" type="submit" value="Save" />
</form>
Out of curiosity I tried an onClick function with a timer and this does work but it's not ideal at all, especially because the page could technically refresh before the POST is finished writing the file. I'd rather know why the echo doesn't execute.
PHP redirect would most likely be preferable to JavaScript redirect.
Typical structure when posting back to same page:
<?php // cannot be any output before this (space, linefeed, etc)
if(isset($_POST['submit']) {
// do stuff with the submission
header('Location: http://google.ca');
exit;
}
// does your script need to do some other data retrieval or calculation? do it here.
?>
<html>
... snip ...
<form method="post">
... snip ...
<input class="save" name="submit" type="submit" value="Save" />
</form>
Following this simple structure for procedural scripts--
Deal with user input / redirect
Do logic (collect, manipulate data)
Show output (using php only to insert variables and looping)
will help you avoid a lot of heartache and technical debt.
Okay, I have gotten this sorted out. It turns out that the problem was embarrassingly simple, but maybe will assist someone in the future. Along with reordering my code, as Tim suggested. I specified HTML as the DOCTYPE, and that worked to resolve the issue. I no longer need to worry about refreshing the page after submit, because it refreshes as it should automatically. Thank you to everyone who commented.
I have a form with 1222 fields (I know the number is large, but it's a form for saving translations). When I submit the form, the script is not executing. I get no error message and the error log is empty. Even if the script I post to contains only an echo command, nothing is executed and all I see is a blank page.
I am quite sure this is a PHP setting problem, as the form can be submitted without any problems on other servers. Can anyone shed some light on what the issue could be?
The HTML is:
<form action="test.php" method="post">
<input type="text" name="account-form-282f96c7d1ed98d24606d209dcad9842" value=""/>
<!-- 1221 more inputs with different names, but format is the same as above -->
<input type="submit" name="submitBT" value="Save"/>
</form>
test.php:
<?php
echo(1);
?>
Edit 1:
If I simplify the input names, e.g.: input_1, input_2 etc. the submit works fine.
Edit 2:
I noticed I receive a 406 Not Acceptable HTTP response.
The problem is with mod_security, for some reason it didn't like the submitted data and stopped the execution of the script.
I have a php form on my website and it works well under firefox. But whenever I tested on IE(v8 and 9), the form doesn't get sent, and it returns a "IE can't display the webpage" error.
The script is located at http://www.fitnessgrace.com/Vancouver-Personal-Trainers/Vancouver-Personal-Trainers-Contact-Fitness-Grace.htm
Any insights would be very much appreciated.
you are posting the page to http://www.FitnessGrace.com/gdform.php
and you have a hidden input
<input type="hidden" name="redirect" value="../index.html" />
after this point, I can only guess, but I think you are trying to redirect to "../index.html", and since gdform.php is already at the root directory, ../ is meaningless. I think firefox somehow understands that you've made a mistake and doesn't care, but ie doesn't understand.
The user enters a number and clicks submit. The number now shows up on the page.
The user is then asked if they would like to double the number. They click yes.
The doubled number now appears on the page.
I am having trouble with part 3. Is this possible using just PHP?
UPDATE: Thanks for your answers. This is my first ever PHP script, so I wasn't sure. I am going to research doing it with AJAX just now. I'm very curious to know why it is possible to get to part 2 if you can't get to part 3. Can anyone explain this or provide a link?
<?php
$double = (isset($_REQUEST['do_double']) && $_REQUEST['do_double'] == '1') ? ($_REQUEST['number'] * 2) : '';
?>
<form method="get" action="?">
<input type="hidden" name="do_double" value="<?php echo isset($_REQUEST['number']) ?'1' : '0'; ?>" />
<input type="text" name="number" value="<?php echo isset($_REQUEST['number']) ? $_REQUEST['number'] : '';?>" />
<?php if ( ! isset($_REQUEST['number'])) { ?>
<input type="submit" value="submit" />
<?php } else { ?>
<input type="submit" value="Verdoppeln" />
<?php } ?>
</form>
<div id="number"><?php echo $double; ?></div>
I think you're talking about session variables. At the top of the script add the following script to start a session for the current user:
session_start();
This will allow you to store variables in session $_SESSION which persists between requests. Use isset to check if a value is set in session.
