Website layout, fonts, graphics are messed up suddenly

Hi,

For some reason, my website layout, fonts, graphics are all messed up suddenly. It was all good yesterday. How did this happen?

I also found out that this only happens in Firefox. In IE7 and Opera, most of the graphics are fine. However there are some pictures missing/broken. Apart from these problems, I also found out that I can't log into my admin. How did this happen? Can anyone please help?

Other non-ZenCart-related modules (e.g. phpbb, phplist, dew-code) are affected and I can't access those admin page as well. I contacted my hosting company and they said it's not their problem. I have previously asked them to generate CSR and Private Keys to install a renewed SSL. Could this be contribute to the problem?

I have tried disabling SSL in both configure.php files. But it didn't help. The only thing I can think of is the SEO url. But I don't know how to turn that off besides in the admin.

For your information, my hosting company just replied and said the following. Please help I am really stuck.

"We did a restore using a backup from a week ago. We also copied the site over to a different server but the problems remained, so, it's not the php security issue we suspected. All I can suggest is that you consider updating the Zencart installation, somehow its not reading the stylesheet correctly. We have found nothing wrong with the server config."

In viewing your site code in the browser, this looks a bit odd:```

Also, when loading the stylesheet directly via that path, it displays its contents in the browser instead of opening the file as would normally happen. Perhaps it's been uploaded as a binary file instead of as a text file (ie: ascii mode instead of binary)
http://www.dealbyethan.com/includes/templates/ZC03C8447TM//stylesheet.css

Further, your broken images appear to be related to some sort of custom coding on your site ... ie: a syntax error in custom PHP code loading your images:
ie: going to this link: http://dealbyethan.com/images/ajaxx63-tee-big-load-shooter-2.jpg brings this error:> Parse error: syntax error, unexpected '[' in /home/dealbyet/public_html/images/ajaxx63-tee-big-load-shooter-2.jpg on line 23

Hopefully that gives you some ideas where to handle fixes.

Hi DrByte,

Thanks for your reply.

Also, when loading the stylesheet directly via that path, it displays its contents in the browser instead of opening the file as would normally happen. Perhaps it's been uploaded as a binary file instead of as a text file (ie: ascii mode instead of binary)
http://www.dealbyethan.com/includes/...stylesheet.css

I remember setting Fetch ftp manager to upload files in binary mode when installing JAM affiliates. But since then I haven't change it back to the default mode: Automatic. What difference would the binary mode create? However, I haven't touched the stylesheet.css file lately. Not sure how the double // got there. It's supposed to be a single /. Do you know which file to check?

Further, your broken images appear to be related to some sort of custom coding on your site ... ie: a syntax error in custom PHP code loading your images:
ie: going to this link: http://dealbyethan.com/images/ajaxx6...-shooter-2.jpg brings this error:

The broken images used to be fine. What should I do to get rid of this error? The broken images seem random.

Also, do you know how to turn off the SEO url besides in the admin? I want to test if it contributes to the problems I am having. Thanks again.

Regards,
Ethan

dealbyethan.com:

I remember setting Fetch ftp manager to upload files in binary mode when installing JAM affiliates. But since then I haven't change it back to the default mode: Automatic. What difference would the binary mode create?
Uploading in binary mode changes a number of things, including but not limited to the line-ending method used in encoding the file and possibly the MIME-type used to announce the file to the browser.

Normally "automatic" is sufficient, provided you haven't told it to "automatically handle" certain files as binary which are normally handled as text (ie: CSS, PHP, HTML, JS etc)

dealbyethan.com:

However, I haven't touched the stylesheet.css file lately. Not sure how the double // got there. It's supposed to be a single /. Do you know which file to check?No, it's actually supposed to be 2 slashes with "css" between them: /css/

I suspect you've done some hard-coding in the html_header.php file in your custom template to force loading of a stylesheet from a non-standard location.
To state my point more specifically ... you don't have your main stylesheet in the normal location, and your template is calling it from that non-normal location, which suggests you have also uploaded custom template changes which alter the normal stylesheet loading procedures. It's difficult to know which if any of these factors plays a part in the problems you're experiencing.

