Trackback/Pingback very nicely explained with figures [#237988]

Comment #1

mercmobily CreditAttribution: mercmobily commented 24 March 2008 at 06:24

Hi,

Trackback works without any problems here... we use it everyday at FSDaily.
What are your config options *exactly*?

Merc.

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Comment #2

drupalina CreditAttribution: drupalina commented 24 March 2008 at 10:23

please note: My Ping module, which comes with drupal optional modules, is NOT enabled.

my Settings for trackbacks inside drigg module settings are as follows :

[Tick] Enable trackback

[Untick] Enable trackback form field

[Tick] Enable trackback autodiscovery mechanism

... then I have The trackback ping title: "Story submitted for social voting"... & The trackback ping excerpt. with it's text .. & The trackback ping "blog name". Sites will display this. with "myname.com"

any ideas where the glitch could be?

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Comment #3

mercmobily CreditAttribution: mercmobily commented 24 March 2008 at 15:37

Hi,

Not sure.
Let's try this.
Change line 5324, so that you have:

$do_debug=TRUE;

The module will be in debug mode. Submit a story WITH a trackback, and let me know what the output in the "drupal messages" is! (You won't miss it: a whole bunch of messages at the top of the page).

Do cut&paste starting from the page's source.

Thanks!

Merc.

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Comment #4

drupalina CreditAttribution: drupalina commented 25 March 2008 at 10:50

hi,

I changed the settings to the following:
[Checked] Enable trackback

[Checked] Enable trackback form field (even though I would prefer to keep this field hidden from users; I want trackbackz/pinback to appear in other's blogs comments automatically every time their content iz submitted)

[Checked] Enable trackback autodiscovery mechanism

then I changed on line 5327 (not 5324)
$do_debug=FALSE;
to
$do_debug=TRUE;

(btw, on line 5326 the #$do_debug=TRUE; was there by default, so I kept it that way)

Then I added a new scoop, and mannually added the URL of that story in the trackback field (which iz a bit goofy and confusing, because it means that uzerz will be given 2 forms in which to enter the same URL: 1) Trackback field, and 2) the story's URL )

here is the message that I got:

* DEBUG: Variable $allow_empty_url is: 1
* DEBUG: Checking the URL...
* DEBUG: The URL is valid!
* DEBUG: Trackback is enabled!
* DEBUG: Trackback URL given in the form...
* DEBUG: ...and valid. Setting $trackback_ping_url_valid to 1
* DEBUG: Trackback with autodiscovery is active, and we have an URL
* DEBUG: The trackback was given by the user. Checking it
* DEBUG: The trackback URL given by the user was valid...
* DEBUG: No HTTP request was attempted, but the URL was valid. Doing the 'normal' checks.
* DEBUG: Making the HTTP request
* DEBUG: The HTTP request WORKED!
* DEBUG: Content type: text/html; charset=UTF-8
* DEBUG: Variable 'trackback_ping_url' is: http://azat.wordpress.com/2007/11/22/an-act-of-responsible-politician/
* DEBUG: Variable 'content_type' is: text/html; charset=UTF-8
* DEBUG: Doing the actual URL check
* DEBUG: All good, the URL was there AND it worked!
* Your Scoop has been created.

I know for a fact that that blog allows pingbacks automatically. But nothing from my drigg website appeared in the comments of that blog entry.

(additional info: my cron runs every 15 minutes.)

What do you think?
should I enable the Ping module? (I heard some complaints about it, so didn't enable it. do you have it enabled on Fsdaily ?)

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Comment #5

mercmobily CreditAttribution: mercmobily commented 25 March 2008 at 12:36

Hi,

Reading the degug information, I can tell you that I am 99.5% sure that everything actually worked fine.
The ping module has nothing to so with it. What I see, is that the ping was sent, it worked, and it's in the moderation queue of the site you pinged!

The only way to test it is to add an URL you can actually control, and see if the ping reaches destination (which it does, according to the log).

Can you do that?

Bye,

Merc.

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Comment #6

drupalina CreditAttribution: drupalina commented 25 March 2008 at 13:03

I did post it to the blogs items from my own blogs too , but nothing like a pingback is in the moderation queue.

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Comment #7

mercmobily CreditAttribution: mercmobily commented 25 March 2008 at 13:13

Hi,

OK in line 3404 you have:

#drupal_set_message("SENDING PING TO $url");

Can you uncomment it?

