Some guest being told they already rated image.

[Tom M]

I've got image rating allowed for guests on a specific forum. Some of the visitors are being told they already rated the image when they haven't. Needless to say this worked OK when I tried it as a guest...

I'm doing research to find out if they got cookies enabled and/or might be on a changing IP address.

Lastly, this is on RC3 as I didn't want to change things in the middle of the contest we're running.

The only way this should be able to happen is if someone has already voted on that image from the same computer and has a cookie on their computer from the vote, or they are voting from the same IP address.

[Tom M]

Voting from the same IP address w/o a cookie will cause this, right? What if it's a roaming IP address? Will the same IP address with a cookie do it if they haven't voted (i.e. roaming IP address)?

If a guest votes on AOL (for example), and then another guest tries to vote from the same IP address then they will get the 'Already voted' error message.

[Tom M]

Thanks. That's what I figured.

It may not be a foolproof method, but when it comes to dealing with proxy's and such, there really is no perfect method.

[Tom M]

Do registered member have the same problem?

[ConqSoft]

Originally Posted by Tom M

Do registered member have the same problem?

I wouldn't think so, since you know who they are... It should be based on userid at that point.

[Tom M]

Originally Posted by Brian

It may not be a foolproof method, but when it comes to dealing with proxy's and such, there really is no perfect method.

I just dumped the adv_gallery_rate table and all of the ipaddress fields are empty. Could this be causing the problem for guests?

No, registered users would not have this problem as it goes by their userid and (IIRC) a cookie for them. Is it possible these people were voting from a computer in which someone else had already voted from?

[Tom M]

Originally Posted by Brian

Is it possible these people were voting from a computer in which someone else had already voted from?

Most of the individuals are spread out around the country. I verified it's happening to people that have dedicated IP addresses as well as AOL users. It seems that the error pops up on items that at least one other person has voted on. Could the key be that the IP address isn't stored in the adv_gallery_rate table (when I dumped it the ip field was empty for all records - registered members and guests alike)?

[Tom M]

Update... I'm on a fixed IP address.

All the images in question now have at least one rating on them. I tried to rate images as a guest and was told that I had already done so - which I hadn't. Oops.

Since I'm running a contest for 'best picture' this makes things a bit awkward. Any clues on how to correct this w/o telling people that they need to register - which I'd like to avoid if possible.

If you're rating them while logged in, it still stores a cookie on your computer to indicate that you have already rated the image. This is done to prevent a member from rating an image, then logging out and rating it again. It wouldn't be hard to remove either the cookie and/or IP check, but you'd be opening yourself up to allow multiple votes. If you'll let me know which you would like to do though I can tell you what code would need to be changed.

[Tom M]

Originally Posted by Brian

If you're rating them while logged in, it still stores a cookie on your computer to indicate that you have already rated the image. This is done to prevent a member from rating an image, then logging out and rating it again. It wouldn't be hard to remove either the cookie and/or IP check, but you'd be opening yourself up to allow multiple votes. If you'll let me know which you would like to do though I can tell you what code would need to be changed.

I cleared my cookies which had no effect. The problem appears to be related to the fact that the ipaddress is not populated in the adv_gallery_rate table. I filled in a dummy address (different from mine) for the existing records and it let me rate an image where it wouldn't when the ipaddress was empty. Not surprisingly, the new entry doesn't have an ipaddress filled in. I guess the question then is why isn't the ipaddress being filled in? Is the problem unique to my site?

Is there any particular reason why you're still running RC3? I think that may have been a bug that was fixed in RC4. If you look in your newreply.php file for two instances of $ipaddress and replace each with IPADDRESS though that should take care of the problem there. Oh, and note that the first instance will be in the global list near the top of the rate_image() function and will just be a comma spearated list of other variables, but there's no need to change that one.

[Tom M]

Originally Posted by Brian

Is there any particular reason why you're still running RC3?

Reluctant to upgrade in the middle of the contest process

If you look in your newreply.php file for two instances of $ipaddress and replace each with IPADDRESS though that should take care of the problem there. Oh, and note that the first instance will be in the global list near the top of the rate_image() function and will just be a comma spearated list of other variables, but there's no need to change that one.

Looks like this may have gotten it.

Thanks.

Originally Posted by Tom M

Reluctant to upgrade in the middle of the contest process

There's not any reason I can think of why upgrading would be a problem, but I suppose as long as everything is working properly for you now then there's no reason it would be necessary.

[Tom M]

Originally Posted by Brian

There's not any reason I can think of why upgrading would be a problem, but I suppose as long as everything is working properly for you now then there's no reason it would be necessary.

I've got a few hacks installed and didn't want to chance it. I figure I'll take care of everything at once when the next version of CMPS comes out