EasyBlog Composer Embeddables Blocks - JSON response variable "oembed" always null or empty
By CC Group on Friday, 07 August 2015
Posted in Technical Issues
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Hello and good day,

I will start by saying I know this might be beyond the scope of your support, but this is the ONLY feature that I cannot get working on my locally hosted site and I cannot figure out why. I am hoping that as the developers of this web app, you can point me in the right direction or even supply a fix.

I am having a lot of trouble with the embeddable video blocks in EasyBlog Composer on a locally hosted site. Other embed blocks (such as CodePen) work fine.
When I move the site to a web host, everything works fine! This leads me to believe there are conflicting configurations on the two web servers, but I cannot find the differences.

I have been able to narrow the failure down to the JSON response when clicking "Embed Video". I have attached images of the working and non working information; the screenshots were taken of the POST request when clicking Embed Video on the YouTube block.
When it doesn't work (on a localhost), the oembed variable in the response is null, or sometimes it is Object, but there is no data.
When it does work (web-hosted server), the oembed variable is fully populated.

I tried adding Header set Access-Control-Allow-Origin "*" and Header unset Content-Length to my apache configuration but it did not fix anything. keepAlive is On. There are no entries in the apache error_log.

Do you know of a limitation that prevents locally hosted sites from using the embed blocks?
Or have any ideas to further troubleshoot this?

At the moment, I cannot provide site access. I am working on allowing the server through the firewall to allow your team to troubleshoot this with me, but it is going to take a few days. I am just posting this now in the hopes that you might have some ideas.

Thank you!
Hey CC,

I am sorry that delay of this reply,

Regarding with your dailymotion issue is actually same as youtube block, can you download my attachment file and replace into JoomlaFolder\administrator\components\com_easyblog\includes\crawler\hooks\oembed.php, it should work fine.

Before that it will try to find e.g dailymotion video ( view-source:http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1mxoxx_a-baby-play-with-cat-really-very-very-funny-and-cute-vedio_fun ) application/json+oembed tag then get the data, but somehow your site facing this issue, so we changed to get the data from this URL -> e.g "http://www.dailymotion.com/services/oembed?url=xxxx

Regarding with your custom HTML issue, I believe this already solved in latest version of Easyblog, perhaps you can try update to latest version then replace my attached file in your site and see how it goes?

If the issue still persists, can you open another new post thread regarding with your new issue?
Arlex Wong
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Wednesday, 19 August 2015 16:29
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Hi,

I am sorry that delay of this reply,

That was hard for us to tell you what is the issue causing this without access in your site.

May i know you mean that "locally hosted site" is using intranet server right?

Perhaps you can keep us updated then after you setup your site access, so we can better have a look of this issue.
Arlex Wong
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Friday, 07 August 2015 11:41
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Hello Arlex,

I am sorry for the long delay of my reply. I was thinking the problem might be confusing, but I have confidence that your team can help

Yes, locally hosted site means it is our intranet server.

I have created a temporary firewall exception to allow you to support the site. I have included the information in the Site Details section.
I will be available to provide any extra information you might need such as apache logs or anything from the web server.

Thank you!!
CC Group
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Tuesday, 11 August 2015 22:36
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Hi,

I have tried to access in your site, but it seems like your firewall blocked our IP address, this is what I hitting the warning :


AlertThis site has been blocked by the network administrator.

Block reason: Gateway GEO-IP Filter Alert



IP address: 175.145.128.146



Connection initiated from country: Malaysia
Arlex Wong
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Wednesday, 12 August 2015 02:03
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I'm very sorry about that, it seems our default policies are too strict for this...
I have made some changes to the rule.

Please try again!

Thank you!!
CC Group
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Wednesday, 12 August 2015 03:46
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I am apologize with this, I think I need your help again, because my IP address is dynamic, now I at office, this is my current IP address. 


AlertThis site has been blocked by the network administrator.