Can you also uncomment a few lines down:

#drupal_set_message("Query: $query");

and:

#drupal_set_message("Returning: $succ");

A little lower down?

Then try and post a story... what do you get?

(Remember to comment them out when the site is actually public...)

Bye,

Merc.

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Comment #8

drupalina CreditAttribution: drupalina commented 25 March 2008 at 13:22

by uncommenting, do you mean removing the "#" sign ?

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Comment #9

mercmobily CreditAttribution: mercmobily commented 25 March 2008 at 22:15

Hi,

Yes.

Merc.

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Comment #10

mercmobily CreditAttribution: mercmobily commented 25 March 2008 at 22:24

Hi,

Also, please send me your URL - I will test it with my trackback system.

Merc.

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Comment #11

drupalina CreditAttribution: drupalina commented 26 March 2008 at 09:54

hi,

I have uncommented the 3 lines you mentioned... here's the debug message after I submitted a new item:

* DEBUG: Variable $allow_empty_url is: 1
* DEBUG: Checking the URL...
* DEBUG: The URL is valid!
* DEBUG: Trackback is enabled!
* DEBUG: No HTTP request was attempted, but the URL was valid. Doing the 'normal' checks.
* DEBUG: Making the HTTP request
* DEBUG: The HTTP request WORKED!
* DEBUG: Content type: text/html; charset=UTF-8
* DEBUG: Variable 'trackback_ping_url' is:
* DEBUG: Variable 'content_type' is: text/html; charset=UTF-8
* DEBUG: Doing the actual URL check
* DEBUG: All good, the URL was there AND it worked!
* SENDING PING TO
* Query: title=Story+submitted+for+social+voting&excerpt=Your+story+was+featured+on+the+new+social+bookmarking++%26+citizen+journalism+website+at+tondrak.com%21+Here+is+the+link+to+vote+it+up+and+promote+it%3A+http%3A%2F%2Ftondrak.com%2Fen-int%2Fnode%2F92&blog_name=tondrak.com&url=http%3A%2F%2Ftondrak.com%2Fen-int%2Fnode%2F92
* Returning: 0
* Your Scoop has been created.

no pingback/trackback appeared on the actual external blog :(

my drigg website address is: tondrak [dot] com

the blog that is being referred is: azat.wordpress.com

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Comment #12

drupalina CreditAttribution: drupalina commented 26 March 2008 at 10:39

maybe I need any of these modules???

http://drupal.org/project/pingback
http://drupal.org/project/trackback

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Comment #13

drupalina CreditAttribution: drupalina commented 26 March 2008 at 11:39

another attempt:
settings now:
[Checked] Enable trackback
[Unchecked] Enable trackback form field
[Checked] Enable trackback autodiscovery mechanism

here's the output:

* DEBUG: Variable $allow_empty_url is: 1
* DEBUG: Checking the URL...
* DEBUG: The URL is valid!
* DEBUG: Trackback is enabled!
* DEBUG: Trackback with autodiscovery is active, and we have an URL
* DEBUG: The trackback ping URL is empty. Starting discovery
* DEBUG: HTTP request made to the URL
* DEBUG: The request WORKED!
* DEBUG: Trackback ping NOT found in
* DEBUG: node->content_type:text/html; charset=UTF-8
* DEBUG: Variable 'trackback_ping_url' is:
* DEBUG: Variable 'content_type' is: text/html; charset=UTF-8
* DEBUG: Doing the actual URL check
* DEBUG: All good, the URL was there AND it worked!
* SENDING PING TO
* Query: title=Story+submitted+for+social+voting&excerpt=Your+story+was+featured+on+the+new+social+bookmarking++%26+citizen+journalism+website+at+tondrak.com%21+Here+is+the+link+to+vote+it+up+and+promote+it%3A+http%3A%2F%2Ftondrak.com%2Fen-int%2Fnode%2F94&blog_name=tondrak.com&url=http%3A%2F%2Ftondrak.com%2Fen-int%2Fnode%2F94
* Returning: 0
* Your Scoop has been created.

still, No pingback appears in the comments , or in the moderation queue :(

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Comment #14

mercmobily CreditAttribution: mercmobily commented 26 March 2008 at 23:56

Hi,

You don't need the extra modules.
The debug information you sent me in the last message (#13) were for an URL which didn't contain a trackback URL.
Please repost debug information once you've submitted an URL *with* a trackback.

