Sudden missing table error for a table that was never there

htmanning · Post by **htmanning** » Mon Sep 13, 2021 9:12 pm

I have a forum that all of a sudden returned an error that the table "phpbb_words" was not found. "phpbb_" is the wrong prefix for this forum and that table was never there. My first thought was someone compromised the files so I renamed the entire forum folder, and restored from a backup from a time when the forum was working. I got the same error. I looked at a backup of the database and phpbb_words was never in the database. I created a table called phpbb_words, and the forum works.

My question is in what file does phpbb point to the table for badwords? I know that in a previous version of phpbb I was able to share one badwords table for 3 forums, but I can't remember where that is.

If anyone has any other ideas I could use them. If I delete this table, the forum breaks.

Thanks.

david63 · Post by **david63** » Mon Sep 13, 2021 9:19 pm

Is it from an extension or a MOD?

htmanning · Post by **htmanning** » Mon Sep 13, 2021 9:25 pm

No extensions or mods and the forum was working perfectly without changes. I have not made any changes and this error occurred suddenly. We cannot find any corrupt tables in the database either. This is very strange. I also have 2 other forums working on the same files with the same setup and they are fine. I'm wondering if someone tried to upload something weird or if someone actually hacked us. The security team at the server company found nothing though.

david63 · Post by **david63** » Mon Sep 13, 2021 9:33 pm

Do a file search for that table to see where it is referenced

htmanning · Post by **htmanning** » Mon Sep 13, 2021 9:37 pm

I did. The only place it shows up is in a file called schema.json with the following:

"phpbb_words": {
"COLUMNS": {
"word_id": [
"ULINT",
null,
"auto_increment"
],
"word": [
"VCHAR_UNI",
""
],
"replacement": [
"VCHAR_UNI",
""
]
},
"PRIMARY_KEY": "word_id"
},

3Di · Post by **3Di** » Mon Sep 13, 2021 9:52 pm

htmanning wrote: ↑Mon Sep 13, 2021 9:12 pm "phpbb_" is the wrong prefix for this forum

What's the prefix?

That table is for censor words and should be there, you can rebuild it
change myprefix_words with your prefix + words

Code: Select all

DROP TABLE IF EXISTS `phpbb_words`;

CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `myprefix_words` (
  `word_id` int UNSIGNED NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
  `word` varchar(255) COLLATE utf8_bin NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
  `replacement` varchar(255) COLLATE utf8_bin NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
  PRIMARY KEY (`word_id`)
) ENGINE=MyISAM DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8 COLLATE=utf8_bin;

htmanning · Post by **htmanning** » Mon Sep 13, 2021 10:02 pm

The prefix is phpbb3_platform_

phpbb_ is an old prefix from a previous version of the forum, but we did not reinstall on top of the old one. We created an entire new install and changed the database to a completely different server. Interestingly, I just deleted the phpbb_words table that I created in the database. The site still works.

My only thought is maybe an old cache file or something was copied on the server the by something the server host did, even though they swear they didn't. I didn't do anything to the site. This is very perplexing.

3Di · Post by **3Di** » Mon Sep 13, 2021 11:08 pm

Do you have a phpbb3_platform_words table there?

htmanning · Post by **htmanning** » Tue Sep 14, 2021 4:32 am

Yes. It's there.

htmanning · Post by **htmanning** » Thu Sep 23, 2021 11:29 pm

This problem has happened again on a different forum. The fix was to create the phpbb_words table in the database, load the site successfully, then delete the table. This is very bizarre. The hosting company could find no intrusion to the server so something else is going on. The last post in the forum happened about 4 weeks prior to receiving the error so I don't think a post caused it. I see no recent registrations. The only activity is Bing and Google bots.