Former application formmail no longer working

Backlight 4, 5 & 6 Support
#1

For years, I have had an application form, done through formmail, that has worked. It has now stopped working, and my local guru and I suspect this happened with the latest (and greatest) release of Backlight.

The form is at https://www.BCphotoadventures.com/application/

I spent a lot of time setting this up and over the years, tweaking it to update it. Any suggestions that I might pursue without starting from scratch???

All help will be very much appreciated!

Take care,

TBC

#2

What version of php is your host using? Just a wild guess that a newer version may not be compatible with version of formmail.php you’re using

If the php version has changed lately, you could try reverting to an earlier version.

#3

I tried and get this error

image
image1154×570 22.7 KB

I would start with setting up a simple non Backlight test page to verify that form submission works that way.

1 Like
#4

Daniel, sorry to be dense, but what exactly do you mean by “a simple non Backlight test page?”

Many thanks, as always,

TBC

#5

You can probably put your form code in a plain text file, save it as an html file, and upload it to test.

You can try using this and just drop your code between the body tags.

 <!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<body>

</body>
</html>
#6

In what way has the form ‘stopped working’?

I can see that the form submits to https://www.bcphotoadventures.com/formmail.php
The processing on that page should be unrelated to Backlight.

1 Like
#7

Thanks, Rod. I have family here from CO, but will certainly try your suggestion once she has left.

Thanks to you and Daniel for responding so quickly!

Take care,

TBC

#8

Ben,

Daniel tried it and got the error message that he posted above and the same one I have been getting. Once my daughter who is here from Colorado leaves, I will try Daniel’s and Rod’s suggestions.

Thanks for weighing in; it is much appreciated.

Take care,

TBC

#9

Hi @TBCbarefoot, a 500 error usually generates a log entry with further details somewhere on the server. Can you ask your local guru or the system admin to look for any error logs? They may be under /var/log/apache or similar location for php or there may be an error_log file in your home directory or a subdirectory such as logs.

If that doesn’t shed any light on it, a brute force approach would be to edit formemail.php and place lines such as die(‘here’); starting at the top and moving it for each test till you find which part of the file is failing (because the error will have happened before the die statement has been reached). You don’t need to fill out the form for each test. Just hit refresh and resubmit the form data. Something that person may be able to help with.

#10

I check with our server person, and the current version on the server is 8.0.25.

I’ll check online to see if I can find a reasonably priced upgrade to my php.

Again, thanks,

TBC

#11

I’m confused about your answer. Was that in reply to my comment? Can you forward my previous comment to Your server person?

#12

I am doing that now but probably won’t hear back until tomorrow.

Again, thanks,

TBC

#13

Is that the php version or the formmail version?

You might check with the formmail.php script author to make sure that the version you’re using is compatible with the php version running on your site.

#14

Out of curiosity, @TBCbarefoot , have you also contacted support at FormToEmail? It is their script you’re having an issue with, after all. As Ben states above, the processing for this form should have nothing to do with Backlight. We don’t mind offering advice, but they should be ultimately responsible for their script.

#15

Thanks, Matthew, an d did not know that is an option. So many progrmams these days have putrid support, so I find that more time is spent on that than is worth the effort. That said, I’ll give your suggestion a try.

Thank you, and the team, as always,

TBC

#16

In the mean time, do follow up on the advice that we have already provided. You should be able to work out the issues by following what I provided above.

#17

Good question, the formmail version is 9.14.

#18

Now that my daughter has left, I have time to pursue this, and thanks for all the suggestions. I may be bald by the time this is over! :wink:

Take care,

TBC

#19

Ben,

I shall attack this on the morrow and see who (the form or I) wins!

Many thanks!!!

TBC

#20

To Rod, Daniel, Ben, and Matthew, thank you all for your input. It has been a challenge complicated with family visits. All suggestions were excellent, but there is no software support for my old php, so that went out with the poor Dodo! They want to suck you into VIP service at great expense.

I have had our server downgrade our php to 7.4.28 for the nonce until I can create a whole new application using one of the plug-ins for WordPress, since I have my blog there.

Any suggestions of a good WP Plug-in that people have had success with for applications would be much appreciated. Currently, I am looking at WP User Manager, but I suspect it may not be ideal for an application. There are expensive ones out there, but we are a small operation, and I am familiar with HTML, having designed our original website with same many years ago.

Thanks again, and take care,

TBC