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WordPress connection issues?

April 3, 2012 Hosting No comments

This afternoon a client of ours called in stating that they were having issues installing wordpress and the error being returned was

Error establishing a database connection

Error establishing a database connection

The error to most means that either the database server specified within the installation is incorrect, or the username and password combination provided are too incorrect.

These typically mean typing errors how ever after digging a little further its apparent that the error “Error establishing a database connection” doesnt necessarily mean that this is the issue.

Some info regarding the hosted environment

Windows 2003
IIS 6
PHP 5.3.8 (fastcgi)

During the tests we copied a working configuration file from another WordPress 3.2.1 web site and when testing the connection the same error occurred. Odd as we were certain that the credentials stored within the wp-config file worked. Telnet tests to the mysql data base server confirmed that no firewalls were causing connectivity issues.

During the past few years we’ve picked up on a few issues where the web user created by helm doesnt have correct permissions assigned to it or it isnt assigned to the correct user groups, so naturally a helm restore was performed on the domain to try resolve the issue. To our surprise this proved pointless as the error still existed.

Our only conclusion now is that the server which is serving website A (the one which cant connect) and the server serving website B (the site which does work) have different dependency files which is causing php to fail.

In order to isolate any inconsistencies between servers we created a phpinfo file on each server to compare the installation. Again no luck as the versions on both servers were identical.

At this point we’re scratching heads trying to figure out what is the cause of this issue. In a leap of frustration we created a simple test script to determine whether each site could connect to the database without the use of WordPress’s code

<?php
$con = mysql_connect(“localhost”,”peter”,”abc123″);
if (!$con)
{
die(‘Could not connect: ‘ . mysql_error());
}

// some code
?>

Success, on both web servers we werent able to connect to the new site’s database as the following was returned

mysqlnd cannot connect to MySQL 4.1+ using the old insecure authentication

A simple update to the password format on mysql resolved the infamous Error establishing a database connection issue

IP Address Missing from IIS 7 Site Binding

March 23, 2012 Hosting No comments

IIS 7

This may be a bit technical and perhaps rather boring but I know that someone out there will find this useful, so here it is.

If you use IIS 7 on Windows 2008 then you may run into this issue.

After creating a website within IIS 7, you’re prompted to specify the IP’s that need to be bound to the site. At the point of completing the New Web Site Wizard within IIS you get to the section where you would select your servers default IP address and its mysteriously missing.

The only two options listed within IIS 7′s IP bindings are are * or 127.0.0.1

hmmm…. what the heck. I’m sure at this point that you either check to see what IP’s are configured on your server or check some of your other sites?

The issue is caused by having a host file entry such as the machine name which points back to itself, or 127.0.0.1

Open your hosts file using notepad (c:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts) and remove or UN-comment the following line

machinename 127.0.0.1

Save

Close IIS Snap-in and reopen.

Breaking the boundries of shared e-mail hosting

March 8, 2012 Hosting, Marketing No comments

With the completion of a SmarterMail upgrade to version 9 enterprise edition across all of our shared hosting servers we’re excited….. no wait, we’re ecstatic about the possibilities and features that we’re giving to our clients.

Up until now shared e-mail hosting has in past allowed you to do one thing, communicate.

Take what you know about shared e-mail hosting and turn it on its head and this is what you get with our new shared collaboration empowered e-mail services.

Keep in touch with employees in real time via chat features whether those are desktop based, mobile based or webmail based.

Share documents with clients, employees and friends.

Synchronize your mail, appointments, tasks, notes and contacts across multiple platforms with ease.

Share your inbox, calendar, notes and tasks with employees and domain users.

Import your mail, calendars and contacts from Exchange, Gmail, Yahoo and more.

Log into your webmail today and take advantage of our new shared collaboration empowered e-mail services, and once you have, share your insights with us.

60 Free Web Hosting Offers Coming up in April

March 3, 2012 Hosting, Marketing No comments

We’re going to rock the hosting world in April 2012 by giving away more than 60 free web hosting accounts.

If you’re looking for a free web hosting package or reseller hosting package then keep an eye out on some of the popular online forums.

If you arent interested but know of some one who may benefit from this then please pass on the information, and remember to tell them that all of our Helm 3 Hosting Packages offer UNLIMITED BANDWIDTH!

If you know of any decent forums that you frequently visit then hit us back with some links.

Coldfusion 7 Resources Increased

February 9, 2012 Hosting No comments

We are please to announce that we have drastically increased resources on our Coldfusion 7 Web Hosting Products.
The increases see diskpace increases up to 400% and all Coldfusion 7 hosting packages now benefit from Unlimited Bandwidth.

Existing clients have already had their web hosting packages upgraded and we’re confident that this will benefit all.

