Article Bot

[Velocd]

Article Bot
by velocd


Article Bot is a script that allows you to assign a user account (preferably an exclusive one) to an article bot that will post RSS feeds in select forums at designated intervals. These articles are derived from RSS (Really Simple Syndication (http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss)) feeds.

RSS files are assigned to article bots, as well to individual forums, which in turn directs what, when and where your article bot will post.

Features


Works with RSS versions: 0.9x, 2.0, 1.0, and Atom 0.3
AdminCP interface for adding/modifying/deleting article bots & rss feeds
Designate intervals (in minutes) to each RSS feed for when your article bot will post them.
Requires only 1 file edit (admincp/index.php), allowing ease of upgrading your vBulletin
without having to remodify files.
Easy to install. Works best in conjunction with crontab (contab help is inside install.html)


News


7/25/04 - Version 1.1 Released

Bug Fixes

Replaced htmlspecialchars() with htmlentities() in articlebot.php to fully convert special entities from descriptions.
Added trim() to thread titles, to prevent double threads from being posted that are merely off by whitespace.
New table articlebot_rss_cache for storing a copy of article bot threads, for quicker checking of doubles when posting new threads.
Threads are checked in articlebot_rss_cache, so you can permanently remove them from the thread table (you don't have to "soft delete") without worrying about the bot replicating them.
Other minor bugs.

Features

New installer/upgraders for doing the SQL part automatically.
Added "label" field to add/modify RSS interface, that allows you to tag a label, e.g. [yahoo], to the beginning of threads, unique to each RSS feed. This might help for better distinction of RSS feeds.
Added an option to toggle on/off of building similar threads per RSS feed. Some RSS feeds could hault the script if the building of similar thread results for that feed takes too long (maybe the article thread title is too vague, and matches a lot of results--my guess is it's only a problem on large forums).
Added an option to toggle on/off skipping of articles that don't contain descriptions.
Regular expression search and replace for article titles and descriptions. This grants you much flexability to filter out things you don't want in your titles or descriptions (given you have some regex experience, I will try to post some patterns in due time.. feel free to add yours ;))


7/11/04 - Version 1.0 Released


Upgrading

To upgrade, reupload the new PHP and MagpieRSS parser files to their places on your server. Upload upgrade_vx-x (replace the x's with the version you are upgrading to) to /path/to/forums/admincp/, and then execute that script.


Files


3 screenshots attached
articlebot_v1.zip

install.html, logo.gif
articlebot_admin.php
articlebot/

rss_cache.inc
rss_fetch.inc
rss_parse.inc
rss_utils.inc
extlib/

Snoopy.class.inc





RSS Feeds

There are several in the install.html, but if you're looking for more than you could ever want, check out NewsIsFree's directory:

http://www.newsisfree.com/sources/bycat/


Remember to click install if you use this hack. ;)

Also be sure to read through the what you haven't of the thread before asking a question, for it may have been answered.

[Velocd]

Ah yeah, enjoy the modification. ;)

[MindTrix]

This looks great well done and thanks, Does this mean we have to like write articles or can it automatically pull them from another site or something?

[Velocd]

It pulls articles from RSS feeds. RSS is a xml format primarily used for syndicating news. Many news related sites provide RSS files of their recently posted articles so their readers can use an RSS aggregator (e.g. http://www.sharpreader.net) to read the data.

With PHP's XML libraries, parsing RSS is done very easily.

Sample RSS:
http://rss.news.yahoo.com/rss/topstories

Anyhow, you first create an article bot, by assigning it a user it will control.

You add an RSS feed by specifying the path to the RSS file, the article bot it applies to, the forum the thread will be posted in, and an interval (in minutes) that a new thread will be posted.

It's preferred that you use a crontab to execute the articlebot.php file, every couple hours or so. The script will work from the bottom of the RSS file (oldest articles) to the top (latest articles). It will post the title of the article as the thread subject, and then the RSS description as the body content. It then tags the URL to the actual full article.

I've had it running on my forum for about 2 weeks, and it works quite well. Make the intervals quite large, like every 5 hours, or else you'll have a flood of bot threads on your forum. ;) This of course depends on the RSS feed and how often the news source updates it.

Hopefully I didn't make things more convoluted. :rolleyes:

[Dan]

Nice I like this a lot :)

[Erwin]

There is another hack just like this one that I installed a month or two ago. :) How is this different to that one? Just wondering.

[Velocd]

Hm, I didn't know others existed.

Well, it's different in that it's coded by another person. ;)

Feature wise, you'll just have to try it out. Article bots can have unlimited RSS feeds assigned to them, and RSS feeds can be in multiple forums. Meaning, 1 article bot can post in many forums. Not sure if the other RSS mods are restricted of this.

It's very query efficient also.

[alkatraz]

cool

Is there a way to create an RSS feed from your site, for other sites with this hack? (ie: new events on my forum automaticaly get RSS'd to other sites)

[Reeve of shinra]

alkatraz - I could be mistaken but I believe thats a default feature of vb3. Check the online manual for it.

[alkatraz]

crazy, just checked the vb3 manual..

thx

[nexialys]

would be good from Erwin to post a link, so we can all compare!

[Natch]

Erwin is talking about Slapyo's New Modifies RSS feed hack - there is a search button for just such an occasion ;) :D

[DrkFusion]

This is a great hack (y)

[ranger2kxlt]

Ok stupid question, where do you get RSS feeds from? I mean what site will this info be pulled from? I run a F0RD website, where would i find info on stuff like that?

*sorry disregard opened the zip and you have lots of feeds for me :-D

[Blackbeard]

Silly question time, but would this work on 3.01 as iam not planning on updating yet

[Sypher]

nice job! *clicks install*

[Velocd]

Silly question time, but would this work on 3.01 as iam not planning on updating yet
This hack will work on all vBulletin 3 versions.

[Gryphon]

It doesn't seem to like table prefixes. :ermm:

Appears to be line 377 in articlebot_admin.php

Replace
FROM user

With
FROM ".TABLE_PREFIX."user

[GamerzWorld]

How do we find RSS sites :/ Think you could post a list of sites please?

[Gryphon]

It would depend on what you are interested in. If you want gaming, try your favorite fansite and look for their RSS link. If you want world news, head to a news website and find their link.

There are tons of links, hard to just post some that you may or may not like. He already gave examples in the install file.

*edit
Velocd, how about the option to prefix the titles with something we can use to identify the different feeds. Like a feed from Blues could be [Blues] Morning Q&A's and ShackNews could show as [Shack] Game Reviews.

The cron also shows up in the whois online as the base path.