Block reason: Gateway GEO-IP Filter Alert



IP address: 121.121.31.217



Connection initiated from country: Malaysia


[EDITED] This is my current IP address - 175.145.128.157
Arlex Wong
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Wednesday, 12 August 2015 16:47
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Oh I am sorry too Arlex. Security is good, but can be difficult to remove
I have made more changes to the rule; specifically I have tried to allow any connection from your country, I hope this lets you access.
Please try again anytime.

Thank you!!
CC Group
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Wednesday, 12 August 2015 22:51
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Hey there,

Hm, it looks like it has something to do with the HTML parser and to be honest, it's really difficult for me to troubleshoot just with ExtXplorer Is there any way for you to provide us with the FTP access please?
Mark
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Thursday, 13 August 2015 00:45
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Mark,

Is it just slower to use exTplorer? You should have full capability within that component to access all the site files.

The server hosting this site is not an FTP server. I would have to install FTP and then secure the heck out of it.
Please tell me if this is the only way you can work on it, or if you can work with exTplorer. I can install FTP, but it might take another couple of days.
Please try to continue using exTplorer if you can. I really appreciate your help and everyone's help on your team.

Thank you!!
CC Group
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Thursday, 13 August 2015 01:04
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Hey there,

It's not just about it being "slow", it's about some files which I need to modify on the site and debugging it is really tricky with extxplorer If FTP isn't possible, perhaps SFTP?
Mark
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Thursday, 13 August 2015 01:10
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Mark,

I have enabled SFTP for you. It took me all day but I think it is working.
You can find the information in the Site Details section below.
Thanks for your help!!!
CC Group
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Thursday, 13 August 2015 07:36
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Hey there,

I am sorry that delay of this reply,

I have tried to connect with your SFTP server, it seems can connected but it not point us to your Joomla root folder, can you help?
Arlex Wong
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Friday, 14 August 2015 01:10
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Ah yes, sorry. I guess the chroot did not work, but at least you do have access and that is good!
OK, check the site details Optional Information field, I have put the path there.

You start in /home/support, so just navigate out to root (click the ".." folder until you are there) and follow the path I have put in Site Details. If it didn't chroot you, it should allow you to traverse. Not as secure as I would like, but it will work and your user only has permissions to read/write in the web directory.

Hope this helps you and Thank You for your hard work!!
CC Group
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Friday, 14 August 2015 01:31
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Hello all,

Could you please update me on this issue?
I think I have fixed all of your access issues but the problems still exist on my site.

I know you had a weekend and also had a Joomla conference or maybe you're having it now, but please let me know when you have a chance to work on this again.

Thank you!!!
CC Group
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Monday, 17 August 2015 22:59
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Hey there,

I am really sorry that delay of this reply because we are still investigate on this why the oembed get null.

We will get back to you once I figure out what is the issue causing this.
Arlex Wong
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Tuesday, 18 August 2015 10:08
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Hey there,

Can you try increase this 2 php value to higher and see how it goes?

max_execution_time - 30 to 500

post_max_size - 8M to 128M
Arlex Wong
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Tuesday, 18 August 2015 19:30
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Hey Arlex, good to hear from you.
I have made the changes you requested and rebooted the webserver.
Please let me know if I can do any more to help.

Thank you!!
CC Group
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Tuesday, 18 August 2015 21:46
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Hey there,

I've applied some fix in this file -> JoomlaFolder\administrator\components\com_easyblog\includes\crawler\hooks\oembed.php, can you give it a try now and see is it work now?
Arlex Wong
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Wednesday, 19 August 2015 01:06
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Arlex,

GOOD NEWS! It is now working for YouTube!
Very good job my friend! What was wrong??

It does not work for DailyMotion still, however. Perhaps can you fix that too? If it can work for YouTube and DailyMotion, we will be done with this issue.

Thank you so much!

edit: Please let me know if I should open another discussion, but some users on the site claim that the Custom HTML block does not work now. If you can look into it, we would be very thankful.
We are running version 5.0.19 and I do plan to update after you fix the current issues. If you are making changes that are custom for my site, please give me those details so I can keep it working across versions.
CC Group
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Wednesday, 19 August 2015 02:37
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Hey Arlex,

Once again thank you for all your work and assistance.
I'm sorry to report that Dailymotion is not working. Youtube does still work with this modification. The dailymotion block will now just hang at "loading embedded player" but it never loads (even after waiting 15 minutes).
I updated the site but it did not fix the custom HTML block, I will start another post regarding this issue.

