Large Debug Cache files - problems in tpl_spots_sidebox.php

[DrByte]

$file = fopen("http://a.coinnet.com/cgi-bin/freebie" , "r");

That line is trying to use a PHP function named "fopen" to access an external website (a.coinnet.com) to "read" (the "r") the data on that page.

Many hosting companies nowadays specifically prohibit "fopen" from accessing external websites (allow_url_fopen = off) for security reasons, since hackers/phishers will often use that very approach for nefarious reasons.
So, it could be that your hosting company (or your server administrator, whoever controls the master PHP configuration on that server) has specifically changed things to be more secure, and the side-effect is that the errors you reported are now being triggered.

If your hosting company won't re-allow access to that URL, then you might need to rewrite the PHP to use something like CURL to read the data, and then also rewrite the code that parses it (all the fgets and feof etc function calls) to loop thru the data a little differently in order to get the desired end result.

Or, if the sidebox is no longer really needed, you could just turn it off and that particular problem goes away.

[DrByte]

Hmmm ... actually ... the problem may be even worse than that ...

If you try visiting that URL with your browser, you'll see that the page is blank and a "not found" error is returned.

So, whether that allow_url_fopen is set or not, you're still gonna get no useful data back.

If you want the functionality that that sidebox was giving at one time, you'll need to find another source for the data before you even bother considering the best method of reading and parsing the data for use.

For now I suggest turning off the sidebox: Admin->Tools->Layout Boxes Controller.

[mcintosh55]

I already turned it off.

Thanks for the help.