Mrs. Flinger: Biz

I thought I’d take this opportunity to share a bit about PHP errors. I often have clients tell me, “My site exploded!” My brain construes an image akin to Ghost Busters where we learn crossing the beams of your proton pack is a bad idea.

*GOODBYE STAY PUFT*

A php error, often obscure (think: parse error) can have a fair bit of helpful information in it.

For example:

This morning my site had an fugly php error at the header.

After a quick look, I can find the following information.

Reason for Fail, File, Directory, and Line.

This tells me something happened with the contruct in line 290. Specifically, if I open the file found in the directory there /pi.twitter_timeline.php I can see it’s the function bringing in the timeline from twitter.

What does this mean to a non-programmer? It means you know what to google to find out how to fix your error.

A quick “Twitter Timeline Plugin ExpressionEngine Error” results in the following blogpost:

Twitter Timeline Plugin and (n)Oath.

You’ll find the resource you need to update your twitter plugin and be on your way.

Replace the existing file with the latest version and rest assured, Stay Puft is taken care of. For now.

0 Comments Filed in: fixing technology • Read the Archives

I was recently having some issues with my feed after, what I thought, was the update to this site.

When clicking on the link to the feed, you would see the following error:

Invalid GET DATA

The URL would have come through the feed google proxy which added invalid characters to my URI:

I did some testing and noticed that my main feed from which feedburner pulls from did not add these characters (logical, right? Since it’s not going through the feedburner proxy) and so I knew it was not my feed from the update, but some change I must have made in feedburner itself.

After searching for what changed and why the proxy was in place, I remembered I turned on “Click Tracking” under Analyze.

CLICK TRACKING OF COURSE. :: facepalm ::

This adds the proxy for click tracking stats and removing this option, completely fixed the problem.

I realized I don’t need to have click tracking on since I use a variety of other stat counters (and never check them).

At least my readers can finally click through if they want. Even if I’ll never know. And really, sometimes? Ignorance really is bliss.

6 Comments Filed in: fixing technology • Read the Archives