Today's Birthdays not showing up in WGO

[BGObsession]

I have the option to show 'Today's Birthdays' enabled in my 4.2.1 board's admin cp, but this function has never worked since upgrading to 4.2.1. Is anyone else experiencing this? Anyone got a fix for it? Thanks in advance for any input!

The code text in the FORUMHOME template is as follows:

<!-- today's birthdays -->
<div id="wgo_birthdays" class="wgo_subblock section">
<h3 class="blocksubhead"><img src="{vb:stylevar imgdir_misc}/birthday.png" alt="{vb:rawphrase todays_birthdays}" />{vb:rawphrase todays_birthdays}</h3>
<ol class="commalist">
<vb:each from="birthdays" value="row">
<li><a href="{vb:link member, {vb:raw row}}">{vb:raw row.username}</a><vb:if condition="$row['age']"> ({vb:raw row.age})</vb:if>{vb:raw row.comma}</li>
</vb:each>
</ol>
</div>
<!-- end today's birthdays -->

[ozzy47]

If the user has, Hide Age and Date of Birth or Display Only Age set, they will not show up in there.

[BGObsession]

Thanks! Hey Ozzy, is there a setting to set ALL members to 'Display Only Day and Month of Birth' for all members as a default (so it cannot be changed, or at least, sets all current members to that option)?

Also - is there a working CMS widget to display this same information on the CMS page?

[ozzy47]

Run this querry:

UPDATE `user` SET `showbirthday` = '3';

I would imagine the widget will work now, https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=255015

[BGObsession]

I've not 'run a query' before. I assume I should be using the 'execute SQL query' function in the 'Maintenance' section of the Admin CP, but when I select that I get message 'You are not authorized to execute SQL queries'. I am an Admin btw...

[ozzy47]

You need to set you user Id to be able to do thin in the includes/config.php file

// ****** USERS WITH QUERY RUNNING PERMISSIONS ******
// The users specified here will be allowed to run queries from the control panel.
// See the above entries for more information on the format.
// Please note that the ability to run queries is quite powerful. You may wish
// to remove all user IDs from this list for security reasons.
$config['SpecialUsers']['canrunqueries'] = '1';

[BGObsession]

Thanks Ozzy - as always - you are the man! One of the biggest assets on vbulletin.org!

[ozzy47]

Not a problem, glad to help. :)

[BGObsession]

Hey Ozzy, after running that query I am getting the following error when trying to access my site:

Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at [path]/includes/config.php:1) in [path]/includes/functions.php on line 4370

Thoughts?

[ozzy47]

Sounds to me like you messed something up in the config file, undo any changes and see if that fixes it.

[BGObsession]

The ONLY thing I changed was adding my user ID to the file you referenced.

[TheLastSuperman]

The ONLY thing I changed was adding my user ID to the file you referenced.

How did you edit the file though?

Example: If you use wordpad or notepad in windows, edit the file then upload it to a server (which is more than likely Linux) it can sometimes insert hidden characters, this is what's known as UTF-8 BOM, its just how the program tries to read the file and when the hidden windows characters are inserted it causes issue because Linus is not Windows and vice-versa.

Always edit your config.php file OR any vBulletin file for that matter with programs such as NotePad++ (Google it, very nice editor w/ line #'s etc) otherwise if you use default windows programs it can cause issues if the server type is not windows as well.

[BGObsession]

I used Notepad. That's not the issue Superman

[ozzy47]

Not notepad, use notepad ++

[BGObsession]

Okay - so having edited using notepad, adding my user ID under the query section, and then exiting completely, obviously I cannot use 'undo' - any thoughts regarding how to get my site back up? I don't understand why it brought my site down since that was the only change?

[ozzy47]

Download notepad ++ and open the file in that editor, and see if there is any unnecessary characters in the file.

[BGObsession]

Tried that, but honestly, not sure I'm qualified to assess 'unnecessary characters in the file'... would you be willing to take a look Ozzy or would it be best to contact my server host and have them revert my site to the last backup?

[ozzy47]

Pm me a link to the site, and FTP info, and I will see if I can fix it.

[ozzy47]

This has been fixed on the users site.

[TheLastSuperman]

Tried that, but honestly, not sure I'm qualified to assess 'unnecessary characters in the file'... would you be willing to take a look Ozzy or would it be best to contact my server host and have them revert my site to the last backup?

This has been fixed on the users site.

In the future for those who happen across this thread but no one is available at that time to help, simply re-download the same exact version of vBulletin form the members area then extract the .zip locally to your pc.

- Now edit config.php.new and rename it to config.php and after that simply open up both, copy/paste the new values from the old config into the new config such as database name, database username, and database password. If you see anything else that looks different copy that too such as technical email address etc and then save as config.php and re-upload to /includes/ folder to fix ;).

[ozzy47]

Funny thing is he still had the config file from vB v3.8.2 as the current one, but now it shows the correct version number, v4.2.1

Not a big deal as they are pretty much the same.

[BGObsession]

I guess I'm not a complete idiot - I had just re-downloaded that file and was trying to figure out why I had a config.php and a config.new.php file....

Thanks for the help Ozzy - seriously, you have got to be the most knowledgeable guy on this site. Also appreciate the nudge from TheLastSuperman (you were right, using basic 'Notepad' seems to have created the problem). Thanks guys!

[ozzy47]

config.new.php is how the file comes in the download, it is like that so you don't accidentally overwrite your config.php file. :)

[BGObsession]

I would imagine the widget will work now, https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=255015

Hey Oz, sorry to keep harassing you, but when I implement the above mod, it does show the widget, but it doesn't show member birthdays today (even though they are showing on the forum home page in the WGO section). Any idea what the issue is with this mod?

[ozzy47]

Another thing you can do to help protect yourself against this type of thing happening, if you are unfamiliar with editing the file is this.

1) Download the config.php file, and save it somewhere on your computer.
2) Download the config.php file again, and open it in your editor, and make any changes.
3) Re-upload the edited file.

Now if you should get some errors like the ones in this thread, simply upload the original version you saved on your computer.

[ozzy47]

Hey Oz, sorry to keep harassing you, but when I implement the above mod, it does show the widget, but it doesn't show member birthdays today (even though they are showing on the forum home page in the WGO section). Any idea what the issue is with this mod?

Nope, I have never used it, so not entirely sure.

[BGObsession]

Ordinarily, I would almost always do that, but I've never once had an issue editing files with Notepad, and adding a single user ID didn't seem complex enough to even worry about it. I appreciate the help and sorry to create additional work. I'm generally pretty savvy with vbulletin mods and file edits.