I'd be inclined to re-upload your stylesheet files using ASCII mode specifically (to current locations, not worrying about folders just yet) and see if that helps. Then deal with folder locations later.

dealbyethan.com:

The broken images used to be fine. What should I do to get rid of this error? The broken images seem random.I have no idea. It's not "normal" to get a PHP error when attempting to load an image file. Thus, you have some custom code that's doing this for your images. The syntax error it's reporting seems to be pretty clearly a coding bug. Perhaps it's related to symbols or characters in whatever naming method is used to generate your images?
Perhaps contacting the author of the custom code would be prudent?

Or maybe the images problem is related to some image caching system you've got or even the SEO mod?

dealbyethan.com:

Also, do you know how to turn off the SEO url besides in the admin? I want to test if it contributes to the problems I am having.I suppose that depends on which mod you're using. What do its instructions say about turning it off? Or about de-installing?
Naturally, de-installing is a more sure-fire way of knowing that it's not affecting things incorrectly.
Remember that there are likely .htaccess settings that affect the mod as well, and may require editing if you disable or remove the mod.

If this all happened "suddenly", were there some sort of coding changes made just before this happened?
Were there any server changes?

Are you seeing any errors in your server's "errorlog" ? This is usually a tell-tale indicator of sources of problems.

Uploading in binary mode changes a number of things, including but not limited to the line-ending method used in encoding the file and possibly the MIME-type used to announce the file to the browser.

Normally "automatic" is sufficient, provided you haven't told it to "automatically handle" certain files as binary which are normally handled as text (ie: CSS, PHP, HTML, JS etc)

I am going back to check if any files were uploaded recently as binary mode.

No, it's actually supposed to be 2 slashes with "css" between them: /css/

I suspect you've done some hard-coding in the html_header.php file in your custom template to force loading of a stylesheet from a non-standard location.
To state my point more specifically ... you don't have your main stylesheet in the normal location, and your template is calling it from that non-normal location, which suggests you have also uploaded custom template changes which alter the normal stylesheet loading procedures. It's difficult to know which if any of these factors plays a part in the problems you're experiencing.

I'd be inclined to re-upload your stylesheet files using ASCII mode specifically (to current locations, not worrying about folders just yet) and see if that helps. Then deal with folder locations later.

In that case, I think the 2 slashes have been there for a while and it was not creating problems. For some reasons, the template suppliers made 2 stylesheet.css file one is inside /includes/templates/CUSTOM while the other is inside /includes/templates/CUSTOM/css. I don't think this is an issue as it was working fine just a week ago. However, I might have to try re-uploading the files later.

I suppose that depends on which mod you're using. What do its instructions say about turning it off? Or about de-installing?
Naturally, de-installing is a more sure-fire way of knowing that it's not affecting things incorrectly.
Remember that there are likely .htaccess settings that affect the mod as well, and may require editing if you disable or remove the mod.

I am using Ultimate SEO URLs v2.100. Seeing that nobody really know how to turn in off outside of the admin, I will try uninstalling it by reversing what I have done.

If this all happened "suddenly", were there some sort of coding changes made just before this happened?

Not sure, if I had, it's probably some minor changes to make the website look better.

Were there any server changes? Are you seeing any errors in your server's "errorlog" ?

My hosting company claimed that there weren't any server changes. How do I find out if there is any erros in my server's errorlog? My hosting company is also helping me to solve these problems. So far they have reload a backup from a week before and moved to another server. However, the problems persist.

The most urgent problem is I can't access my admin page. The admins of other non-ZenCart-related modules are also not accessible. Their pages are also stuffed. Can you think of any possible reasons?

This would seem to be the cause of your problems.

dealbyethan.com:

For your information, my hosting company just replied and said the following. Please help I am really stuck.