Finally, once again:

--------------------------------
Hi,

Also, please send me your URL - I will test it with my trackback system.

Merc.
---------------------------------

Bye,

Merc.

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Comment #15

drupalina CreditAttribution: drupalina commented 27 March 2008 at 04:25

hi Merc,

I've sent you an e-mail via your contact form.

please have a look
thanks

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Comment #16

mercmobily CreditAttribution: mercmobily commented 27 March 2008 at 05:17

Hi,

I have logged in to your site, submitted a scoop from drigg-code.org (with a trackback), and - voila - my site has your trackback in the list of the requested URLs.

Closing this bug since it's not there.

Please make sure you put the # back for those messages (see comment #7).

This is a non-bug -- it works fine.

Bye,

Merc.

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Comment #17

mercmobily CreditAttribution: mercmobily commented 27 March 2008 at 05:20

Hi,

Drupalina, what's the URL you are submitting and for which the trackback doesn't work?

Merc.

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Comment #18

drupalina CreditAttribution: drupalina commented 27 March 2008 at 06:56

pingbacks still don't work for items submitted from wordpress, blogsome and even my other drupal sites. For example from http://garen.tribe.de/

(sometimes I use a bookmarklet for fast submissions; but it won't work even if I use the standard procedure for scoop submission)

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Comment #19

mercmobily CreditAttribution: mercmobily commented 27 March 2008 at 08:36

Hi,

Drigg will ever only send trackback pings to pages which contain the necessary RDF tag. For example:

Otherwise, the module would need witchcraft or a crystal ball to actually know where to ping. The fact that a page has a straight URL won't help either - it needs to be a MACHINE-readable string, like the one above.

I a not sure if Wordpress and other popular platform implement the RDF tag. If they don't, Drigg (nor any other software, in fact) will NOT be able to send pings to them. As simple as that.

IF the link you have a problem with DO have a trackback link like the one above, AND they don't work, then please let me know what they are and I will investigate them. Otherwise, please close this issue.

Bye,

Merc.

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Comment #20

mercmobily CreditAttribution: mercmobily commented 28 March 2008 at 16:06

Status:

Active

» Closed (works as designed)

Hi,

Closing this since it's not anything I can do about.

Merc.

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Comment #21

drupalina CreditAttribution: drupalina commented 28 March 2008 at 21:37

Status:

Closed (works as designed)

» Active

1) Okey, I think I'm confused and I don't think I'm alone when I say I need more instructions and/or expiations in the installation documentation about what exactly that Trackback functionality inside Drigg module is supposed to do and... how exactly to get it to work.

2) I was under the impression that it works like so many pingback functionalities in blogs. --i.e That IF the user posts the URL of external article, the drigg system would then automatically send the specified pingback text into the comments of that external article. And if the trackback is not obvious, then Enabling the trackback autodiscovery mechanism in drigg options would automate this process.
Now you're saying that this is not what this functionality is for. And I'm wondering, what is it for, and how to get it to work?

3) Are you saying that the only way that I could get the drigg pingbacks to work is to Enable the trackback form field , and to ask my *not-too-tech-savvy* end-users to manually submit the trackback address in addition to the URL address? Is that the only way that I could get these pingbacks to work??? What if the users don't even know the concept of pingback? What is the trackback address on those external blogs is not explicitly shown? What then? Shouldn't this system be more automated?

4) I have tested the Pingback module ( http://drupal.org/project/pingback ) with my Drigg site and the blog that I mentioned (which I couldn't get to work with drigg's pingback functionality). And I should say that somehow (whether through witchcraft or crystal ball) that Pingback module works!!! : if I make a link to an external blog post inside a scoop's description text, then an automated pingback immediately appears in the comments of that external blog!!! _Try it_ for yourself!
There is no obvious way to control the exact text of what appears inside that pingback text, but it looks like in basic principle it works: the pingback is generated by mere provision of the URL. Now, can Drigg module be made to work like that Pingback module, so that Scoop URL is detected just like the links provided in the Scoop description ??? Maybe some of it's code could be copied?

small sidenote: The reason why I'm so eager to see Drigg's pingback functionality working in the most simple and automated manner, is that A) it is a great way to spread the word about one's drigg site, and B) in the future it could also be a potential avenue for sending the external voting form with a little drigg icon alongside with the pingback text.

