General error, no access during file upload

bikeridr · Post by **bikeridr** » Tue Jan 24, 2023 9:10 am

Hello,
I've recently upgraded from 3.3.3 to 3.3.9 by following the steps with disabling all ext's and styles before upgrasde.
This went smoothly and without issues. All compatible ext's and styles (upgraded and) reenabled without problems.

Yesterday, one of my users, who haven't been logged in since before the update got an error while uploading a picture as attachment.
He uploaded a picture and hit "preview", which looked satisfactorily and then hit "submit". When doing so, he was presented with the following error message:

Code: Select all

General Error - You are not allowed to access this file

He then tried to delete the file and did not have access to that either. So he abandoned the post and hit "board index" to go to the "support forum" that I have for the users, in order to report this. When landing on the "board index", he noticed that he was the last poster in the "problem topic", (I have "recent topics" extension on my forum), and saw that the image was properly posted as he intended.
Both myself, as admin and with a pseudo regular user account and the affected user have tried to reproduce the problem today. Now everything seems to work fine.
Forum upload with image dimension restrictions but no size restriction has been enabled since 2020, so I see this as not the issue.

Any ideas what happened?
Server/host glitch or php/phpbb forum glitch?

MarkDHamill · Post by **MarkDHamill** » Wed Jan 25, 2023 3:05 am

Check the permissions for the files folder. It needs to be 777. This is also true of the cache, cache/production, store and images/avatar/upload folders.

bikeridr · Post by **bikeridr** » Wed Jan 25, 2023 8:05 am

Thank you for your reply.
I checked, and the folders you mention have the correct permissions with 777, except images folder which has 775.

MarkDHamill · Post by **MarkDHamill** » Wed Jan 25, 2023 1:14 pm

It's the images/avatar/upload folder that needs 777 permissions. It's only used to upload user avatar images.

Posts and private message attachments should go into the /files folder.

It may be a phpBB permission issue. You can view the permissions for the user in the ACP. Look for permissions for uploading to the forum in question and if the effective permission is NO or NEVER click on the tiny icon to trace how the permission is applied. This may point out the group or user permission that needs to be changed.

bikeridr · Post by **bikeridr** » Wed Jan 25, 2023 7:30 pm

Thank you @MarkDHamill.
The images/avatars/upload has 777 on both my "mock" and "real" forum.
The user in question uploaded an image to "files" folders and received the error. Both my "mock" user and the uploader have the same permissions (regular user), and we couldn't reproduce the error.
Probably a hiccup on the host side.
If it happens again, I'll have a chat with the host.

MarkDHamill · Post by **MarkDHamill** » Wed Jan 25, 2023 9:59 pm

It can't hurt to check the owner and group for the files folder. If it's different from the other files and folders, using chown to make it consistent may fix the problem.

Post by **P_I** » Wed Jan 25, 2023 10:50 pm

bikeridr wrote: ↑Tue Jan 24, 2023 9:10 am I've recently upgraded from 3.3.3 to 3.3.9 by following the steps with disabling all ext's and styles before upgrasde.
This went smoothly and without issues. All compatible ext's and styles (upgraded and) reenabled without problems.

Is the member who is having problems using prosilver or a different style? If a different one, does it still happen if they use prosilver?

bikeridr · Post by **bikeridr** » Wed Jan 25, 2023 11:08 pm

P_I wrote: ↑Wed Jan 25, 2023 10:50 pm
bikeridr wrote: ↑Tue Jan 24, 2023 9:10 am I've recently upgraded from 3.3.3 to 3.3.9 by following the steps with disabling all ext's and styles before upgrasde.
This went smoothly and without issues. All compatible ext's and styles (upgraded and) reenabled without problems.
Is the member who is having problems using prosilver or a different style? If a different one, does it still happen if they use prosilver?

He was using "Platinum", but "complained" that the style suddenly was "standard". I explained to him that when I upgraded, I disabled all extra styles and thus everybody were set to standard style.
This was his first post after the upgrade. He hadn't been logged in since before the upgrade.
As mentioned in my first post, neither myself nor him have been able to reproduce the error. Might have been something "itchy" after re-login to "new" forum.
Also, several users have posted/uploaded pictures after the upgrade without issues. (Including myself, both as admin and with a "pseudonym" with regular user permissions).