"We did a restore using a backup from a week ago. We also copied the site over to a different server but the problems remained, so, it's not the php security issue we suspected. All I can suggest is that you consider updating the Zencart installation, somehow its not reading the stylesheet correctly. We have found nothing wrong with the server config."

Not sure why a restore was done but that plus moving to a new Server means:

• a lot of recent changes are now gone, including any Password changes
• paths and other changes may have to be done in both config files

Not sure why a restore was done but that plus moving to a new Server means:

• a lot of recent changes are now gone, including any Password changes
• paths and other changes may have to be done in both config files

Restore was done because I thought this would solve the problems by undoing the recent changes I made. Passwords and paths are not affected as the restore was from a backup done a week ago. Like I said these problems are not just happening to ZenCart but also other modules, e.g. dew-code, phpbb, phplist etc. My ZenCart is in the root.

Hi DrByte,

I have had a look at the errorlog file in the root directory (not sure if this is the right one) as this is where my ZenCart is installed. This file is big. One error repeats all the way through from March till today:

PHP Warning: Unknown(): Unable to load dynamic library './/usr/local/ixed/ixed.4.4.lin' - .//usr/local/ixed/ixed.4.4.lin: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory in Unknown on line 0

Other repetitive error is:

PHP Warning: Unexpected character in input: '' (ASCII=1) state=1 in /home/dealbyet/public_html/houseofhotmales468x60.jpg on line 84
[03-Jun-2007 05:43:14] PHP Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_STRING in /home/dealbyet/public_html/houseofhotmales468x60.jpg on line 84

The first error you mention is something your hosting company will have to fix.

The second one ... is caused by whatever (PHP ?) program is being used to generate your .jpg files. (Most sites don't use PHP to serve JPG's ... they are usually served directly from the folder on the server and never go through PHP ... so you or your hosting company have some sort of special coding going on there.)

If you are unable to use "other" systems besides Zen Cart, then get your hosting company back involved and explain the problem. If everything in your account is affected, then perhaps they've got something awry in your account settings?

The second one ... is caused by whatever (PHP ?) program is being used to generate your .jpg files. (Most sites don't use PHP to serve JPG's ... they are usually served directly from the folder on the server and never go through PHP ... so you or your hosting company have some sort of special coding going on there.)

I only use photoshop to make .jpg pictures not any php program.

If you are unable to use "other" systems besides Zen Cart, then get your hosting company back involved and explain the problem. If everything in your account is affected, then perhaps they've got something awry in your account settings?

Yes, I complained to them but they said they checked everything and there is nothing wrong at their end.

Is the Control Panel provided by your Hoster called DirectAdmin?

Something is wrong and it's not anything that can be fixed, other than by the Hoster. Not only your account but I would think all other Hosting accounts on the Server are having PHP problems as well. Speaking of which, both problems you mentioned are connected - fix the main PHP problem and they both go away.

If you Hoster has a Forum then time to make a post and see if others on the same Server have the same problems. Maybe some have already made posts. Otherwise, if the Hoster will not fix the problem you're only option is to move Hosters.

These kinds of errors in your server errorlog suggest a serious misconfiguration problem that your hosting company will have to deal with:

client denied by server configuration: /home/dealbyet/public_html/admin/login.php
and the following progression:

65.93.xx.xx- - [04/Jun/2007:11:18:26 +1000] "GET /admin HTTP/1.1" 301 249 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1)"
65.93.xx.xx - - [04/Jun/2007:11:18:26 +1000] "GET /admin/ HTTP/1.1" 302 5 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1)"
65.93.xx.xx - - [04/Jun/2007:11:18:27 +1000] "GET /admin/login.php HTTP/1.1" 403 - "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1)"

This shows that it is able to find the /admin folder, do a proper redirect to the /admin/index.php, which actually does run, and does a proper redirect to /admin/login.php ... but then encounters a 403 Forbidden error.

Time to rattle your hosting company's cage again...

Thanks so much for your help. I will inform my hosting company and let you all know how it goes.