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Comment #22

mercmobily CreditAttribution: mercmobily commented 29 March 2008 at 01:19

Hi,

Alright, fixed in DRUPAL-5 version of Drigg.
If you don't want to upgrade just yet, just change line 3243 into:

if(preg_match('/.*.*/s', $url_request->data, $matches) || preg_match('#
#', $url_request->data, $matches) ){

And wordpress will work.
I was wrong: there is not *that* much crystal-balling required to do that. However, it's still a little *ugly* -- blogs should really use the RDF trackback tags to tell other blogs what the trackback URL is. The fact that I am bending Drigg so accommodate sites which are not following the standard is bad, because those people won't feel the need to use the trackback RDF tags. Basically, you should be complaining to them really, not Drigg... but hey. That's a whole different story.

Fixed. Thanks for the important pointer to the pingback module, from which I stole the regexp for the non-RDF tag.

Merc.

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Comment #23

mercmobily CreditAttribution: mercmobily commented 29 March 2008 at 01:21

Status:

Active

» Fixed

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Comment #24

drupalina CreditAttribution: drupalina commented 29 March 2008 at 08:54

Status:

Fixed

» Active

Hi,

thanks for fixing this.

I have changed that line 3243, and created a new scoop... but still no pingback on the external wordpress blog. My suspicion is that that Pingback module is looking for a URL link inside the *Scoop description* body, but it must also be told to recognise the URL provided in the *Scoop's URL* field.

if this helps... here's the Debug text:
* DEBUG: Variable $allow_empty_url is: 1
* DEBUG: Checking the URL...
* DEBUG: The URL is valid!
* DEBUG: Trackback is enabled!
* DEBUG: Trackback with autodiscovery is active, and we have an URL
* DEBUG: The trackback ping URL is empty. Starting discovery
* DEBUG: HTTP request made to the URL
* DEBUG: The request WORKED!
* DEBUG: Trackback ping found:
* DEBUG: node->content_type:text/html; charset=UTF-8
* DEBUG: Variable 'trackback_ping_url' is:
* DEBUG: Variable 'content_type' is: text/html; charset=UTF-8
* DEBUG: Doing the actual URL check
* DEBUG: All good, the URL was there AND it worked!
* SENDING PING TO
* Query: title=Story+submitted+for+social+voting&excerpt=Your+story+was+featured+on+the+new+social+bookmarking++%26+Citizen-Journalism+website+at+tondrak.com%21+Here+is+the+link+to+vote+your+story+up+and+promote+it%3A+http%3A%2F%2Ftondrak.com%2Fen-int%2Fnode%2F108&blog_name=tondrak.com&url=http%3A%2F%2Ftondrak.com%2Fen-int%2Fnode%2F108
* Returning: 0
* Your Scoop has been created.

------------------------------------

I totally agree with you that one should aspire to set new standards, rather than follow the antiquated ways.
So for now something following the following logic could be set up inside the Drigg module:
...Look for RDF tag automatically --> IF no RDF tag is found, THEN fall back on URL.

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Comment #25

mercmobily CreditAttribution: mercmobily commented 29 March 2008 at 17:20

Category:

support

» bug

Hi,

Please send me the URL that is not currently working in terms of Trackbacks.
I tested two wordpress blogs, and they worked.

Also, this was effectively a bug - marking as such.

Bye,

Merc.

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Comment #26

mercmobily CreditAttribution: mercmobily commented 2 April 2008 at 15:42

Hi,

We talked about this.
Basically, wordpress will puke when Drupal submits a trackback. Why? We don't know.
Have you submitted the problem to Wordpress as agreed by email?

Please keep us informed.

Merc.

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Comment #27

drupalina CreditAttribution: drupalina commented 2 April 2008 at 16:09

... sorry, been extremely busy with other non-drupal [life :( ...] things.
will speak to wordpress over the weekend or on monday.

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Comment #28

mercmobily CreditAttribution: mercmobily commented 4 April 2008 at 01:33

Title:

Trackback/Pingback doesn't seem to work

» Trackback/Pingback doesn't seem to work for Wordpress sites (and maybe others?)

