Undefined index, Only variable references....

Any fix?

I was getting the 'only variables...' error reported above on a login form block, that I was embedding into a page in my template file.

It seems that updating the following function in captcha_after.module to make sure it returns a variable gets rid of the error. However, I think this is just masking the problem. I don't understand what is going on in the module well enough to really know what I'm doing!

/**
 * Helper function for finding captcha element in form array.
 *
 * @return
 *   Reference to form captcha element.
 */
function &captcha_after_get_captcha_element(&$form) {
  
  // Define variable
  $no_captcha = NULL;

  if (isset($form['captcha'])) {
    return $form['captcha'];
  }

  if (isset($form['actions']['captcha'])) {
    return $form['actions']['captcha'];
  }

  // For node forms.
  if (isset($form['buttons']['captcha'])) {
    return $form['buttons']['captcha'];
  }

  // Return NULL
  return $no_captcha;
}

Hi guys,

Tried today to check this bug but I was not able to reproduce it locally. I was testing with D7.8, latest captcha 7.x-1.x-dev (2011-10-12).

Can somebody create exact bug report for this - what is exact configuration that reproduce this bug?

I was getting 'only variables...' error messages on every form where captcha_after is activated.

I found an issue thread from another module where this was also happening:
http://drupal.org/node/1155586

The simple patch from there did it for me.

In captcha_after.module replace...
return NULL;
...with...

$null = NULL;
return $null;

Hey R2-D8 thanks, and I fully agree with you about a fix. Problem is that other functions that are calling captcha_after_get_captcha_element() are always expecting to get result and not NULL - so lets say that returning NULL is not a valid at all currently.

Can you tell me for which captcha protected forms you get this error. If you can print_r some $form value from captcha_after_get_captcha_element() call for which you are getting error and send me in attach result from print_r that would be great.

I'm not getting the 'Notice: Undefined index: ...' error message, but I am getting the other error for my Mailing List form:

Notice: Only variable references should be returned by reference in captcha_after_get_captcha_element() (line 171 of [my locahost install]\sites\all\modules\captcha_after\captcha_after.module).

I have Devel module loaded and Display $page array checked. If i drill down through page => what am i looking for that might be of some use to you?

CAPTCHA 7.x-1.0-beta2+4-dev (2012-May-02)
captcha_after 7.x-1.0+1-dev (2012-Feb-29)
mailing_list 7.x-1.0-beta1

Hi Tezza and thx for your readiness for helping to solve this bug.

Problem is in function captcha_after_get_captcha_element() which only job is to find captcha element in form array. That function for now checks captcha element in only 3 places in form array. If it fails you will get that 'Notice: Undefined index: ...' error message.

Can you try next. Edit captcha_after.module file and in captcha_after_get_captcha_element() function add next two lines of code

// Debug form array to see where is a 'captcha' element inside of it.
dpm($form);

So your edited function should look like this

function &captcha_after_get_captcha_element(&$form) {
  // Debug form array to see where is a 'captcha' element inside of it.
  dpm($form);
  
  if (isset($form['captcha'])) {
    return $form['captcha'];
  }

  if (isset($form['actions']['captcha'])) {
    return $form['actions']['captcha'];
  }

  // For node forms.
  if (isset($form['buttons']['captcha'])) {
    return $form['buttons']['captcha'];
  }

  return NULL;
}

Now with that change on pages with captcha and activated captcha_after you will see devel debug message which will print $form array. Can you then check that $form array and find where is 'captcha' element inside of it - that is an info we need for this bug.
If you have trouble finding that element just save your page with debug info and attach it here so I can take a look.

I'm probably being over-cautious but I'm a bit hesitant about posting a page from my site while logged in as user 1. It's likely not an issue so forgive my ignorance, but could I email it to you if the attached jpg is of no value?

jpg image is fine.

Problem is that I do not see captcha element in your form array anywhere - did you check all sub-elements in that array?

Is captcha enabled for that form at all - do you see a captcha widget when you disable captcha_after module?

After that checks and if you still can not figure where possible problem might be can you replace your captcha_after.module with attached file - I've added couple of more debugging statements - when you replace file, just visit your form page, expand debug elements and attach screen-shot so I can take a look.

Apologies, my screw up. I was bypassing captcha as user 1.

I've now changed permissions and logged in as an administrator on another browser. I don't have a screen capture plugin on Chrome so i've created a PDF of the captcha array.

Hope this is better.

Nope it is not your mistake, captcha_after should correctly handle that use case - when captcha is skipped. And this was the info I needed to reproduce this bug and fix it. Just pushed fix for this - please test this fix when new dev version is created or just grab latest code from git.

I'm not yet Git-savvy so I'll wait until d.o is updated.

...

Dev of 2012-May-07 fixes my 'Notice: Only variable references...' error. Thanks pivica.

Great and thank you Tezza for your help in resolving this bug.

This also need to be ported to 6.x version.

Finally ported this to 6.x-1.x.