Hello.

I installed the latest Mollom version to Drupal 6.28.

At first, it worked perfectly.

But shortly afterwards, "status update" reports:

"Mollom API keys Service error
The Mollom API keys could not be verified. Please try again later."

Watchdog reports the following:

"Error 900: Network error. (rest.mollom.com)

Request POST...

Request headers...

Response: 0 php_network_getaddresses: getaddrinfo failed: Temporary failure in name resolution

API keys could not be verified."

Mollom settings appear to be right:

"Mollom servers verified your keys. The services are operating correctly.

I'm really new to coding so try to bear with me on the working explanation and solution."

Thank you very much.

Comments

sun’s picture

Status: Active » Postponed (maintainer needs more info)

Please try again later.

Do you still experience this issue today?

jenlampton’s picture

Title: API keys could not be verified » The Mollom API keys could not be verified. Please try again later.
Version: 6.x-2.5 » 7.x-2.7
Category: support » bug
Priority: Major » Normal
Status: Postponed (maintainer needs more info) » Active

This same issue happens on the latest 7.x version.

After upgrading, the error appears on the status report even though on the mollom settings page I see:

Mollom servers verified your keys. The services are operating correctly.
couturier’s picture

I upgraded to 7.x-2.7 a week ago, but this error just started at 12:42 Central Standard time today. So, I don't think it has to do with the upgrade, because it was working before then. Same as jenlampton, the Settings page says the keys are verified. I double-checked that my server time was synced (see: The configured Mollom API keys are invalid)) and it was a few minutes off but fixed now and still throwing Error 900. Here's a printout some parts including keys deleted:

Error 900: Network error. (rest.mollom.com)

Request: POST http://rest.mollom.com/v1/site/
  platformName = 'Drupal'
  platformVersion = '7.23'
  clientName = 'Mollom'
  clientVersion = '7.x-2.7'
Request headers:
  Accept = 'application/xml, application/json;q=0.8, */*;q=0.5'
  Content-Type = 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded'
  Authorization = 'OAuth oauth_consumer_key="", oauth_version="1.0", oauth_nonce="", oauth_timestamp="", oauth_signature_method="HMAC-SHA1", oauth_signature=""'
Response: 0 php_network_getaddresses: getaddrinfo failed: Name or service not known

API keys could not be verified.

SEVERITY	error
couturier’s picture

Very interesting recent thread on this problem, saying increasing the timeout to 30 seconds fixes it: Mollom workaround for Error 900

2ndmile’s picture

I just started getting the same error on Drupal 6.28 with Mollom 6.x-2.5,

2ndmile’s picture

This error just started today. Another interesting point is that I have the Mollom settings to "Allow all form submissions" when the servers are unreachable. It is just refreshing the page bringing the visitor back to the webform with their information filled in and generating the error.

For completeness, below is the watchdog error:

API keys could not be verified.
Error 900: Network error. (rest.mollom.com)

Request: POST http://rest.mollom.com/v1/site/38593a2f9a7409c48c95e07bb268da30
  platformName = 'Drupal'
  platformVersion = '6.28'
  clientName = 'Mollom'
  clientVersion = '6.x-2.5'
Request headers:
  Accept = 'application/xml, application/json;q=0.8, */*;q=0.5'
  Content-Type = 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded'
  Authorization = 'OAuth oauth_consumer_key="[deleted]", oauth_version="1.0", oauth_nonce="[deleted]", oauth_timestamp="1377810269", oauth_signature_method="HMAC-SHA1", oauth_signature="[deleted]"'
Response: 0 php_network_getaddresses: getaddrinfo failed: Name or service not known

Error 900: Network error. (rest.mollom.com)

Request: POST http://rest.mollom.com/v1/site/38593a2f9a7409c48c95e07bb268da30
  platformName = 'Drupal'
  platformVersion = '6.28'
  clientName = 'Mollom'
  clientVersion = '6.x-2.5'
Request headers:
  Accept = 'application/xml, application/json;q=0.8, */*;q=0.5'
  Content-Type = 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded'
  Authorization = 'OAuth oauth_consumer_key="[deleted]", oauth_version="1.0", oauth_nonce="[deleted]", oauth_timestamp="1377810270", oauth_signature_method="HMAC-SHA1", oauth_signature="[deleted]"'
Response: 0 php_network_getaddresses: getaddrinfo failed: Name or service not known

API keys could not be verified.
couturier’s picture

The solution in #4 does not work, increasing timeout to 30 seconds. I am not sure what else to try. Maybe Mollom's servers are down for the free sites? An August 17, 2013 post mentions the server for the free sites underwent recent maintenance which may have slowed it down.

2ndmile’s picture

30 second fix did not work for me either. Nothing on Twitter. I assume that if it were a large outage many people would be chiming in. Yet it is strange that we both started experiencing it at the same time. It looks like I had a successful request at 1:45pm EST and the first error is at 1:50pm EST.

2ndmile’s picture

It looks like #2058645: Client-side networking failure is never reported as error addresses the incorrect message on the settings page and that is committed to the dev version.

couturier’s picture

@2ndmile is your site a free one? Note the last paragraph on this comment by sun on August 17, 2013:

The Mollom service for free users underwent a few maintenance updates in the past week, which might have caused the slow response times. Do you still experience the timeout issue today? (when reverting to factory defaults)

I agree that if it were a widespread Mollom outage, there should be more activity. So far, only 3 of us are commenting on this over several hours today. Or, maybe other people don't know yet. The error message doesn't post on every page of a Drupal site.