[gmarik]

Great - love RSS!

[ranger2kxlt]

Ford blogs? are they out there?

[Velocd]

Google is your best bet to find blogs. There are thousands out there, search around. use keywords like Movabletype, Los Angeles Blogs, Xanga.com, Blogger, etc. If you want more traditional sources, find large news sites, like BBC, that provide RSS files.

It doesn't seem to like table prefixes.

Appears to be line 377 in articlebot_admin.php


Hm, thought I got them all. Will make the change.

Velocd, how about the option to prefix the titles with something we can use to identify the different feeds. Like a feed from Blues could be [Blues] Morning Q&A's and ShackNews could show as [Shack] Game Reviews.

Ah, although I don't believe the RSS parser I use (MagpieRSS) grabs that information.

I'll take a second look though. ;)

The cron also shows up in the whois online as the base path.

Given the cron has the same IP as your server, you could probably do a comparison in online.php with $_SERVER["SERVER_ADDR"] and exclude that entry. I'll look into this also. Expect an update probably Sunday.

[romeshomey]

Im having a problem and not sure what it is.

Warning: chdir(): No such file or directory (errno 2) in /home/drewster/public_html/forums/articlebot/articlebot.php on line 42

Warning: main(./global.php): failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/drewster/public_html/forums/articlebot/articlebot.php on line 43

Fatal error: main(): Failed opening required './global.php' (include_path='.:/usr/lib/php:/usr/local/lib/php') in /home/drewster/public_html/forums/articlebot/articlebot.php on line 43

Im really not sure what to put in the articlebot.php which Im sure is why Im having that error when I try to execute it.


chdir('home/drewster/public_html/forums');
require_once './global.php';

include_once './articlebot/rss_fetch.inc';


Anyone see what I might have wrong?

[romeshomey]

I tried this

chdir('/home/drewster/public_html/forums/');
require_once 'home/drewster/public_html/forums/global.php';

include_once 'home/drewster/public_html/forums/articlebot/rss_fetch.inc';


Still getting an error, but not sure what I have wrong...

Warning: main(home/drewster/public_html/forums/global.php): failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/drewster/public_html/forums/articlebot/articlebot.php on line 43

Fatal error: main(): Failed opening required 'home/drewster/public_html/forums/global.php' (include_path='.:/usr/lib/php:/usr/local/lib/php') in /home/drewster/public_html/forums/articlebot/articlebot.php on line 43

[romeshomey]

Ok, no errors now, but also don't see anything when the php runs... Is that normal?

http://www.insidersportszone.com/forums/articlebot/articlebot.php

[romeshomey]

Hmm, something isnt right. Its either not reading the feed I have in there or isnt working altogether. Not sure which.

I have this feed running on other sites, so should work here as well, but isnt.

http://xml.newsisfree.com/4/43/4306f37becb9ba0b3678506d8c1dd74c.xml

[romeshomey]

Ok, well its working as far as showing a feed on the forums.

Problem now is, it looks like this..


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Venezuela was eliminated from the Copa America after tying Bolivia 1-1 Monday. <br clear=all>

http://www.newsisfree.com/click/i,43984701,1471,rss/


How do I get it to not show the <br clear=all> ??

[romeshomey]

Is there a way to get it to read the html in the RSS feeds?

I have HTML enabled in the forums, but when my Bot posts the HTML in the feeds stil show as <b> and </b> etc...

Is there a way to enable it to read the HTML so the bold is bold and etc?

[gmtalk]

Ford blogs? are they out there?

We will be having news feeds from two of our sites by the end of this month.

I have not seen any others as of yet that are Ford Specific. I have not been looking too hard, but i have had a look.

[Velocd]

Is there a way to get it to read the html in the RSS feeds?

I have HTML enabled in the forums, but when my Bot posts the HTML in the feeds stil show as <b> and </b> etc...

Is there a way to enable it to read the HTML so the bold is bold and etc?

I will look into this. I would have suspected that enabling HTML on the forums would show the HTML, but guess not. It's a security hazard to enable HTML for posts, btw, and not recommened.

I'm thinking I'll probably throw in strip_tags() to remove the HTML tags. Good RSS feeds don't provide HTML anyway, so you might look for others.

[romeshomey]

All of ESPN's feeds have HTML, and seeing as Im a sports forum, then I dont have alot of choices to choose from as far as getting the latest up to date feeds in those areas.

Thanks though, I'd love to get those tags either removed or working, either or. Let me know if or when you figure out how to remove or enable them :)

I love the addition of the Bot, although he may surpass the world posting records! lol

[Gryphon]

Ah, although I don't believe the RSS parser I use (MagpieRSS) grabs that information.

I'll take a second look though. ;)
I mean in addition to adding the URL and the time limit and the fetch limit and initially skip options, add a field that the board admin can specify as prefix for the titles, like Poll: or Moved: or Sticky:, in this case [News] or [Blues]. Something that people can use to identify that it is an automated post, or for myself, use to parse out onto other pages.

BTW romeshomey, you should really edit previous posts rather than posting a stream of them.

[romeshomey]

BTW romeshomey, you should really edit previous posts rather than posting a stream of them.

What do you mean by that? The purpose of the addition was so that I or my other moderators didnt have to spend time looking for and posting articles for readers into the forums.

Im not sure what you are trying to tell me to edit..

[rsuplido]

Just wondering what version of RSS can this hack handle. The other hack can only handle RSS 0.91. Can it parse RSS 2.0, like that of VB3's?

Thanks.

[romeshomey]

Just wondering what version of RSS can this hack handle. The other hack can only handle RSS 0.91. Can it parse RSS 2.0, like that of VB3's?

Thanks.

Yes it can. All of my RSS feeds are 2.0 and are working fine. Just wish the html special characters didnt show as well.

[romeshomey]

I don't see anything on this one, it wont parse anything if nothing is there for it to parse.. You sure the link is right? http://www.mini2.com/news/rss.php

Then this one should work fine. http://www.motoringfile.com/rss.xml

Everytime I make an edit in my ACP to add or update a feed for my bot, I have to run the forums/articlebot/articlebot.php manually by loading the page before my feeds will start posting.

So try that. But your 1st feed link is completely blank.. It might have something to do with it not being an XML extension.

[rsuplido]

Yes it can. All of my RSS feeds are 2.0 and are working fine. Just wish the html special characters didnt show as well.

Thanks for the info.

Suggestion: can this hack handle ATOM in the future? ;)

[Velocd]

Just wondering what version of RSS can this hack handle. The other hack can only handle RSS 0.91. Can it parse RSS 2.0, like that of VB3's?

Thanks.


