Comment and Trackback Problems

We’ve been having problems at OTB with comments and trackbacks (which are indistinguishable in WordPress) getting eaten. Mark Jaquith has identified the problem and I’m working with my site host to get it resolved.

For those with the technical background to understand (which does not include yours truly), here’s the issue:

Something is broken in the server configuration.

url fopen() is turned on, but it fails, which is why those trackbacks were getting flagged, and why it freezes up when you try to log into your WordPress install and view the WordPress Dashboard (which uses a remote file fetch to display feeds on WordPress development).

Here’s the error: Warning: file_get_contents(): php_network_getaddresses: getaddrinfo failed: Name or service not known

Sounds like some DNS setup issue.

FILED UNDER: OTB History, Uncategorized,
James Joyner
About James Joyner
James Joyner is Professor and Department Head of Security Studies at Marine Corps University's Command and Staff College. He's a former Army officer and Desert Storm veteran. Views expressed here are his own. Follow James on Twitter @DrJJoyner.

Comments

  1. Bithead says:

    You’ve had something else the last few days, which has my system repoting being unable to hit paypal, of all places each time I bring up OTB.

    What’s up with that?

    BTW, didn’t do it just now.

  2. James Joyner says:

    Goodness knows. I haven’t gotten any PayPal hits in ages, although that’s not surprising now that I’ve got ads. Indeed, I took the tip jars off the front page of the site entirely a while back to compensate a bit for the slow loading caused by the adstrips.

    There was also a glitch (the lack of a closed hyperlink on the Amazon link) that I just fixed.

  3. joy says:

    James,

    I don’t think it’s a DNS issue, you need to ask your host if they upgraded PHP recently.