2ndmile’s picture

Upgraded to 6.x-2.x-dev and the error message on the settings page now reads, "The Mollom servers could not be contacted. Please make sure that your web server can make outgoing HTTP requests." I have not changed anything on my dedicated server today so...

couturier’s picture

Upgraded to 7.x-2.7-dev and have the same message in Settings as you do for Drupal 6, The Mollom servers could not be contacted. Please make sure that your web server can make outgoing HTTP requests. At least this is a step forward above what jenlampton and I had back in comments #2 and #3 with the non-dev version, 7.x-2.7 that was saying the keys were verified on the Settings page.

@2ndmile did you see my comment #10? Do you have free Mollom service?

2ndmile’s picture

Yes, free service here as well. It looks like the server is back up as it is working again. Were your forms still working while the errors were being thrown? That is what concerns me more than the servers being down.

couturier’s picture

Yes, the Mollom server was back working for me at 17:40 CST. Like you, in the past I have had a problem with forms being accepted while API keys could not be validated, even though I had specified on the Settings page that they should not be accepted. Things are working fine with that now, though. It could be a Drupal 6 to 7 problem for you. I'm running Drupal 7, and I encourage you to seriously consider upgrading soon. Support for D6 will be dropped in about two years when D8 is released.

This time, form submissions were correctly blocked while Mollom servers were down, but I now have dozens of spam comments since the servers have been back up, very unusual for just a few hours. I normally receive fewer than 5 comments coming through per day. Maybe this will be corrected soon. I imagine the server is being watched since it has had a recent outage.

couturier’s picture

Status: Active » Closed (fixed)

Spam filtering is back to normal now. It was only a server disruption yesterday afternoon.

mustardman’s picture

Anyone still getting this error? I have this problem right now on 2 different websites.

couturier’s picture

My site is validating the keys fine. @mustardman did you check for sure to make your server time clock is synchronized? If it is more than a couple of minutes off, the keys will not validate. A really simple way to check this is to look at your log messages under Reports > Recent Log Messages > and see if actions taking place are recording at the same time you know they occurred relative to your computer's or cell phone's clock. For instance, you could post some content and check exactly what time you did that and see if it is the same on the log messages. If not, that is your problem. Software can be installed on the server to correct this.

Also, it could be your sites are on different Mollom servers than mine and may be having a temporary disruption.

FrancoNogarin’s picture

The problem is still hapenning for me, and it appears to be simple DNS issues, I cant expect it to work if it cannot resolve rest.mollom.com when I drop to a shell:

ping rest.mollom.com
ping: unknown host rest.mollom.com
couturier’s picture

Status: Closed (fixed) » Needs review

The problem seems to come and go. I've had at least one additional outage of Mollom since the discussions above. What bothers me, as mentioned in #13 and #14, is that dozens of spam comments are getting through at some point during the outages. I have the Mollom module set to reject submissions if the service is unavailable, so I don't know why these are getting through. Mollom blocks thousands of spam comments daily for my site, so a few dozen every other week or so with these outages are manageable, but it is not how I have configured the module. I have the free Mollom service.

I'm moving the status back to needs review just in case someone from the Mollom team may like to see what has been going on. It's a great service, and I certainly have no complaints for the free option for small sites. Hopefully one day my site will be profitable so I can move to the paid Mollom service, and then maybe outages will be less frequent.

gb2world’s picture

Also been experiencing this all throughout September on 2 sites, one Drupal 6, one Drupal 7. Early in the month, I did not have the most recent versions of the module, but upgrading has not helped.

This morning it got worse, in that, the forms were not displaying the mollom captcha image, but when the user tried to submit the forms, they received the error about the captcha field being required, but it is not displayed on the form.

I do have a ticket in with Mollom. They said they have had performance issues in the last few days. I am also using the free plans, so perhaps that is why. The paid plans are priced too high for our budget, so we might have to move back to using recaptcha.

I asked them if there is anything in the dev releases that might help, or, if the incresed timout suggested here: https://drupal.org/node/1797470 is recommended.

couturier’s picture

I know some big sites that use the free Honeypot module for spam control.

aburnsni’s picture

I too tracked this problem to DNS. My local machine could find rest.mollom.com but my server (using googles dns servers) could not.

$nslookup rest.mollom.com
;; Got SERVFAIL reply from 8.8.8.8, trying next server
;; Got SERVFAIL reply from 8.8.8.8, trying next server
Server:         8.8.4.4
Address:        8.8.4.4#53

** server can't find rest.mollom.com: SERVFAIL

I fixed it temporarily by adding
173.193.242.189 rest.mollom.com
to my /etc/hosts file.
But if that IP changes I'm afraid I'll lose contact again.
Does anyone know what is causing these DNS issues?

couturier’s picture

Mollom said that they had been doing some work on the server that operated the free service, but that was several weeks ago, so I don't know if they are still having issues with that particular server. I have also had ongoing outages as recently as yesterday. I think the spam comments are getting through within a few minutes after the Mollom server is coming back up. So, I know when it has been down because I will have a list of about 75 spam comments or so that came in over the space of a few minutes. An upgrade to the module was recently released, so be sure you are current with that. I will upgrade today and see if the outages continue.

2ndmile’s picture

I am still experiencing this issue. I started a new issue because when the servers go down my users can't submit the forms even though I have the Mollom settings to "Allow submissions..." In case someone else is looking for it #2108285: Fallback mode is not always triggered in case Mollom is not reachable.

couturier’s picture

Status: Needs review » Closed (fixed)

Moving back to fixed because problem seems to be resolved. Someone told me that the outages started happening a few weeks ago because Mollom was applying server patches, and that is when everything went haywire. So, it looks like things have settled down again. These problems seemed to apply only to the sites that had the free service.