MagpieRSS handles the following, as noted in the install.html:

RSS 0.9x, RSS 2.0, RSS 1.0, and Atom 0.3

Very nice hack, installed and testing at the moment, however I've got a problem (and it started off so well too!).

Anyway, I have several feeds, all but two work. If I exclude these two feeds, the other feeds (3 other feeds) work 100%.

The error I get is this (when I fun from command line):

How strange. articlebot.php requires functions_search.php only if you have the similar thread feature enabled, so that similar threads are generated for the threads.

Your error would probably disappear if you commented the fetch_similar_threads() function call in articlebot.php, like so:


// $similarthreads = fetch_similar_threads($article['title']);


I'll make a modification to that hack that allows you to toggle whether to grab similar threads per RSS entry (so you can disable it for RSS files that give errors).

I mean in addition to adding the URL and the time limit and the fetch limit and initially skip options, add a field that the board admin can specify as prefix for the titles, like Poll: or Moved: or Sticky:, in this case [News] or [Blues]. Something that people can use to identify that it is an automated post, or for myself, use to parse out onto other pages.

BTW romeshomey, you should really edit previous posts rather than posting a stream of them.

yeah, I'll incorporate this feature. ;)

Everytime I make an edit in my ACP to add or update a feed for my bot, I have to run the forums/articlebot/articlebot.php manually by loading the page before my feeds will start posting.

This isn't a bug, but just how it is. When you add an RSS feed, the "next post" time will be the time it was added, plus the interval in minutes. So you have to wait.

If you set the interval to 1 minute, then it should proceed automatically. I'm assuming you are using a cron job.

Thanks though, I'd love to get those tags either removed or working, either or. Let me know if or when you figure out how to remove or enable them


I must have forgot, but the code is currently using strip_tags() to remove basic HTML tags. Whether this removes XHTML or more extensive, I'm not sure. I'll look into a preg_replace() expression that will remove HTML tags.

[romeshomey]

I must have forgot, but the code is currently using strip_tags() to remove basic HTML tags. Whether this removes XHTML or more extensive, I'm not sure. I'll look into a preg_replace() expression that will remove HTML tags.

Thanks..

I also noticed, it wont post an article unless the article has a 'discription' in it. It wont post just a title and link. If the feed doesnt include discription tags, it seems to skip those articles.

Not that I need it too, but just pointing that out.

[romeshomey]

Also, any article that has a $ sign in it, the $ sign shows up as $

Example:
AP - A suspect swallowed nearly $50,000 in cash in a failed attempt to smuggle the funds out of Colombia, officials said Monday.

That is with any article having a $ in it.

Works fine in the Title, but not in the Description.

Any idea how to fix that?

[Velocd]

Not that I need it too, but just pointing that out.

Yep, that's deliberate. I suppose I could make it configurable per RSS, but for a thread to have just a link and title would seem spammish.

Also, any article that has a $ sign in it, the $ sign shows up as $

Not sure what you mean. Those two symbols look exactly the same. You have ascii code for it?

[romeshomey]

Not sure what you mean. Those two symbols look exactly the same. You have ascii code for it?

It didnt show as I pasted it here, these forums converted it.

Here is what its showing on my forum http://www.insidersportszone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=6312

Its basically showing up as & # 36 ; with no spaces in between instead of the $ sign.

[romeshomey]

Yea its weird. In some articles its showing the $ fine, in others its showing in ascii....

In this post it works right http://www.insidersportszone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=6292 but in this one it doesn't http://www.insidersportszone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=6312 . Baffeling..

[romeshomey]

Someone told me to go into the PHP script for the parser (which is the articles.php right?) and change the &gt; with > and &lt; with < to make the <b> </b> HTML work. He says its being sent over from source code and its not being converted..

I'll try it here in a bit if I can find where to do it at..

[romeshomey]

I notice in your code you have

$article['description'] = strip_tags(htmlspecialchars($article['description']));


I changed it too

$article['description'] = $article['description'];


Seems to work fine now...... No more <b> </b> Shows up bold now.. Only problem now is there is no space between the bold words and the rest of the article.

Example here: http://www.insidersportszone.com/forums/showthread.php?p=26497#post26497

I would also like to know how to get them to show up if they dont have a desription. Because I cant use NFL.com or alot of sports feeds because they dont have descritions in their feeds.

Thanks again..

[romeshomey]

Ok, so everything is working great now except the spacing between the Article and Descritpion.

Example:
http://www.insidersportszone.com/forums/showthread.php?p=26508#post26508

Derek improves to .700 after 3-for-3 nightHOUSTON -- Add another impressive line to Derek Jeter's glittering resume: the most successful hitter in All-Star game history. Jeter went 3-for-3 Tuesday night, upping his career totals in the game to 7-for-10. That .700 batting average is the highest for anyone with at least 10 at-bats, topping the .600 of former Philadelphia Phillies star Richie Ashburn. "I don't know, it's not just good fortune," said Jeter, whose three hits all went to the opposite field against... (Associated Press)

So basically, what I need to know, is how to seperate:

Derek improves to .700 after 3-for-3 night

and

HOUSTON -- Add another impressive line to Derek Jeter's glittering resume: the most successful hitter in All-Star game history. Jeter went 3-for-3 Tuesday night, upping his career totals in the game to 7-for-10. That .700 batting average is the highest for anyone with at least 10 at-bats, topping the .600 of former Philadelphia Phillies star Richie Ashburn. "I don't know, it's not just good fortune," said Jeter, whose three hits all went to the opposite field against... (Associated Press)

by a space...

[ranger2kxlt]

Suggestion:
What about the bot having the ability to search the RSS before posting?

Since I run a Ford site and we deal with the new Thunderbirds, we would like to ONLY gather ford thunderbird information from this....Is there a way for the bot to pull keywords and only post threads with certain search words?

[Velocd]

Ok, so everything is working great now except the spacing between the Article and Descritpion.

Normally the article title shouldn't be inside the description, unless you modified the articlebot_post template.

Suggestion:
What about the bot having the ability to search the RSS before posting?

Yes, that would be possible. Look at that AnyRSS link mini2 posted first, to see if it is of help.

If I set a forum as being not open to new posts, will this still post to that forum?

The articlebot can post in any forum, even those that are closed or not visible.

[Frzzy]

/me clicks install

A question, can the bot recognize and ignore already posted item?

[Frzzy]

Seem like the bot doesn't work with this RSS...

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer.rss

I know why, look like the bot won't do anything if the description tag is missing.

[romeshomey]

Normally the article title shouldn't be inside the description, unless you modified the articlebot_post template.

