By seanm on

Can anyone advise me ?

I am using Captcha and Textimage modules, trying to get the image based captcha to work.

Whenever I set the directory for the fonts or images, I get the error "Invalid Path".

I have created a directory called "fonts", set the permissions to world readable, writable (its all 777).

The content of the directory is also all set to 777.

The fonts are in place, downloaded from the suggested http://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/freefont/ site and directory, using TrueType fonts.

I have tried setting the path to(without the quotes) :

"public_html/fonts"
"/Public_html/fonts"
"/public_html/fonts/"
"/fonts"
"fonts/"
"www.authorpool.com/fonts"
"www.authorpool.com/fonts/"
"http://www.authorpool.com/fonts"
"http://www.authorpool.com/fonts/"

I have gone through searches on drupal.org, found only suggestions to make the directory for fonts world writable and readable, Ive set the directory to 777, and the contents to 777, has no effect.

I checked the issues for Captcha and Textimage but I'd have to say its something I'm doing wrong, and nothing wrong with the module...

Prolly some stupid newbie issue, but I have to admit Im stumped.

Can anyone give some pointers ?

Thanks

Sean

⋅ Categories: Drupal 5.x

Comments

seanm’s picture

seanm commented

Anyone have any ideas ?

Thanks,

Sean

seanm’s picture

seanm commented

I found the solution for this.

apparently (and this was buried in another post I found here on drupal.org) to correct the "invalid path" errors I simply ignored the beginning and ending slashes.

This allows the module to find the fonts.

Seanm

dsextonj’s picture

dsextonj commented

Could you give an example. I too and pulling out my hair.

Dale

seanm’s picture

seanm commented

Sorry, Ill be more specific...

The fonts I grabbed off the net for use for my drupal install were placed in a folder named Fonts under
Public_html to make the correct path /public_html/fonts.

Since Drupal considers its root to be public_html, then the folder would be sitting in /fonts
(and naturally all the font files themselves sitting in /fonts/)

I removed the beginning and ending slashes. So instead of /fonts or /fonts/ I simply listed the folder as

fonts

without any slashes.

Sean

TimK’s picture

TimK commented

I was running into the same problem. It turns out the textimage module uses file_check_directory() to check the directory paths. Except that file_check_directory() requires the directory to be writable. So you can't use system directories. You have to use a writable directory. (!!?)

This sounds like a bug to me, and a potential security issue. Fortunately, on my server, I can make a directory writable to Drupal without making it writable to everyone else. But I've hosted on systems on which the only way to make a directory writable to Drupal would be to make it writable to everyone on the system. While this may be okay for a public uploads directory, it's way inappropriate for the textimage fonts and backgrounds directories.

If you want to hack the textimage module, just comment out the logic in textimage_settings_form_validate(). It will then accept any path, even invalid ones. But at least it can be made to work.

Now if I can only get textimage to work with captcha...

-TimK

brunodbo’s picture

brunodbo
he/him
commented

Changing the ownership of the directory where the fonts live (so that it's owned by the webserver) fixed it for me.

farrell’s picture

farrell commented

I got this to work in a 4.7 site I built by doing the following:

  • installed the fonts in a folder called "fonts" in the Drupal root directory
  • typed "fonts" in the path entry box (don't use the quote marks, obviously)

That's it. It worked perfectly.
Without installing the fonts, Textimage was a mess.

FYI, in my latest site, 5.1, I just used Captcha without Textimage and it seems to be working fine. Plus, it's good for keeping the math skills sharp :)
Hope this helps.

--
Farrell Kramer
Farrell Kramer Communications

seanm’s picture

seanm commented

I have heard through the forums here that certain bots are able to do the math problems now.

Its supposedly better to use the graphical version with textimage

Sean

farrell’s picture

farrell commented

I have heard that, too, but haven't seen any evidence of it on my site.

I have seen bots crack other text-based captchas -- ex. phpBB on a regular basis -- so I was happy to try something else. Also, I've heard from users that text-based captchas are hard to use and they don't particularly like them.

Anyway, that's my two cents. I can say that since I started using the math test about two months ago, nothing has cracked it. By the same token, nothing has cracked my Captcha/Textimage/Drupal 4.7 setup, either...

--
Farrell Kramer
Farrell Kramer Communications

kent007’s picture

kent007 commented

Hi,

I fought with adding the captcha module as well. I decided to install a cheap contact script with captcha already built in. See http://drupal.org/node/75111
Might be an option if you are looking for something simple...

Kent
http://www.clickbankaccountpro.com