Horde Administrator's FAQ

Troubleshooting and Common Problems

Table of Contents

Common error messages

"Document contains no data"

The Netscape error message, "Document contains no data", only tells you that nothing was sent from the web server to the browser. In other words, something went quite wrong, yet you've no idea what.

In order to get an idea of what really happened, take a look in the web server's error log, in which more verbose errors should be found. There is a good chance that the error is caused by omitting IMAP support from PHP; you can check whether that is the case by examining your server configuration with a PHP script such as the following:

<?php


<?php phpinfo(); ?>

?>

Don't confuse PHP's IMAP support with Apache's mod_imap, which refers to image maps.

"Database error (HordeDB): Session: freeze() failed"

[IMP 2.2]: Occasionally, the following message will be produced upon login or logout:

Database error (HordeDB): Invalid SQL: INSERT INTO active_sessions 

VALUES ('562493df1fa64bc81db7b0deb86fc019','HordeSession',

'70ee728055533b7ad9fc0bacfb8ecde01718b97968eb65bc79b418d12c0dc0e9')

Database error (HordeDB): Session: freeze() failed.

This is produced by a race condition in PHPlib. When two pages try to update the session table at once, the update can sporadically fail. This is more likely to happen at logout from IMP (due to the multiple framesets) than in other use. Charles Wright came up with a patch against PHPlib which should fix this for MySQL users.

Kari Asikainen reports that using PostgreSQL in place of MySQL, or downgrading from PHP 4.0.2 to 4.0.1pl2, eliminates the condition as well.

"Cannot instantiate non-existent class: hordect"

[IMP 2.2]: This error is caused by an incorrect PHPlib configuration. Make sure that the appropriate section for your chosen storage class is fully uncommented in the local.inc file in your PHPlib directory. Frequently, during configuration, the HordeCT part of the PHPlib configuration (located below the HordeDB section for your storage class) is accidentally left commented out.

"top.opener.parent is not an object"

This error is the result of a bug in Internet Explorer. Stuart suggests that the following commands (executed on the Windows system on which Internet Explorer is installed) will solve the problem:

regsvr32 c:\windows\system32\actxprxy.dll

regsvr32 c:\windows\system32\shdocvw.dll

The FAQ maintainer has not tested the above! Make sure you have a backup of your system before playing with deep Windows magic.

"undefined function: mysql_pconnect()"

This error occurs when IMP is configured to use MySQL, but PHP was not built with support for MySQL. Rebuild PHP, ensuring that MySQL support is compiled in, and that the line

extension = mysql.so

appears in your php.ini (or php3.ini in PHP version 3).

"undefined function: bindtextdomain()"

This error occurs when PHP is not compiled with gettext support. As of Horde 2.0, PHP needs to be compiled with gettext support. Rebuild PHP with the --with-gettext option to configure, or if using RPM's install the php-gettext RPM.

"undefined function: imap_utf7_encode()"

This error most often occurs when IMP tries to use a folder name with an ampersand (&) in it. The easiest solution is to rename the folder to something without an ampersand in it (on the server, or with a different IMAP client).

The error can also occur if IMAP support has not been compiled into PHP. Ensure that your PHP installation supports IMAP.

"imap_utf7_decode: Unexpected end of string"

This error is another symptom of the ampersand question described in the section above.

"undefined function: imap_open"

This error is the result of using IMP without compiling IMAP support into PHP. Be sure that your PHP installation supports IMAP, and rebuild it with the --with-imap flag to configure if it does not (or install the php-imap RPM in an RPM installation).

"Wrong parameter count for imap_delete"

This error is caused by a bug in older versions of PHP. Upgrade to the current version of PHP, or if you must stay with PHP3, use version 3.0.18.

"PostgreSQL Error: attribute 'val' not found"

If IMP produces an error similar to

Warning: PostgresSQL query failed: ERROR: attribute 'val' not found in

db_pgsql.inc on line 52

Database error: Invalid SQL: SELECT val FROM active_sessions WHERE sid

= '2009f5dd0a3579a38eb0dfb7b9bd2c6f' AND name = 'HordeSession'

PostgreSQL Error: 1 (ERROR: attribute 'val' not found )

Session halted.

the usual cause is not a missing attribute nor invalid SQL, but a failure to successfully authenticate with the database. Check your PostgreSQL logs for authentication errors, and make sure you can log in to the database manually using psql with the Horde username and password.

"Call to unsupported function page_open"

[Horde 1.2]: This error occurs when PHPlib is missing from the PHP include path. Make sure you have followed the instructions in the README file in your PHPlib directory.

"Cannot extend nonexistent class HordeDefaults"

This error is often the result of using incompatible versions of Horde and IMP. The appropriate Horde version to use with a given version of IMP is that with a version number one less than IMP's; for instance, IMP 2.2-pre13 used Horde 1.2-pre13, and IMP 3.0 uses Horde 2.0.

Information on choosing the appropriate IMP version for your site can be found in Section 3.2.1

"Warning: errflg=2, text=Can't get status of mailbox"

This error usually results from a bug in PHP version 3.0.17. Use version 3.0.18 instead, or upgrade to PHP4.

"Warning: Undefined index: Send Message"

This error occurs on Red Hat 7 systems, and results from a bug in Red Hat's php-4.0.4pl1-3 RPM. Update your PHP to the latest available from Red Hat.

"Warning: Undefined variable: sid in .../session.inc"

[Horde 1.2]: Horde ships with its own customized (read: fixed) version of PHPLIB (the horde/phplib directory). You must use that version of PHPLIB; it is the only version that is supported, and most of the other versions of PHPLIB will not work.

This particular error is a sign that Horde is finding a version of PHPLIB other than the one that ships with it. Make sure that session.inc has version 1.1.2.x in the Id tag at the top. Also make sure that your PHP include_path and auto_prepend_file are set properly so that Horde is finding the correct instance of PHPLIB.

"Warning: Unable to open '/tmp/...'" when attaching

On some systems (commonly Solaris and FreeBSD), the upload_tmp_dir setting in php.ini (PHP 4.x) or php3.ini (PHP 3.x) must be set to /var/tmp.

"Call to undefined function: _( )"

[Horde 2.0]: This error occurs when PHP is not compiled with gettext support. As of version Horde 2.0, PHP needs to be compiled with gettext support. Rebuild PHP with the --with-gettext option to configure, or if using RPM's install the php-gettext RPM. (_() is a synonym for gettext() in PHP.)

"Failed opening test.php3 for inclusion"

[Horde 1.2]: The IMP setup script changes the permissions on the test.php3 script so that it can't be run. This increases the security of your web server by not revealing to intruders information about how PHP is compiled/configured. To use the script while setting up Horde, PHPLIB, or IMP, add read permission for all users to the script:

chmod a+r horde/test.php3

Remember to remove read permission (chmod a-r) from the file when you have finished testing.

"Fatal error: Call to undefined function: quote()"

[Horde 2.x]: You are using too old a version of PHP which doesn't support some needed functions such as the quote() function. Upgrade to a supported version of PHP.