Take a look and you'll see what I mean. You'll see how where the text in bold ends is where there needs to be a space before the rest of the desctiption is posted.

http://www.insidersportszone.com/forums/showthread.php?p=26602#post26602

It keeps doing this:

Odom, Butler, Grant and pick go to LakersMIAMI -- It's official: The Shaquille O'Neal era in Los Angeles is over, and his new team is the Miami Heat.The Lakers and Heat finalized a trade Wednesday sending O'Neal to Miami. Los Angeles gets Caron Butler, Lamar Odom, Brian Grant and a first-round draft pick.The deal had been on the verge of completion since Saturday, when O'Neal met in Orlando with Heat president Pat Riley and agreed to the trade. NBA attorneys approved it on the same day the league's two-week moratorium... (Associated Press)


See how there is no space between the work Lakers and the word MIAMI. It does that in all of them and the space is there in the RSS feed itself.

<pubDate>Fri, 9 Jul 2004 20:48:37 CEST</pubDate>
<guid isPermaLink="false">i,43741943</guid>
</item>
- <item>
<title>Shaq traded to Heat in blockbuster deal</title>
<link>http://www.newsisfree.com/click/i,44177556,1851,rss/</link>
<description><b>Odom, Butler, Grant and pick go to Lakers</b>MIAMI -- It's official: The Shaquille O'Neal era in Los Angeles is over, and his new team is the Miami Heat.The Lakers and Heat finalized a trade Wednesday sending O'Neal to Miami. Los Angeles gets Caron Butler, Lamar Odom, Brian Grant and a first-round draft pick.The deal had been on the verge of completion since Saturday, when O'Neal met in Orlando with Heat president Pat Riley and agreed to the trade. NBA attorneys approved it on the same day the league's two-week moratorium... (Associated Press)</description>

[romeshomey]

* Frzzy clicks install


A question, can the bot recognize and ignore already posted item?

I wonder the same thing as it keeps posting the same articles again and again, and if I remove it, itll post it as the next one again.

[romeshomey]

See how there is no space between the work Lakers and the word MIAMI. It does that in all of them and the space is there in the RSS feed itself.

My mistake, the RSS doesnt provide a space in the description which is why there is no space.

Theres no way to add one is there?

IM just glad I got the HTML to work. That was a big plus. If anyone else has the same problem with the HTML showing up as code and not being executed.

The fix for the HTML is:

In the forums/articlebot/articlebot.php change:

$article['description'] = strip_tags(htmlspecialchars($article['description']));

too

$article['description'] = $article['description'];


Then just make sure that HTML is enabled in that forum section.

[ranger2kxlt]

Thanks for the link, but not 100% how to use this?

Instead of making the bot link to a .rss or .xml file, i now link him to the one generated by that link? Because all the pages it shows me seem to show up as html....

Thanks

[Velocd]

The fix for the HTML is:

In the forums/articlebot/articlebot.php change:

romeshomey, it's working for you because you have HTML enabled for your posts (which is not a good idea). For anyone else, they will only get HTML tags, so it's good to have the strip_tags() normally in there.

I know why, look like the bot won't do anything if the description tag is missing.

Yes, as I said not too earlier here (https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showpost.php?p=532573&postcount=45), RSS feeds without descriptions will be skipped.

My mistake, the RSS doesnt provide a space in the description which is why there is no space.

Theres no way to add one is there?

Not really. It's the mistake of the RSS provider to forget the space, but there isn't really a way to add it, given the arbitrary data.

I wonder the same thing as it keeps posting the same articles again and again, and if I remove it, itll post it as the next one again.

As said, the bot starts at the end of the file (oldest articles) and counts its way up. It makes sense that if you remove a thread, the bot (which does check for existing threads) will re-create it. Instead of removing the thread from the database, if you wish to get rid of it, "soft" delete it.

Also note there is a "initial article trim" to skip a number of articles when first starting on an RSS feed.

[romeshomey]

Thanks Velocd. Very useful script...

[sjau]

Can someone test out this feed? I can't get it to work with either bot:

http://www.swissinfo.org/sde/swissinfo.html?siteSect=1111

[romeshomey]

Can someone test out this feed? I can't get it to work with either bot:

http://www.swissinfo.org/sde/swissinfo.html?siteSect=1111

It might only work with feeds with date tags. Not sure though, but I notice your feed has no dates in it..

[ranger2kxlt]

Ok, got my search query going good....but! it seems to pull the same info from different sources, and i have repeat posts.....is there a way to moderate the bot? so all i have to do is look at the threads and take out the dups.?

Its an extra step, but at least i don't have to find the news!

Thanks

[Bobby S]

Ok, got my search query going good....but! it seems to pull the same info from different sources, and i have repeat posts.....is there a way to moderate the bot? so all i have to do is look at the threads and take out the dups.?

Its an extra step, but at least i don't have to find the news!

Thanks
See the cron job malarkey.

Is there any reason why you cannae set the cron as a scheduled task in the vbulletin admin panel or am I missing something really obvious?

[ranger2kxlt]

I think i got it....i had mutliple listings to post from the search engine they gave me....but it would pull the same data, just from a different source each time it updated....so i would have multiple posts stating the same thing, the only difference was the source.

But i managed a way around it.

Thanks for the help

[Sanjiyan]

Hiya I was wondering if you can help me..

I installed and then removed this hack, but now it seems that none of my users can make new threads on any sections within the forum, it just comes up with this error message:

No Thread specified. If you followed a valid link, please notify the webmaster

Users have no problems with replying to current posts made.

I removed the files, and removed the relevent tables it made in the database, but something is very wrong here.

vBulletin 3.0.3
http://f7.sanjiyan.co.uk

[lazytown]

Why can't ArticleBot process the following news feed, for example. Yahoo has a GREAT tool for searching/filtering news and outputting it as RSS.. However it is useless if I can't get to work. For comparison, I've provided a yahoo feed that does work.

Doesn't Work:
http://search.news.yahoo.com/usns/ynsearch/categories/47/index.html?vo=happy

Works:
http://rss.news.yahoo.com/rss/us

Both work in several Windows RSS readers.

Thanks for any help!
-Victor

[Sanjiyan]

Hiya I was wondering if you can help me..

I installed and then removed this hack, but now it seems that none of my users can make new threads on any sections within the forum, it just comes up with this error message:

No Thread specified. If you followed a valid link, please notify the webmaster

Users have no problems with replying to current posts made.

I removed the files, and removed the relevent tables it made in the database, but something is very wrong here.

vBulletin 3.0.3
http://f7.sanjiyan.co.uk

Sorted this problem out now, so can you please ignore this 'help' request.