At this point it seems that you're telling me my web server is "different" because it does not work the default way but it works another way. Do you have ideas on what I can change on the web server to not need your custom php? For instance do I need to downgrade to your recommended versions for PHP or MySQL? Or maybe I am still missing a PHP module or have security set too high somewhere?

Thank you and sorry to keep us struggling through this issue.
CC Group
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Wednesday, 19 August 2015 22:18
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Hey CC,

I am sorry that delay of this reply,

Can you take a look of my screenshot below. It seems like one of your security application blocked this process :


string(7107) "content :SonicWALL Network Security Appliance

Alert

This site has been blocked by the network administrator.

Block reason: Forbidden Category "Multimedia"



If you believe the below web site is rated incorrectly click here.



"

May i know do you familiar with this?

At this point it seems that you're telling me my web server is "different" because it does not work the default way but it works another way. Do you have ideas on what I can change on the web server to not need your custom php? For instance do I need to downgrade to your recommended versions for PHP or MySQL? Or maybe I am still missing a PHP module or have security set too high somewhere?

We already changed this behaviour in latest version of Easyblog is because using this way to get the oembed data from the URL also can work perfectly, so you no need change anything from your server. Maybe it could be I attached that security blocked issue?
Keep us updated then.
Arlex Wong
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Thursday, 20 August 2015 13:35
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Thanks very much as usual Arlex.

I am familiar with that error. I took a look at our firewall and tried to make the changes necessary to stop blocking the websites for your connection (it was different for you i think because you have to connect remotely). Please try again and you should not see any Sonicwall blocking.

I tried to embed a video again this morning and the issue is still the same for me. I have attached a screenshot of what it looks like.

I got everything up to date on the site, so if you make custom changes please let me know what they are.

Thank you!!
CC Group
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Friday, 21 August 2015 00:02
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Hey CC,

You're welcome. But I still hitting the error

Perhaps you can try upload youtube and dailymotion video link and see what is the different ?

Because I already put the vardump code there, you should see the different, perhaps you can temporary disable this `SonicWALL Network Security Appliance` security first?
Arlex Wong
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Friday, 21 August 2015 00:57
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Thanks Arlex for the update! When you left in the vardump code, I could also see the error you were hitting and you are correct it is blocked by Sonicwall (I found out this is because the request is made from the webserver IP, which is not part of the same security group as my workstation. this is why i can view the video and you can view the video but we cannot embed the video. sorry for that trouble). I talked to firewall administrator and she unblocked it long enough for me to see it work. The security team will have a meeting to decide if we will keep it unblocked, but they blocked it again after my tests.

I think the main issue was with the parsing in oembed.php, as youtube was definitely the main issue and it was fixed as soon as you changed that code. Dailymotion has been requested by users but will now need more consideration due to the firewall, however I now know that it works when security is turned off.

I am happy to say that this issue is resolved! Please revert any developmental changes you have made so that the site is ready to run in production next week.

Thank you for sticking with this issue and seeing it through to the end! I can't tell you how good it feels to see you and the rest of the team make such efforts to help individual users the way you do on this community forum. You have also helped me discover a couple new things about debugging and troubleshooting my site and I'm sorry our firewall brought up so many extra issues. I have learned a few things about the firewall too

You have made a great collection of web applications and we are extremely happy we found them. Keep up the good work and I am excited to see all the future developments.

CC Group
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Friday, 21 August 2015 03:48
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hey CC,

You're welcome, glad to heard your issue resolved.

I also learned this a lot, so next time another user hitting this issue I will know.

If you don't mind and if it doesn't take too much of your time, is it possible for you to post up a review or give us some rating for EasyBlog at Joomla! Extensions Directory http://extensions.joomla.org/extensions/authoring-a-content/blog/12630 . This will really help motivate the team and will allow us to further improve our service as we move along.
Arlex Wong
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Friday, 21 August 2015 16:56
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