Hi,

Make sure you provide full debug information.
That is:

* Enable debugging in your Drupal install
* Try to ping a wordpress blog
* When you see the result, do VIEW SOURCE
* Cut&paste pretty much everything. The important parts are the query string sent to wordpress, AND the XML response received by wordpress
* Ask them to test it on their side to see what's going on

Bye,

Merc.

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Comment #29

drupalina CreditAttribution: drupalina commented 6 April 2008 at 14:01

I contacted Wordpress suport yesterday -- now waiting for response.
I wasn't able to provide as detailed info to them as you outlined ... well, simply because I hardly make heads or tails of what is what. I asked Wordpress support to read through the entirty of this issue -- hopeflly they'll know what's going on.

I suggest that you contact them too, as agreed.

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Comment #30

mercmobily CreditAttribution: mercmobily commented 6 April 2008 at 16:24

Hi,

Which part of my instructions did you find confusing/hard to follow?
Here is what happens, for the Wordpress angels...

When making this call with POST:

title=Story+added&excerpt=Your+story+was+featured+in+Drigg%21+Here+is+the+li
nk+to+vote+it+up+and+promote+it%3A+http%3A%2F%2Fwww.drigg.org%2FHowto%2FExam
ple_for_Drupalina-2&blog_name=Drigg&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.drigg.org%2FHowto%2
FExample_for_Drupalina-2

I get this result:


<?xml version="1.0"?>
<methodResponse>
  <fault>
    <value>
      <struct>
        <member>

          <name>faultCode</name>
          <value><int>-32700</int></value>
        </member>
        <member>
          <name>faultString</name>
          <value><string>parse error. not well formed</string></value>
        </member>

      </struct>
    </value>
  </fault>
</methodResponse>

Which is obviously not good.

Wordpress gurus: if you give me a story to ping as a test, so that you can look at logs etc., please let me know.

Merc,

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Comment #31

mercmobily CreditAttribution: mercmobily commented 6 April 2008 at 16:25

Hi,

Please provide a link to the Wordpress issue if possible...

Merc.

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Comment #32

drupalina CreditAttribution: drupalina commented 6 April 2008 at 17:15

I didn't create an issue on wordpress (don't know if you can) -- I clicked on "Support" and submitted via the form that opens up.

For pinging in drigg you can try this blogpost http://azat.wordpress.com/2007/11/22/an-act-of-responsible-politician/ or any other post on that blog. (Pingbacks/trackbacks are enables there and they usually appear without moderation, unless it is spam, in which case I will see it in moderation queue), but I don't think I can access that kind of log information on wordpress.com.

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Comment #33

mercmobily CreditAttribution: mercmobily commented 7 April 2008 at 00:58

Hi,

OK.
This really seems to be a wordpress issue. Sorry, I can't debug wordpress... Let's see what they say.

Merc.

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Comment #34

mercmobily CreditAttribution: mercmobily commented 10 April 2008 at 09:50

Priority:

Normal

» Minor

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Comment #35

drupalina CreditAttribution: drupalina commented 11 April 2008 at 02:31

Hi,

still haven't heard from Wordpress people.

Merc, you said you were going to contact them too. Did you?

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Comment #36

mercmobily CreditAttribution: mercmobily commented 11 April 2008 at 02:52

Hi,

I am afraid I didn't have time for this one.
We need somebody with Wordpress AND Drupal installed locally, and who will look into this.

Merc.

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Comment #37

mercmobily CreditAttribution: mercmobily commented 14 May 2008 at 06:35

Hi,

I am not really willing to install Wordpress and debug their code to fix this.

So, unless somebody steps in, this will have to be a "won't fix".
Sorry.

Merc.

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Comment #38

mercmobily CreditAttribution: mercmobily commented 8 June 2008 at 14:52

Status:

Active

» Closed (won't fix)

Hi,

Nobody stepped in... I can't maintain other people's software as well, sorry :-(

Merc.

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Comment #39

drupalina CreditAttribution: drupalina commented 9 June 2008 at 11:47

I've gradually started launching my site, so more people are joining in and submitting blog entries. The thing is that when they are inserting the story URL, no pingback message appears on the comments of the original blog in LiveJournal and Blogspot either :(

Most people don't know what "trackback" is, and what those "Trackback" links at the bottom of the blog etries are fore... so it would really be useful to try to generate that message in the comments section from the URL address, just like the Pingback module does.