[Frito]

Hello I'm installing your Hack and am stuck at step #3. I gues I'm too literal but can you elaborate?

"Create a template called articlebot_post"

where do we put this Template?

Thanks

[Frito]

Velocd here is update from a little while ago-

I made a text file and called it "articlebot_post" and put it in /path/to/forums/admincp/

Is this correct? (it doesn't say in step #3 where to put template)

Anyway after I uploaded all the files and went into admin panel I see the article bot stuff on left,however

I'm getting this error inside admin when trying to add bot-

==============================
Database error in vBulletin 3.0.3:

Invalid SQL:
SELECT userid
FROM user
WHERE userid = 0

mysql error: Table 'CreditForum.user' doesn't exist

mysql error number: 1146

Date: Friday 16th of July 2004 04:40:33 PM
Script: http://www.creditscorebooster.com/CreditForum/admincp/articlebot_admin.php
Referer:
http://www.creditscorebooster.com/CreditForum/admincp/articlebot_admin.php?do=add

===============================================

When I log into phpmyadmin for access to database I see this error;

Error
The additional Features for working with linked Tables have been deactivated. To find out why click here.

PMA Database ... not OK[ Documentation ]
General relation features Disabled

=================================================

Do you suppose that this means I can't use your hack on my server the site is hosted on?

Can you help trouble shoot this?

Thank you
Looks like a really good hack once it gets going.

R.C

[Chris-FH]

Please help me, I'm getting this error:

Warning: main(./global.php) [function.main]: failed to create stream: No such file or directory in /xxx/html/board/articlebot/articlebot.php on line 43

Fatal error: main() [function.main]: Failed opening required './global.php' (include_path='.:/usr/lib/php') in /xxx/html/board/articlebot/articlebot.php on line 43

@romeshomey:

What was your solution?

C.

[lazytown]

Strangely enough, if I save the RSS html file to my server and have Articlebot read it off the file (as html), it works fine.. But if it tries to get the feed directly from the feed server it doesn't work. Guess I'll have to write a cron that saves the feeds to my server!

-Victor


Why can't ArticleBot process the following news feed, for example. Yahoo has a GREAT tool for searching/filtering news and outputting it as RSS.. However it is useless if I can't get to work. For comparison, I've provided a yahoo feed that does work.

Doesn't Work:
http://search.news.yahoo.com/usns/ynsearch/categories/47/index.html?vo=happy

Works:
http://rss.news.yahoo.com/rss/us

Both work in several Windows RSS readers.

[lazytown]

This fixed the articlebot HTML encoding problem for me :

In the articlebot/articlebot.php change:


$article['description'] = strip_tags(htmlspecialchars($article['description']));

to

$article['description'] = strip_tags(html_entity_decode($article['description']));


HTML now doesn't need to be enabled (which is a security risk).

[gmtalk]

As said, the bot starts at the end of the file (oldest articles) and counts its way up. It makes sense that if you remove a thread, the bot (which does check for existing threads) will re-create it. Instead of removing the thread from the database, if you wish to get rid of it, "soft" delete it.

Also note there is a "initial article trim" to skip a number of articles when first starting on an RSS feed.

Well I have been testing this one out and it is going nuts on me. The feeds I have are from Racing sites and they come in every few hours. Bad thing is that it is grabbing even the old stories over and over. 8 stories have been repeated on the site 12 times now.

This is nuts. Is there a better way to have it check for dupes? I know in the other RSS feed hack they have sorted that out. I would like to see that in this one. :\

[scotty]

i had the problem of reoccuring threads by my bot too...

the reason was an additional space in the "title-tag"!

instead of <title>here the headline</title> there was <title>here the headline </title> in the rss-feed.

so the bot couldn't recognize, that the thread (without the whitespace) still exists.

my sollution:

find:
if (!$articlebot['lastpost'] && (--$articlebot['initialtrim'] > 0))

and just add above:
$article['title'] = trim($article['title']);

now it is working fine again! :)

[Floris]

now it is working fine again! :)[/QUOTE]The .php file is ready for cron, to save a query could we setup this through the scheduler from vbulletin?

[Bobby S]

The .php file is ready for cron, to save a query could we setup this through the scheduler from vbulletin?
I set it up as a scheduled task and it appears to work fine: except some feeds duplicating. I'm not sure why but the post two up may hold the answer...

[Velocd]

I've been meaning to make an update fixing the bugs discussed so far, but just haven't had the time.

Probably at the weekend I will do so.

Do the trimming of the thread title mentioned here (https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showpost.php?p=534728&postcount=80), and hopefully that erases some duplicate threads that are only off by whitespace.

This hack checks for threads of the same title that already exist, and if they do, it wont post them again. Unless there is a bug. ;)

[Chris-FH]

Please help me, I'm getting this error:

Warning: main(./global.php) [function.main]: failed to create stream: No such file or directory in /xxx/html/board/articlebot/articlebot.php on line 43

Fatal error: main() [function.main]: Failed opening required './global.php' (include_path='.:/usr/lib/php') in /xxx/html/board/articlebot/articlebot.php on line 43

@romeshomey:

What was your solution?

C.

Nobody??? :ermm:

C.

[scotty]

Nobody??? :ermm:

C.

do you have changed that:chdir('/path/to/forums/');
require_once './global.php';
(step8 installation)

[Chris-FH]

Yes I have...

If this path (chdir) is incorrect, the error is in line 42...

But it is correct...

If I set the full path to the global.php , I get this error:

Warning: main(./includes/init.php) [function.main]: failed to create stream: No such file or directory in /xxx/html/board/global.php on line 18

Fatal error: main() [function.main]: Failed opening required './includes/init.php' (include_path='.:/usr/lib/php') in /xxx/html/board/global.php on line 18

C.

[Kru]

Well I installed it. I went on add bot and entered the user ID 1.

After it I got following message:

Database error in vBulletin 3.0.3:

Invalid SQL:
SELECT articlebot.userid,
articlebot.articlebotid, user.username
FROM articlebot
LEFT JOIN user
USING (userid)
WHERE articlebot.userid = 0

mysql error: Table 'help.articlebot' doesn't exist

mysql error number: 1146

Date: Tuesday 20th of July 2004 12:12:16 PM
Script: http://www.spiritual-connections.com/forums/admincp/articlebot_admin.php
Referer: http://www.spiritual-connections.com/forums/admincp/articlebot_admin.php?do=add
Username: xxx
IP Address: xxxx

every time if I am trying to open my forum this appears.

