All Comments Being Flagged As Comment Floods

[gorin-images]

Just upgraded to v 1.7. Everything looks good excpet for the comments

Mine aren't working. I tried a few to test it out, and no matter what circumstances are, PixelPost is identifying ALL comments as a "Flood".

For example, if I have the comment flood delay time set to 10 seconds, and I am making my very first comment on my site to test it out, it will say:

Comment flood protection is enabled. You need to wait 10 seconds before posting another comment.
Click here to go BACK

If I completely clear out my intenet caches on my PC etc., come back 15 minutes later and open up my photoblog, and then try to leave a test comment, it gives me the same message, even though it is WAY beyon 10 seconds.

If I open up the comment window, and then wait 30 seconds before leaving a comment, I STILL get this message.

My comments worked perfectly before the upgrade. When someone submitted a comment, it gave them a "Thank You" message, and then redirected them after about 10 seconds (a time that I actually configured, but I can;t remember where to do that).

My previous version was 1.6 and worked perfectly. Please let me know how to get this fixed. Right now, nobody can leave me comments.

[austriaka]

Please check your timezone settings in Admin Options page.
You have to set them to the server time where your Blog is hosted

Then delete all your Cookies and Sessions from Pixelpost and try again

HTH
KArin

[guiz]

I am from Italy and I have UTC +1, but my server is in the USA GMT -5 America New York

in the pixelpost admin I have UTC +1, that is the hour of the place where I shot my photos. are you saying that I must enter UTC -5 the server time?

[Dkozikowski]

That is correct Guiz. Silly but true :)

[austriaka]

didn't you notice time shifts on image publishing time or receiving comments time?

[guiz]

I haven't comments on my blog :-(
no, it's not true.

I don't check the time of the comments.

today I have posted a new image on 9.26 local time
the file name is: 20080117090628_dsc_2003.jpg
and the timestamp of the file is: 9.06.24

when I transfer a photo I check exif data.

now I will change the utc time on the server at -5

[gorin-images]

Please check your timezone settings in Admin Options page.
You have to set them to the server time where your Blog is hosted

Then delete all your Cookies and Sessions from Pixelpost and try again

HTH
KArin

Thank you austriaka+. This appears to have worked. For the record, my PixelPost host and my location are in the same timezone GMT -8.

[gorin-images]

Thank you austriaka+. This appears to have worked. For the record, my PixelPost host and my location are in the same timezone GMT -8.

OK. So tonight my problem has returned. The only thing i can determine is that maybe my server administrator does not have the server time set correctly. The server is definitely in the same timezone that I am in.

Any other ideas. Even if the server time was not set correctly, why would this problem have not been occurring in the morning today, but tonight it is back?

[austriaka]

now I will change the utc time on the server at -5

After a lot of thinking and discussing it should be ok if you leave it to your local time.
Did you notice any issues like "gorin-images"?

[austriaka]

Just for understanding how the spam flood protection works:
When a comment is posted a database call is made resulting the date and time of the last comment by the same IP address. This date and time is compared to the actual date and time. If the delay between those values is smaller than the value set in Spam Control Options (for example 30 seconds), the script dies with the spam flood message.

So it really shouldn't matter to which time zone your blog is set as long as you don't change that in between. Time in Pixelpost is always absolute GMT time (which is the same on all servers in the world, no matter in which timezone they are located), corrected by the value you have set in Admin Options.
Pixelpost never relies on your server or local time, it uses only the GMT * Timezone setting.

gorin-images, you said it worked in the morning, but in the evening it failed again. This sure has to do something with the fact that you changed the timezone settings.
Could you please check the date and time of your latest comments? Do they correspond to the time when you made them?
Are they in a future date? This will always activate the spam flood protections until the moment the last one is more than 10 seconds in the past.
What does the Datetime string besides the Timezone Headline in Admin Options say? Is it correct for your local machine?

More questions than answers, sorry. But we really try to find it out!

[guiz]

I have commented now a photo of gorin-images photoblog.
the time of the comment is: 01-18-2008 13:38:23
my time in Italy is: 01-18-2008 22:38:23
in the page about of his photoblog he writes: Pacific Time (GMT -08:00)

is here 1 hour difference on his server?

[gorin-images]

Just for understanding how the spam flood protection works:
When a comment is posted a database call is made resulting the date and time of the last comment by the same IP address. This date and time is compared to the actual date and time. If the delay between those values is smaller than the value set in Spam Control Options (for example 30 seconds), the script dies with the spam flood message.

So it really shouldn't matter to which time zone your blog is set as long as you don't change that in between. Time in Pixelpost is always absolute GMT time (which is the same on all servers in the world, no matter in which timezone they are located), corrected by the value you have set in Admin Options.
Pixelpost never relies on your server or local time, it uses only the GMT * Timezone setting.

gorin-images, you said it worked in the morning, but in the evening it failed again. This sure has to do something with the fact that you changed the timezone settings.
Could you please check the date and time of your latest comments? Do they correspond to the time when you made them?
Are they in a future date? This will always activate the spam flood protections until the moment the last one is more than 10 seconds in the past.
What does the Datetime string besides the Timezone Headline in Admin Options say? Is it correct for your local machine?

More questions than answers, sorry. But we really try to find it out!

Hi,

Trust me, I know what timezone I am in ;) I also know how to set the timezone in PixelPost (I have been using your awesome software since 2005).

The timezone I have set in my admin console for PixelPost is UTC -8, which is correct for standard (i.e. not Daylight Savings Time) time in the Pacific timezone. The admin console in PixelPost correctly reports the local time based on my timezone settings.

I contacted my webhost and asked them to check the server's time settings. They contacted me back, and said that yes, to their surprise, they determined that the server I am on was set to Eastern time (i.e. UTC -5) even though the server is here in California. They said I am the first person to have come across this problem. They are correcting it today. We believe this will correct the problem, and also likely explains why I experience the issue late in the evening (i.e. after 9:00 Pacific, which is 12:00 AM on the future date in the Eastern time zone), but not experiencing the problem in the morning.

I will report back after I check this out again this evening.

[gorin-images]

Ok. I tested this out at 9:50 PM and the problem appears to be fixed.

Now that my webhost has corrected the server time to match the timezone that both the server, and I, and in, the error is not occuring.

[Dennis]

Great to hear it was fixed

[austriaka]

I have thought a knot into my brain because of this ;-)

I guess I have an explanation for that issue: The GMT (=UTC) which is used by Pixelpost has to be provided by the server. I don't think that servers have a connection to a world time server and update that regularily, but calculate the GMT (UTC) back from their own (set) server time. If now the server time is set to the wrong time zone, the GMT (UTC) it produces can never be correct.
For example your server calculated the GMT by "SERVERTIME + 5". Pixelpost now takes this GMT and calculates GMT - 8 what makes a delay of 3 hours to the correct time.

That still does not explain how the Time in the Admin Options panel could be correct neither the time shift guiz reported when commenting gorins blog.
But though I am glad it is working now :-)