Take the form ID using something like document.formname.inputname (http://www.quirksmode.org/js/forms.html) and then multiple by two then use javascript to show it where ever you want.
Asynchronous is required I think. Try these 2 reads:
the difference between synchronous and async: http://javascript.about.com/od/ajax/a/ajaxasyn.htm and
possible examples: http://www.w3schools.com/ajax/ajax_xmlhttprequest_send.asp
This is really more of a comment than an answer, but SO limits comment length so here 'tis:
The misconception that a web page is synonymous with a PHP script appears to be common among novice PHP programmers. Really, a web page is an HTML document (with associated resources) that is sent from a web server to a web browser as part of an HTTP response. A single server-side script can generate many different kinds of web pages, and when processing HTML forms (as you seem to be doing) it is common for a single server-side script to do exactly that. In "web 1.0" applications, clicking on "Submit" (for example) typically causes the browser to make a new HTTP request (called a "page turn"), and the web server keeps track of what the user is doing across page turns by storing "state" either in a "session" (with an associated key included in the HTTP header of each HTTP request - and the HTTP response generated by the web "login") or in one or more HTTP parameters. The point is that each new HTTP request may be for the same script/URL on the server, but the behavior (and the appearance of the web page) will be different because the server is somehow tracking the state of the "workflow" across page turns.
Now if you really must avoid page turns, you can use Javascript to change the appearance/state of the page displayed by the browser without making the user click on a "Submit" button. And the XMLHTTPRequest mechanism (aka AJAX), which allows content to be fetched from the web server "behind the scenes" and change the state of the client-side document without the user doing anything, is typically used to achieve this. But is only really necessary if you're doing something rather different (e.g. scrolling a map or updating a stock ticker) than what you describe in your question, which looks like a perfect example of a "web 1.0" application workflow.
I have a simple HTML form, sending a post request to a php script. In IE8, the form only works intermittently - most of the time the PHP script sees an empty $_POST variable.
Here's my code:
<html>
<head>
<title>Post test</title>
</head>
<body style="text-align: center;">
<?php
echo "<pre>".print_r($_POST, TRUE)."</pre>";
?>
<form action="<?php echo $_SERVER['PHP_SELF'] ?>" method="post">
<input type="text" name="name">
<input type="hidden" name="hidden" value="moo" >
<input type="submit" value="Search" >
</form>
</body>
</html>
Sometimes the print_r gives the response you'd expect (i.e. it's populated with the data from the form), most of the time it's empty.
Not being able to use POST is a bit of a problem for web applications - anyone got any ideas what's going on, and how to fix it?
Thanks everyone for wading in on this one.
It turns out the problem lay in an Apache module I had enabled.
It's a module to allow apache to use Windows authentication to identify a user via their Windows User id - mod_auth_sspi
The effect is caused by a known bug, in the module, but with a simple extra directive this can be worked around, until a fix is added in the next update, as described here:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/mod-auth-sspi/forums/forum/550583/topic/3392037
That sounds very very bizarre. Does it happen in other versions of IE as well?
I can't tell you what the problem is, but here are my suggestions on how to diagnose it:
Print $_REQUEST rather than just $_POST, to see if the data is coming in via another method.
Use a tool like Fiddler or Wireshark to track exactly what is actually being sent by the browser.
Fiddler in particular has been very helpful for me a few times (mainly when debugging Ajax code), and will tell you exactly what was posted by the browser. If your web server is localhost, you can also use Fiddler to track what is received before PHP gets its hands on it. If not, you can use wireshark on the server if you have permissions for installing that sort of thing.
In addition to Fiddler, I would have suggested a browser-based tool like Firebug, but I don't know of one for IE that is good enough (The IE dev toolbar doesn't give you details of request and response data, as far as I know).
I'm suspicious that when the script is telling you that $_POST is empty, you did not actually POST the form. You can check by adding print($_SERVER['REQUEST_METHOD']); after your print_r($_POST);
If you are posting a file some of the time (i.e. with a file input) then make sure you set enctype="multipart/form-data" in your <form> element.
Have you checked the generated html? Is it possible that echo $_SERVER['PHP_SELF'] isn't producing the output you're after, which messes up the form html, which messes up the POST?