Can anybody help me, please

[scotty]

Yes I have...
If this path (chdir) is incorrect, the error is in line 42...
But it is correct...
it can't be, sorry.

please provide:
- where is your forum located? (full path!) you can xxx some chars to mask your path
- where is your articlebot.php located? (full path!)
- how do you call articlebot.php? cron? direct?

If I set the full path to the global.php , I get this error:
you can't edit line 43 - the only line to edit is 42!

[scotty]

Can anybody help me, please
have you executed the sql statements in step 5?

[Chris-FH]

Big sorry...

I'm a stupid idiot... :(

I forgot the "board"-path in the line...

THX for your answer... :)

C.

[scotty]

Big sorry...
kein problem! :)

[Chris-FH]

Next question... :D

For the first time, the bot gets the news, but for the next time nothing happens...

(News: 10m) (last: 02:30) (next: 02:49)

02.49 is 13 minutes ago... :(

C.

[Sanjiyan]

Silly question, but is this hack going to be updated at some point to support RDF new feeds?

[Velocd]

Silly question, but is this hack going to be updated at some point to support RDF new feeds?

Not sure. It depends if the MagPieRSS parser supports it, and currently it does not.

Next question...

For the first time, the bot gets the news, but for the next time nothing happens...

Quote:
(News: 10m) (last: 02:30) (next: 02:49)


02.49 is 13 minutes ago...

C.

Perhaps there is no new articles to grab from the RSS feed?

I've been testing this hack for over a month now with the original version, and it works fine. Make sure you have set things up correctly.

Invalid SQL:
SELECT articlebot.userid,
articlebot.articlebotid, user.username
FROM articlebot
LEFT JOIN user
USING (userid)
WHERE articlebot.userid = 0

mysql error: Table 'help.articlebot' doesn't exist

mysql error number: 1146

What is this "help.articlebot" ?

That would generate an error.

[Natch]

That error would be generated refering to dbname.tablename - it seems they haven't installed the Tables to the database

[scottct1]

Can someone tell me why I can't pull this feed?

http://satelliteguys.gottadeal.com/rss.xml

Everything looks ok to me, and my other feeds are working.

[Deimos]

Velocd, does this work when capturing info from an RDF file?
I used the other RSS feed on my site and wanted to capture data from the website - www.uo.com, but they don't have RSS, so I setup a script to capture news from the site and save it as an RSS feed file, a rdf file, but it didn't work with the other RSS mod....

[Martyjp]

Anyone got a demo of this in action?

[Velocd]

Anyone got a demo of this in action?

www.animesystem.com/forums/

Bots include:
Kanno, Aspen, Zen, Crowbar

Currently my bots are dominating the forum and will soon have a higher postcount then some of the regulars. Har har. :ermm:

Velocd, does this work when capturing info from an RDF file?
I used the other RSS feed on my site and wanted to capture data from the website - www.uo.com, but they don't have RSS, so I setup a script to capture news from the site and save it as an RSS feed file, a rdf file, but it didn't work with the other RSS mod....

Deimos (and others), be sure to read what you haven't of the entire thread before asking a question. ;)

I answered your question 3 posts above, here (https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showpost.php?p=535413&postcount=94).

Can someone tell me why I can't pull this feed?

http://satelliteguys.gottadeal.com/rss.xml

Everything looks ok to me, and my other feeds are working.

<?xml version="1.0" ?>
- <rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#"

This is an RDF document. ;)

The MagPieRSS parser this script uses doesn't support RDF. Given the request for RDF, when I have the time I'll see if I can find a version that does, even if it is another RSS/RDF parser.

[Admiral Spock]

Velocd, Thanks for this wonderful hack. However, I can't get it to fetch the RSS feed, and when the cron job ran it gave this error:


Warning: MagpieRSS: Failed to parse RSS file. (mismatched tag at line 1341, column 2) in /home2/beta/public_html/forum/articlebot/rss_fetch.inc on line 230

Warning: array_reverse(): The argument should be an array in /home2/beta/public_html/forum/articlebot/articlebot.php on line 141

Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /home2/beta/public_html/forum/articlebot/articlebot.php on line 145
Do you have any idea what I may have done wrong? I'm sure it's a problem on my part as I am not good with PHP code. I have the article bot set up, and set to fetch the RSS feed each hour...

Thank you! :)

[Deimos]

Gah, my apologies Vilo, next time I won't be so lazy as to skip the thread, hehe

[Velocd]

@Admiral Spock: Does it do this error for every RSS feed? If not, link to the RSS feed that gives the error. Maybe you are trying to parse a RSS feed not supported by MagPieRSS parser.. that would give that error. MagpieRSS functions return an array, so those array errors would be result of it not returning anything.

[lanoix]

Thanks for this mod, I will try it... :squareeyed:

[Admiral Spock]

@Admiral Spock: Does it do this error for every RSS feed? If not, link to the RSS feed that gives the error. Maybe you are trying to parse a RSS feed not supported by MagPieRSS parser.. that would give that error. MagpieRSS functions return an array, so those array errors would be result of it not returning anything.
http://www.14wfie.com/global/Category.asp?c=24190&amp;clienttype=rss is the feed I used.

But I also used http://rss.news.yahoo.com/rss/topstories and that didn't work either. But with the Yahoo one, going to /articlebot/articlebot.php brings up just a blank page - no errors.

[Matrixgl]

every newsfeed url given in the install.html file is giving me this error:


Warning: MagpieRSS: Failed to parse RSS file. (mismatched tag at line 121, column 2) in /path/forums/articlebot/rss_fetch.inc on line 230

Warning: array_reverse(): The argument should be an array in /pathl/forums/articlebot/articlebot.php on line 141

Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /path/forums/articlebot/articlebot.php on line 1

same as admiral...

using vB 3.0.1

[Rob Eh]

* Rob Eh clicked install.

I do have a question. How do I delete to comments at the top and bottom of each article posted? They show up on the preview mouseover in the forumdisplay.


<!-- BEGIN TEMPLATE: articlebot_post -->
Sudan could face international sanctions if it fails to disarm Arab militias responsible for killings

View Full Story (http://www.newsisfree.com/click/i,45270008,838,rss/)

<!-- END TEMPLATE: articlebot_post -->

[Matrixgl]

looks like the urls in the install.html file dont really work...

However, I did get many of the urls to work from this site:
http://www.findforward.com/?q=&t=rss

[Velocd]

Version 1.1 has been released.

Refer to the first post (https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showpost.php?p=531658&postcount=1) for upgrade/installation instructions, and release notes.

If bugs are found, please report them in this post.

[Velocd]

I do have a question. How do I delete to comments at the top and bottom of each article posted? They show up on the preview mouseover in the forumdisplay.

