One word causing 500

[Giray]

I don't want to die thinking I am crazy. Could someone else please try something in IPS 4.4.3... Go to your AdminCP. Go to your Terms and Privacy Policy section. Type the following phrase into either the 'Site Guidelines' or the 'Privacy Policy'. The phrase is "We select" ("I select" has the same result for me).

Do you get a 500? I have been debugging this for an hour. I could not understand why a paste was crashing the page. I finally found the two words that were doing it.

Please tell me I'm not crazy!

Thanks all 😉

P.S. Just tried it with the word 'select' alone and it still crashes it. BTW, the problem does not exist in the Registration Terms & Rules input at the bottom of the page. 

[Adriano Faria]

Select is a reserved word but it works because settings is a text just like posts.  I just tested in Site Guidelines on my online board.

[Giray]

Hi Adriano, sorry, just to be sure I understand, so the word Select 'does' work on your board? It does not crash Policy...?

[Adriano Faria]

Nope, works fine. No crash. 

Do you have the same results if you type this on a post?

[Giray]

I have not yet tried. Just setting up a new board. I'll go and try now.

It works fine in posts. But, remember, it also works fine in Registration Terms &  Rules. It was just in the Site Guidelines and the Privacy boxes that it crashed. It's nuts 😉 Don't you love the unexplainable? 😉

Thanks for the assist, Adriano.

[Daniel F]

Do you see any errors in your system log or the apacha error log?If not, I would suggest to contact your webhost to check the logs for you.

[Giray]

Thanks Daniel. I've already put 'log checking' on my todo list for tomorrow. I'll look into this, if nothing else, just for personal satisfaction. But for now, back to building the basics 😉 Have to get this baby out.

[Daniel F]

It sounds like there's probably a WAF ( web application firewall ) running in the background and blocking the request because it contains "select"

[Giray]

Thanks Daniel. Good thought, but I don't think that's it. Don't want to give too much away, but for now that server has the firewall off while I develop. See image.

I wonder if the moon landing in 1969 had as many hidden mysteries? 🙂

By the way guys, thanks for all your help on a SUNDAY!! All of us should really get a life 😉

[bfarber]

It could also be something like mod_security, or a CDN that has a built in firewall.

[Giray]

Good thought. Thanks. I'll look at that. Bizarre though that it's that one word LOL. As soon as I type 'Select' kaboom. Not important enough to worry, plenty of synonyms to go around.

[bfarber]

"Select" on its own is a weird thing to block, but "SELECT *" or something else that may be interpreted as an attempted SQL injection exploit would be common to block.