View our Unlimited Coldfusion 7 Web Hosting Packages

how to get ioncube_loader working on IIS6 & IIS 7 php 5.3.8

February 7, 2012 Hosting No comments

We were recently tasked with php issues on a clients 2008 server in which their billing application would return wierd and wonderful errors.

The solution was to install and load php 5.3.8 Win32 VC9 x86 onto their server and hopefully resolve the issue.

After enabling and installing php 5.3.8 our initial problems were that php was returning blank pages with no errors being logged despite us enabling error debugging and logging.

Our initial attempt saw us download the Ioncube loaders from Ioncube’s site. For this part you want find the version of ioncube that matches your php version, and then download the zip file, ie Windows VC9 (x86)

WE extracted the files and placed them into php’s ext folder only to find that IIS would not read the files as they werent prefixed php_ so we renamed ioncube_loader_win_5.3.dll to php_ioncube_loader_win_5.3.dll, reloaded IIS’s php extensions and were now able to see the extension and enable it.

Upon enabling we were presented with the following error

Site error: the file <b>C:\domains\xxx.domain.com\admin\index.php</b> requires the ionCube PHP Loader ioncube_loader_win_5.3.dll to be installed by the site administrator.

C:\Users\Administrator>c:\apps\php-5.3.8-Win32-VC9-x86\php-cgi.exe c:\domains\xxx.domain.com\admin\index.php

X-Powered-By: PHP/5.3.8
Content-type: text/html

The ionCube Loader is a Zend-Engine extension and not a module Please specify the Loader using ‘zend_extension’ in php.ini

At this point we undid the changes, renamed the dll back to its original file name and added the following line the php.ini

zend_extension=”C:\apps\php-5.3.8-Win32-VC9-x86\ext\ioncube_loader_win_5.3.dll”

Voila, success

Helm 4 Beta Testers Required

March 2, 2011 Marketing

We’ve been hard at work over the past few months getting a new HELM 4 infrastructure setup and require some testing before we go live. We thought that there’s no better way to get an environment tested than giving our resellers access to it and letting them push it to its limits.

We’re looking for 5 resellers who will be able to test the new system and report back to us on any errors and issues that are experienced during the testing phase. In particular we require testing of PHP applications, including the common ones such as Joomla, WordPress, OSCommerce and any others that you or your clients may use on a day to day basis.

Our new Helm 4 infrastructure boasts some of the newer technologies available, such as
Window 2008 & IIS 7
Microsoft SQL 2008
SmarterMail 7 Enterprise (Version 8 to be implemented as soon as the vendor has released it)
SmarterStats 5 – (Improved SEO reporting and competitor comparisons)
Helm 4 – Now includes standard features such as Web site backups, unzip and zip features, granular reporting and improved package management.

If you have the time to do some testing then please get in touch with us by sending us a ticket as per the instructions below.

For your efforts and assistance with regards to this there will be some fantastic discounts up for grabs for those that have taken part in the beta testing and purchase their new Helm 4 reseller packages within 3 months of us releasing to market.

Instructions and requirements for each application
Please complete the section below and send to us via response to this blog post
Applications must be received by 17H00 on Friday the 4th March 2011.
Each application must be completed with the required information and those who have been chosen to assist shall be notified via return.
We aim to allow each reseller to test a particular PHP / .NET application in order to diagnose any unknown issues.
You need to be an active server-admins.NET reseller in order to partake in this beta test.
Below is the format to be used when applying for beta testing access :

Applicant Client Code : [clientcode]
Applicant Name : [firstname] [surname]
Application to be tested :
Application installation file URL :

The importance of using real server hardware

February 7, 2011 Hosting

We’re often asked as to whether our servers are real servers? Yeah it may seem like a strange and cheesy question which tends to pop up quite often often but its one which raises some valid points.

Whilst working in our data center with a client who recently signed up with us he mentioned that he’d recently moved away from two of our largest competitors after purchasing “servers” from them, only to find that what they had labeled as a server was in fact cheap and nasty desktop hardware.

Its no secret that many shared web hosting providers in South Africa may choose to provide and utilize inexpensive hardware for their clients in an attempt to keep their costs of ownership down, how ever decisions like these can be costly on the long run.

Whilst it may make “business sense” to purchase inexpensive desktop hardware to start off with, one has to consider the long term cost of ownership with these decisions and the impact it brings later on. A prime example with such decisions is up time and, in our books, there are no negotiations or “if’s and butt’s” when it comes to up time!

Still not convinced that hardware makes a difference? Take a look at some of our competitors notifications pages and compare these to ours….

In fact we’re so confident that we’ll send you a copy of our SLA reports to prove that we mean business and when it comes to hosting there are shortcuts.