Not sure what you mean Rob Eh, could you give a live example, or elaborate more?

[Deimos]

Think you could possibly add the ability to read RDF files?
*begs*
hehe

[Rob Eh]

Not sure what you mean Rob Eh, could you give a live example, or elaborate more?
It is actually posting the template comments as part of the message itself. These comments:
<!-- BEGIN TEMPLATE: articlebot_post -->
<!-- END TEMPLATE: articlebot_post -->
If I disable html in the post, which is deffenity the secure way, It will display these comments in the message preview when you mouseover the message hyperlink in the forumview page. If html is enabled in the post, it does not show up in the preview.

But it doesn't matter if html is enabled of disabled, it till shows up on my portal page that is created with vBadvanced CMPS v1.0.0.

This only way I can get it to dissappear is to disable the "Add Template Name in HTML Comments" in the General settings onm VB Options. to get it to stop.

Screen shots below.

#1 is a shot of the message when I view the edit post screen. I can't get a screen shot when attempting to preview.

#2 is a shot of the troubled area of the portal page.

My site is here:
http://forums.fu2.ca

[Rob Eh]

I will perform the upgrade to see if that helps.

[Rob Eh]

I am having problems with the upgrade. Every thing ran fine with the script and all, but I can't get articlebot.php to run.

After commenting out the lines:
// chdir('/path/to/forums/');
// require_once './global.php';

Warning: main(.articlebot/rss_fetch.inc): failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/virtual/site170/fst/var/www/html/forums/articlebot/articlebot.php on line 46

Warning: main(): Failed opening '.articlebot/rss_fetch.inc' for inclusion (include_path='.:/php/includes:/usr/share/php') in /home/virtual/site170/fst/var/www/html/forums/articlebot/articlebot.php on line 46

Fatal error: Call to a member function on a non-object in /home/virtual/site170/fst/var/www/html/forums/articlebot/articlebot.php on line 92


Now I change:
include_once '.articlebot/rss_fetch.inc';

To
include_once 'rss_fetch.inc';

Which just gives me this error:
Fatal error: Call to a member function on a non-object in /home/virtual/site170/fst/var/www/html/forums/articlebot/articlebot.php on line 92

Line 92 is this:
$result_articlebots = $DB_site->query("

Any thoughts, suggestions?

Thanks,

[MindTrix]

Simple you changed


After commenting out the lines:
// chdir('/path/to/forums/');


to the wrong url hence all the errors with the long url. In your admin cp scroll down to the bottom left under the maintanance section and click on PHP INFO.

In there it will show you the url you need. For instance mine is

/home/general/public_html/forum/


Its under the Enviroment section of the PHP info.


Hope it helps.

[Velocd]

Rob Eh, as MindTrix said, you have to provide an absolute path to your forums directory for chdir(), don't comment it out (that is, if you're using crontab).

As for your problem with the comments, my question is why are there comments? I never added them to the template, nor did the instructions say for you to put them there.

I would just remove the comments. ;)

[Rob Eh]

Rob Eh, as MindTrix said, you have to provide an absolute path to your forums directory for chdir(), don't comment it out (that is, if you're using crontab).

I do have the corect path in it, but since it is commented out, it makes not difference. I'm not presently using crontab. I had the following line in my forum index.php page to run article bot.
include_once './articlebot/articlebot.php';

I plan to setup crontab in the coming days, but since it's been several years and different server setups ago since I used it, I wanted to get everything up and funning properly first. This worked fine for in in your first version before upgrading this morning.

If all else fails, I think I'm going to blow away the installation and start over again. I will drop all of the articlebot tables via phpMyAdmin. Then do a fresh install of the new version and see if that will cure it.

There has to be something wrong with one of the database tables, because the process stops when attempting to fetch article bots.

As for your problem with the comments, my question is why are there comments? I never added them to the template, nor did the instructions say for you to put them there.

I would just remove the comments. ;)
The comments are part of vB's setup. They do not show up incorrectly in any other of vB's templates.

When modifying templates, it is often helpful to have this setting enabled so you can view the source of a page to determine what template(s) control it.

It's not a big problem to have this disabled, but it is very strange as to why the comments for the templates are incorrectly showing up as part of the article post itself. I'm confused by it. :confused:

[Rob Eh]

I have taken screneshots of the structure of the 3 article bot tables, please the thread table that it altered. I do see something that maybe the problem. According to the upgrade script, it calls for the is_iss field to be deleted, but it is not deleted.

All of the articles that have currently been created with article bot have the is_rss field contain "1", the rss_date field is empty, and the rss_feed all contain "0".

Is the talbe scructure correct for these tables? Should the thread table have this structure and data?

Thanks,

[Rob Eh]

Here is the table_articlebot_rss.gif from the above post. Only 3 attachments per post.

[Rob Eh]

OK, I'm even more confused now. Still getting the same error when I run articlebot/php manually. But I have it setup to run as a scheduled task from with in vB itself, and it appears to be working.

So if everything seems to be working, so everything is fine with me! ;)

Thanks for your help.

[Velocd]

The comments are part of vB's setup. They do not show up incorrectly in any other of vB's templates.

When modifying templates, it is often helpful to have this setting enabled so you can view the source of a page to determine what template(s) control it.

It's not a big problem to have this disabled, but it is very strange as to why the comments for the templates are incorrectly showing up as part of the article post itself. I'm confused by it.

Heh, I never noticied vBulletin 3 did this. This hack hasn't been filtering them out, because the code was never there!

Luckily preventing the comments from showing is as easy as providing an optional argument to the fetch_template() function.

So, in articlebot.php, replace:


eval('$articlebot_post = "' . fetch_template('articlebot_post') . '";');


with:


eval('$articlebot_post = "' . fetch_template('articlebot_post', 0, 0) . '";');


Zip has been updated.

[nexialys]

error, debug, whatever: missing TABLE_PREFIX everywhere...

[DrkFusion]

Awesome hack once again. I installed this and modified it to my needs, and let me tell you it is amazing in my case. Even user activity has increased alot!

[Maikeru]

Great hack, Velocd. I think I might install it.

[Velocd]

error, debug, whatever: missing TABLE_PREFIX everywhere...

nexialys, where exactly? I've gone through the whole code, the vB tables all have TABLE_PREFIX to them. articlebot tables do not have them, because they are created without prefixes.

[Matrixgl]

Just finished integrating it to the v3Articles hack.....I think I will release it tonight.

