Question thread #58

[pauamma]

It's time for another question thread!

The rules:

- You may ask any dev-related question you have in a comment. (It doesn't even need to be about Dreamwidth, although if it involves a language/library/framework/database Dreamwidth doesn't use, you will probably get answers pointing that out and suggesting a better place to ask.)
- You may also answer any question, using the guidelines given in To Answer, Or Not To Answer and in this comment thread.

Comments

[pauamma]

OK, that's good. Do you have memcache set up on your server (or as part of your servers)?

[octorok]

I do not! Should I go set that up now?

[pauamma]

Not at this point. (And actually, you only need it for a production setup.) I was asking to check whether it could enter the picture.

OK, so it looks like you have a healthy database, as far as these 3 tables are concerned at least. The next step is to try figuring out where in the Dreamwidth code the password is getting corrupted, since it looks like it's not corrupted in the database. This will require running a modified version of make_system.pl. Are you familiar enough with git to juggle different versions of a file? (It's OK if you're not. I just don't want to talk down to you if you already know what you're doing.)

[octorok]

Unfortunately, I only have basic knowledge of git. I'm a quick learner though! :)

[pauamma]

Do you, by any chance, have a script-blocking add-on or something similar installed in your browser? If so, try whitelisting your site, force-reloading the login page and see if browser login works with whichever password you have currently set.

[octorok]

I went ahead and just disabled all of my plugins, reloaded chrome, tried to log in and still no go. :(

[pauamma]

OK. Another thing I'd like to try before I start looking pointedly at Dreamwidth code is using http://whatever.example.com/login?nojs=1 (with your domain name substituted for whatever.example.com) to log in. This will shortcircuit the javascript in the login page and do all the work in the back-end.

[octorok]

That didn't seem to work either. Same thing, says it's wrong password.

[pauamma]

OK

Step 1: update your installation as described in http://wiki.dreamwidth.net/wiki/index.php/Dev_Maintenance#Updating_the_Dreamwidth_code_on_your_Dreamhack , taking good note of http://wiki.dreamwidth.net/wiki/index.php/Dev_Maintenance#Additional_Information_for_Non-Dreamhack_Users.

Step 2: Create a branch to keep the modifications you'll make in step 3 away from the main development effort:

cd $LJHOME
git checkout develop
git checkout -b octorok-makesystem-changes

Step 3: Go to https://pastebin.com/raw/DwHfxPek and copy-paste the text into $LJHOME/bin/upgrading/make_system.pl, replacing the existing content. (Specifics depend on your preferred text editor and terminal emulation.)

Step 4: Commit yoour changes to the branch using:

git commit -a -m "Changes to try figuring out system login/password issue"

Step 5: Run the modified $LJHOME/bin/upgrading/make_system.pl and paste the output in a comment.

[octorok]

I got to #4 and get this:



I'm not really sure what to do here.

[pauamma]

Sorry, forgot about that. You need to choose an email address (one that you own) and name that you're willing to share with the world, and run the 2 commands git gave you, replacing you@example.com with the email address you chose and Your Name with the name you chose. Then, redo steps 4 and 5.

[octorok]

Okie dokie! Did all of that, here's what I got :)

[pauamma]

OK. It looks like something went wrong with steps 2 and 3 above, but I'm not sure what offhand. So let's try repairing it first, then we can redo what needs done.

Step a: back up your DW directory. That way, we can return to a known point if something goes wrong(er).

mkdir ~/dw.backup
cd $LJHOME
cp -r . ~/dw.backup

Step b: try repairing the damage.

git checkout develop
git reset --hard origin/develop
git branch -D octorok-makesystem-changes
git checkout -b octorok-makesystem-changes

Step c: retrieve and commit the modified file. (Watch out for wrapped lines in the first command below.)

wget -O $LJHOME/bin/upgrading/make_system.pl https://gist.githubusercontent.com/pauamma/16977a9d0114d1a5e3a6f7417423f22a/raw/8db3e6a81d60055a521bf0b3515d524e0586348f/gistfile1.txt
git commit -a -m "Changes to try figuring out system login/password issue"

Step d: run the modified file and paste the output in a comment.

$LJHOME/bin/upgrading/make_system.pl

[octorok]

I'm learning quite a bit here, thank you for being patient with me. :) Here's the output:



edit: I FORGOT TO WHITE OUT MY PASSWORD IN THE LAST COMMENT!! Eek. Will change it later, lol.

[pauamma]

OK. It looks like there's something wrong with your install, I suspect with the Digest::MD5 perl module. To figure out whether I'm right and how to fix it, I need to check a few things about your installation. First, what Linux distribution (name and version) you're using. Second, the output of the command

perl -v

And third, the output of the command

perl -e 'use strict; use warnings; use Digest::MD5; print "$Digest::MD5::VERSION\n";'

[octorok]

I'm using Ubuntu 17.10 on Linode. Second, here's the output of perl -v:



The third step doesn't look like it did anything, sadly.

[pauamma]

Actually, the single line of output of the 3rd was just what I wanted to know, the version of the Digest::MD5 module you had installed. But I'm still not 100% sure whether there's something wrong with your install or what, so I have more troubleshooting code for you to run.

git checkout octorok-makesystem-changes
wget -O $LJHOME/bin/upgrading/make_system.pl https://gist.githubusercontent.com/pauamma/16977a9d0114d1a5e3a6f7417423f22a/raw/d88f27e2a1d8e9e7b69d4956e326784866244dc6/gistfile1.txt
git commit -a -m "More checking for error conditions"
$LJHOME/bin/upgrading/make_system.pl

And as usual, paste the output in a comment.

[octorok]

Okay cool! Here's the output after following your steps:

[pauamma]

OK, at this point, I'm pretty sure something changed between Ubuntu 16.4 (that the Dreamhack host runs) and 17.10 (that you run) that broke Dreamwidth. I suspect the something that changed is mysql-related. With that in mind, what is the output of

dpkg-query -l '*mysql*'

on your machine?

[octorok]

Interesting. Here's the output this time:

[pauamma]

OK. What's in /etc/mysql/mysql.conf.d/mysqld.cnf ? (Note: it may be several screenfulls long. I'm specifically interested in whether it contains a "sql_mode = ''" line as described in http://wiki.dreamwidth.net/wiki/index.php/Dreamwidth_Scratch_Installation#Configuring_MySQL.2FMariaDB .)

[octorok]

Here we go:

[pauamma]

Just to be clear: did you just add this or was it already there?

[octorok]

It was already there. I accidentally hit a key while searching for it is all. :)

[octorok]

Hey! I think you may have found the problem? I created a new disk and installed 16.04 on it and am able to login! So maybe that was the issue? Either way thank you so much for your help!

[pauamma]

Thanks for your patience while we worked our way through the problem!

ETA: filed bug https://github.com/dreamwidth/dw-free/issues/2248