XF 1.5 Zend Feed Exception Error Message

[MikeK]

After rebooting the server, which might just be a coincidence, we started receiving the following error reports every half hour.

Error Info
Zend_Feed_Exception: Invalid parameter: parameter must be a non-empty string and valid URI/IRI - library/Zend/Feed/Writer/Feed/FeedAbstract.php:406
Generated By: Unknown Account, 13 minutes ago

Stack Trace
#0 /home/nikcaflw/public_html/xenf/library/XenForo/ViewPublic/Forum/GlobalRss.php(17): Zend_Feed_Writer_Feed_FeedAbstract->setLink('http://www.niko...')
#1 /home/nikcaflw/public_html/xenf/library/XenForo/ViewRenderer/Abstract.php(227): XenForo_ViewPublic_Forum_GlobalRss->renderRss()
#2 /home/nikcaflw/public_html/xenf/library/XenForo/ViewRenderer/Rss.php(31): XenForo_ViewRenderer_Abstract->renderViewObject('XenForo_ViewPub...', 'Rss', Array, '')
#3 /home/nikcaflw/public_html/xenf/library/XenForo/FrontController.php(605): XenForo_ViewRenderer_Rss->renderView('XenForo_ViewPub...', Array, '', NULL)
#4 /home/nikcaflw/public_html/xenf/library/XenForo/FrontController.php(158): XenForo_FrontController->renderView(Object(XenForo_ControllerResponse_View), Object(XenForo_ViewRenderer_Rss), Array)
#5 /home/nikcaflw/public_html/xenf/index.php(13): XenForo_FrontController->run()
#6 {main}

Request State
array(3) {
  ["url"] => string(58) "http://www.nikoncafe.com/xenf/index.php?forums/-/index.rss"
  ["_GET"] => array(1) {
    ["forums/-/index_rss"] => string(0) ""
  }
  ["_POST"] => array(0) {
  }
}

We do not use RSS feeds and have the news feeds disabled in Home>Options>News Feeds. The URL in the Board Info is correct and has not been changed since we migrated to Xenforo.

Can anyone offer suggestions on where to look to fix the problem that is generating these errors?

 

[Paul B]

Can you copy and paste your Board URL?
The error message is typically due to an invalid entry in that field.

 

[MikeK]

The board URL as shown in Home>Options>Basic Board Information is http://www.nikoncafe.com/xenf. This hasn't changed since September 2013. The Home Page URL in the same section is http://www.nikoncafe.com/xenf/index.php, and this hasn't changed either.

 

[Paul B]

Can you double check there is no leading space in front of the board URL?

I can't think of anything else which would trigger this error.

 

[MikeK]

Thank you for helping! I checked, and there are no leading spaces before the URL.

 

[Paul B]

Can you just try editing the board URL and saving and editing it and saving again?

If there is an erroneous value stored, that will update it.

 

[MikeK]

I just changed the Board URL, saved the change, then put it back to the original URL and saved the change. I'll monitor the error logs to see if this fixes it. I also rebooted the server.

 

[MikeK]

The error messages are back.

 

[Paul B]

Can you submit a ticket with ACP, FTP, and phpMyAdmin access?

 

[MikeK]

We have turned off all RSS feeds, so why is the RSS-related library being called? Here is the code from FeedAbstract.php that includes line 406:

/**
     * Set a link to the HTML source
     *
     * @param string $link
     */
    public function setLink($link)
    {
        if (empty($link) || !is_string($link) || !Zend_Uri::check($link)) {
            require_once 'Zend/Feed/Exception.php';
            throw new Zend_Feed_Exception('Invalid parameter: parameter must be a non-empty string and valid URI/IRI');
        }
        $this->_data['link'] = $link;
    }

We think the setLink($link) function is being called when it shouldn't be, hence the $link being empty. We hate to modify the very good code, but if we comment out the two lines in the {} after check($link)), will this function as a brute force way to stop the call and/or will it break anything else?

Again, I really appreciate the quick help!

 

[Paul B]

We have turned off all RSS feeds

How have you done that?

There is no option to disable RSS feeds.

 

[MikeK]

We might not be a smart as we thought we were, and didn't turn anything off except for the RSS icon through the extra.css file.

The server and software have been stable since deployed, and unlike the previous version of vBulletin, we haven't had to do anything but load the updates. I can't think of anything we would have, or could have, done since the server reboot.

 

[Paul B]

Hiding an icon won't cause the errors.

We would need access to investigate further.

 

[MikeK]

PM sent.

 

[MikeK]

Many thanks to the Xenforo team in helping resolve the problem with our site. We were using a PHP extension that was not playing well with PHP, so the problem was self-induced. Unfortunately, we couldn't diagnose the problem, but Mike and Brogan were able to see what we couldn't. Well done, and many thanks!!!