XF 1.5 Auto-linking of titles rarely working

[The Grand Potentate]

wanted to run this past the experts as I cannot seem to get links to auto-populate for the past few versions of 1.5. It used to work great and now hardly anything links. Even links from the forum sometimes don't work. I know it's somewhat dependent on the website but with my conversion rate so low I'm starting to think it's something else. Any help would be appreciated.

 

[Mike]

It sounds like there might be some sort of outgoing blocking happening at a firewall, though I'm not sure why it'd be sporadic. There isn't much that has changed in the past few versions here that should be involved.

 

[The Grand Potentate]

It sounds like there might be some sort of outgoing blocking happening at a firewall, though I'm not sure why it'd be sporadic. There isn't much that has changed in the past few versions here that should be involved.

My thought was some sort of extension conflict. I got in touch with @The Dark Wizard and he didn't think it was server side. Unless using a CDN could affect it. Cloudflare is something I added in the past few months.

 

[The Dark Wizard]

My thought was some sort of extension conflict. I got in touch with @The Dark Wizard and he didn't think it was server side. Unless using a CDN could affect it. Cloudflare is something I added in the past few months.

You could always try turning off cloudflare but I can't replicate this issue on any other site.

 

[Mike Edge]

As Mike said, it most likely is a firewall setting. Could be Cloud Flare too, this is why we strongly recommend against using Cloud Flare.. It's great for cheap hosting, but for heavy non-static content, it causes a lot of issues.... What other changes have you made since it stopped working besides upgrading the xF core? Added new add-ons etc, as maybe it's a conflicting add-on too?

 

[The Grand Potentate]

What other changes have you made since it stopped working besides upgrading the xF core? Added new add-ons etc, as maybe it's a conflicting add-on too?

I've actually thinned out a bunch of addons lately. I'm not sure which one would be affecting the fetching of the webpage titles.

As Mike said, it most likely is a firewall setting. Could be Cloud Flare too, this is why we strongly recommend against using Cloud Flare.. It's great for cheap hosting, but for heavy non-static content, it causes a lot of issues....

Interesting. Never heard of any issues using a CDN. I'll try turning it off and seeing if it helps.

You could always try turning off cloudflare but I can't replicate this issue on any other site.

I know. I just tagged you for reference. I'll give the cloudflare thing a try.

 

[The Grand Potentate]

Alright, so this:

http://www.dressedwell.net/threads/odd-things-seen-daily-by-me.868/

doesn't auto link on the forum, or here, but it does apparently link at @The Dark Wizard's forum, which I cannot make heads or tails of.

CDN is now off.

 

[Mike Edge]

Alright, so this:

http://www.dressedwell.net/threads/odd-things-seen-daily-by-me.868/

doesn't auto link on the forum, or here, but it does apparently link at @The Dark Wizard's forum, which I cannot make heads or tails of.

CDN is now off.

His site is prolly on a different one of his servers then your site, so it could be configured even slightly different and that setting difference could be causing it. Did you test it creating a new thread since after you disabled Cloud Flare?

 

[The Grand Potentate]

His site is prolly on a different one of his servers then your site, so it could be configured even slightly different and that setting difference could be causing it. Did you test it creating a new thread since after you disabled Cloud Flare?

http://www.dressedwell.net/threads/new-auto-link-thread-testing.2194/

Interestingly, it auto linked that one.

 

[Jeremy]

Alright, so this:

http://www.dressedwell.net/threads/odd-things-seen-daily-by-me.868/

doesn't auto link on the forum, or here, but it does apparently link at @The Dark Wizard's forum, which I cannot make heads or tails of.

CDN is now off.

Are you saying you linked to that thread on your forum and it failed to convert to a title? XenForo.com has the option disabled, so it won't convert on this site to the title.

 

[The Grand Potentate]

Are you saying you linked to that thread on your forum and it failed to convert to a title? XenForo.com has the option disabled, so it won't convert on this site to the title.

Yep.

In this thread it seems to be working now with our own threads, and 3/6 external sites being linked:

http://www.dressedwell.net/threads/new-auto-link-thread-testing.2194/#post-148918

I've never been able to get the new york times to work, even back on 1.4 with Chris' add-on, so take that miss with a grain of salt.

 

[Chris D]

None of these work for me locally, either:

http://gawker.com/worker-pulled-alive-from-shenzhen-landslide-debris-afte-1749553897

http://deadspin.com/deadspins-favorite-sports-moments-of-2015-1749307229

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/23/o...ecommendation&src=rechp&WT.nav=RecEngine&_r=1

(Just to reiterate, they won't work here because we have the option disabled)

EDIT: Neither Gawker or Deadspin will work because they have an unholy amount of inline JS and CSS in the head. We bail out after 50 KB and if we don't find the title in that then we assume there possibly isn't one.

It's worth noting that we only recently raised the limit to 50 KB from 20 KB (IIRC) so I'm somewhat surprised to find some sites not working with this.

NYTimes doesn't return a successful response, it returns 303 therefore we skip that.

 

[The Grand Potentate]

None of these work for me locally, either:

http://gawker.com/worker-pulled-alive-from-shenzhen-landslide-debris-afte-1749553897

http://deadspin.com/deadspins-favorite-sports-moments-of-2015-1749307229

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/23/o...ecommendation&src=rechp&WT.nav=RecEngine&_r=1

(Just to reiterate, they won't work here because we have the option disabled)

EDIT: Neither Gawker or Deadspin will work because they have an unholy amount of inline JS and CSS in the head. We bail out after 50 KB and if we don't find the title in that then we assume there possibly isn't one.

It's worth noting that we only recently raised the limit to 50 KB from 20 KB (IIRC) so I'm somewhat surprised to find some sites not working with this.

NYTimes doesn't return a successful response, it returns 303 therefore we skip that.

Oddly, all the Gawker sites worked perfectly a few months ago. Never gave me a single problem.

 

[Chris D]

Indeed. That was likely when they started putting all the JS and CSS in the head before the title.

 

[The Grand Potentate]

So this worked:

http://www.trumanboot.com

But when I typed it in without the http:// it didn't. Usually if it'll pick up one it'll pick up the other.

 

[Mike]

Auto title conversion only happens if the link is identical to the printable version, which isn't the case with version without http, so it won't be converted.

 

[The Grand Potentate]

Auto title conversion only happens if the link is identical to the printable version, which isn't the case with version without http, so it won't be converted.

Did not know that one. I'll keep an eye out for that in the future.

 

[The Grand Potentate]

Things were going pretty well until I made this compendium thread for someone. In the thread, the beginning section all auto-linked except for the last 2 threads, the middle section was all done by me (before I thought to post the thread here) and the bottom section didn't work. I looked at them and I have no earthly idea why they didn't all auto-link.

http://dressedwell.net/threads/the-newbie-compendium-start-your-sartorial-re-education-here.2220/