[Forum] Web Links being changed to redirect web links!!!!! Help Please.

[Trevor Matthews]

Now I knew that this was going to be tedious but I never expected to have this problem.

Basically I have lots of posts on my old forum that are just the title, which is a make of TV and the body of text is just a Mediafire web-link.

I am copying these one post at a time onto the new forum but have come across a big problem. I have tried cutting and pasting the web link and copying the shortcut for the web link BUT I keep ending up with this;

http://www.television-magazine-forum.co.uk/redirect-to/?redirect=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mediafire.com%2F%3Frmv0h4rqj7hr8e6

When I pasted in this;

http://www.mediafire.com/?rmv0h4rqj7hr8e6

This is a major issue for me as it opens up a new page and then the warning tab pops up asking if you want to download a file, clicking Down load File then opens up the Mediafire Save Button. Which is what you should get immediately on clicking the web link....

Can anyone tell me why vbulletin is changing my web-link to this redirect and how can I stop it. I have tried all methods within the post to get the link right but vb keeps changing it back

[Steve Machol]

There is nothing in the default vB that would do that. For instance:

http://www.mediafire.com/?rmv0h4rqj7hr8e6

You have either an add-on that is doing this, or something on your server. To troubleshoot this, first reupload all the original vB non-image files (except install.php). Make sure you upload these in ASCII format and overwrite the ones on the server. Also be sure to upload the admincp files to whichever directory you have set in your config.php file. Then run 'Suspect File Versions' in Diagnostics to make sure you have all the original files for your version and that none show 'File does not contain expected contents':

Admin CP -> Maintenance -> Diagnostics -> Suspect File Versions

[Note: In some cases you may also need to remove any of the listed .xml files in the includes/xml directory.]

Next, disable all products (except vB Blog and vB CMS if you are running the Suite.)

Admin CP -> Plugins & Products -> Manage Products -> Disable

Then manually uncheck all plugins that are not for 'vBulletin Blog' and vBulletin CMS' here:

Admin CP -> Plugins & Products -> Plugin Manager

You must do BOTH of those steps in order to disable all non vBulletin Modifications.

Then if you still have this problem, create a new style and choose no parent style. This will force it to use the default templates. Finally empty your browser cache, close all browser windows then try again. Make sure you change to the new style and view your forums with it.

Do you have the same problem?

[Trevor Matthews]

Hi Steve
Many thanks for the in-depth reply. I will try and work through that later.

I did notice something interesting, the home page has the recent posts widget active and the Mediafire links all work correctly and display correctly on the home page. All very odd.......

So it definitely isn't something I did whilst setting up the forums? The forum this is in is a Subscribers only one.

[Trevor Matthews]

Hi Steve,

You are, of course, spot on......

While messing around I went in to the Enable Plugin/Hook System option ans set it to No.

All links now display correctly.

I am assuming I should turn it back to Yes and then disable each added feature one at a time until the fault clears.

And then over to vb.org for a resolution or delete that mod.

[Trevor Matthews]

Right, well guess what??????

The problem is being caused by that nightmare of a program VBSEO!!!!!

How such a small download can cause such major headaches is beyond me. When I started all this a month or so ago it all went smoothly until it was time to install VBSEO, this crashed the forum, caused all sorts of errors and caused me to start from scratch more times that I can remember.

I thought it was installed correctly and even asked on VBSEO if there was a manual as it was not clear to me what options if any should be changed. They told me it is working straight out of the box and to touch nothing.........

This is clearly not the case is it.....

I have looked at the VBSEO option tab and see no stats on the forum whatsoever.
The licence key is all correct.

I have used the Diagnostics/Suspect files program and it says that md5_sums_crawlability_vbseo.php is missing.

So here we go again, I have a mind just to delete it as it has caused me so much grief!

So off to the VBSEO forum I guess.

I also get this as part of the file checking;

./vbseo/resources/xml.htaccessFile not foundconfig.xmlFile does not contain expected contentsvbseo_urls_007.xmlFile not recognized as part of vBulletinvbseocp_russian_utf-8.xmlFile not recognized as part of vBulletin

[Trevor Matthews]

And actually the missing files are there and where they are supposed to be so I don't know why the message that they are missing comes up.

[briansol]

This is an optional feature to hide your HTTP_REFERER from showing to the destination site in private forums. It is easily disabled in the vbseoCP.

http://www.vbseo.com/f77/vbseo-more-problems-web-links-time-47088/#post295282

Ignore the 'suspected' results... those will almost always show up as the vbseo config are stored via files, and thus contain different contents depending on setting choices.

[Trevor Hannant]

If any third party files come up as missing on that check, then their MD5_sums file is either missing or invalid. They'll need to resolve that also.

[Trevor Matthews]

Hello Trevor..Many thanks.

I had a really quick response from Brian at vBSEO.

This is an option of the vBSEO package when links are in private forums as in my case.

I solved the issue by going to the;

vBSEO Control Panel in VB
Click on General settings.
Click on vBSEO Options
Scroll down until you see Redirect ALL External URLs Posted in Private Forums

Change the tick from Yes to No.

The explanation of the feature is below;

Enable this option to redirect all external links posted in private forums through an internal script. This will hide URLs from your private forums in server logs on external sites, thus protecting your privacy.
Note: The URLs will look like 'http://www.yourdormain.com/forums/redirect-to/?redirect=http://www.externaldomain.com'