Good job on the bot Velocd :)

[infiniterb]

I'm trying to set my scheduled tasks up for this cron job and I have it pointing to:

./articlebot/articlebot.php

Most of the other tasks will display the name of the job, then below it a Done message. I named this job Articles and all I get back is the Articles name, but I am not seeing a done message. This leads me to believe the job isn't running. Has anyone else gotten this to work via this method? I have a shared server and would really like to use this method over the others.

Thanks in advance.

[Rob Eh]

Mine was doing the same thing until I upgraded to the new release. It does work now.

[Rob Eh]

Is there a way to specify the time zone used in the control panel for this?

It uses the server time and not the time set by vB in the control panel.

Thanks,

[infiniterb]

I have 1.1 though, and am noticing that there isn't a log created for this file. Is there anyone else that is working with the scheduled tasks that is getting the logs to work properly for articlebot.php? Must I put this in the Includes/cron folder for it to work that way?

[Rob Eh]

I am seeing a problemn though when running articlebot.php from the scheduled task manager. It does not send the posts, just check and reteives. I have to click the "Run Now" button on the scheduled tasks for it to actually send the posts to the news server.

I've sent several messages and waited since yesterday for them to appear on the same news server that I sent them to - they never did. I just posted a message on my forum and manually click the run now button, and they sowed up on the news server perfectly.

Anyone else run into this?

Any suggestions?

[SnowBot]

Well i tried and tried, added lots of feeds but the bot will not post at all, no DB errors but it just will not post... Any ideas? I also had this with the other RSS feed hack :(

[KW802]

OK, I know, dumb question but I'm still learning. Where do I put the template? In my default style, all styles, or someplace else?


Problem #2: I get the following error message.....Fatal error: Call to undefined function: array_change_key_case() in /home/www/farpointstation/forums/articlebot/rss_parse.inc on line 203 .... but it should be /home/farpointstation/www/forums/articlebot/rss_parse.inc but I can not find any reference anywhere to "/home/www/...". Thoughts? Where might it be buried that I missed it?

Thanks,
Kevin

[Velocd]

KW802, add the template to your default style.

As for that error, check articlebot.php, and make sure you configured the absolute paths correctly.

Well i tried and tried, added lots of feeds but the bot will not post at all, no DB errors but it just will not post... Any ideas? I also had this with the other RSS feed hack

Execute articlebot.php in your browser. No errors? There shouldn't be any if you configured the paths correctly.

For those using vB's scheduled tasks, I'll look into making Article Bot more integrated with it (the hack was not built for it).. although I can't guarantee it'll be anytime soon.

I do recommend you use a real cron setup anyway (if you're on a NIX server, via your cPanel or shell), instead of vbulletin's system.

[KW802]

KW802, add the template to your default style.

As for that error, check articlebot.php, and make sure you configured the absolute paths correctly.Cool, I guessed the template thing right at least. I added it to my default style thinking that since it was using global.php that it'd use whatever the default was.

I tried the directory name in articlebot.php first, even ended up hard-coding the full path and still get the same error.

Below is what the code at http://www.farpointstation.org/forums/articlebot/articlebot.php currently is but is still producing the same error.chdir('/home/farpointstation/www/forums/');
require_once '/home/farpointstation/www/forums/global.php';
include_once '/home/farpointstation/www/forums/articlebot/rss_fetch.inc';

I'm stumped. :ermm: I figured I'd try running it directly from the browser first to rule that it wasn't my cron job.

Any thoughts appreciated. :nervous:

Thanks,
Kevin

[rinkrat]

Mine's working great on Apache/Redhat. I just added it to the cron job that is getting the Usenet mail in the other hack :)

[SnowBot]

KW802, add the template to your default style.

As for that error, check articlebot.php, and make sure you configured the absolute paths correctly.



Execute articlebot.php in your browser. No errors? There shouldn't be any if you configured the paths correctly.

For those using vB's scheduled tasks, I'll look into making Article Bot more integrated with it (the hack was not built for it).. although I can't guarantee it'll be anytime soon.

I do recommend you use a real cron setup anyway (if you're on a NIX server, via your cPanel or shell), instead of vbulletin's system.
I am on a dedicated server, will try your suggestion and get back to you via the thread :)

[SnowBot]

hhmmm got this error his error. what to do ? :)
Warning: main(./global.php): failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/synergy4/public_html/forum/articlebot/articlebot.php on line 43

Fatal error: main(): Failed opening required './global.php' (include_path='.:/usr/lib/php:/usr/local/lib/php') in /home/synergy4/public_html/forum/articlebot/articlebot.php on line 43
What to do ? :)

Line 43 to 45

chdir('/home/synergy4/public_html/forum/articlebot/');
require_once './global.php';
include_once './articlebot/rss_fetch.inc';

[Velocd]

Snowbot, chdir needs to be pointing to your forums, not the articlebot directory.

As printed in the code.


// Provide absolute server path to forums.
// e.g. /home/cjohn/public_html/forums/

chdir('/path/to/forums/');
require_once './global.php';

[Natch]

Any chance we can have a Thread prefix to each posted thread - with a Title for each Feed ? - it would involve a new field for each Feed with a Short Title, but I reckon it would be worth it :)

What do you reckon VeloCD ?

[KW802]

Cool, I guessed the template thing right at least. I added it to my default style thinking that since it was using global.php that it'd use whatever the default was.

I tried the directory name in articlebot.php first, even ended up hard-coding the full path and still get the same error.

Below is what the code at http://www.farpointstation.org/forums/articlebot/articlebot.php currently is but is still producing the same error.chdir('/home/farpointstation/www/forums/');
require_once '/home/farpointstation/www/forums/global.php';
include_once '/home/farpointstation/www/forums/articlebot/rss_fetch.inc';

I'm stumped. :ermm: I figured I'd try running it directly from the browser first to rule that it wasn't my cron job.

Any thoughts appreciated. :nervous:

Thanks,
Kevin
Well, I've installed a fresh copy of the articlebot files and have grep'ed all files in the /forums folder and I still get the error pointing to the relative directory; it's almost as if something is calculating the system path intead of using the hard-coded values.

The one hack that I really wanted to install and of, of course, Murphy's Law has to intervene. :tired:

[rinkrat]

I just changed the top one and left the other two the way they came.

[rinkrat]

Any chance we can have a Thread prefix to each posted thread - with a Title for each Feed ? - it would involve a new field for each Feed with a Short Title, but I reckon it would be worth it :)

What do you reckon VeloCD ?


The newest version does that already silly goose!

[Natch]

The newest version does that already silly goose!
I do feel a goose - anticipating my requests like that - nice work Velo! :D

[SnowBot]

Snowbot, chdir needs to be pointing to your forums, not the articlebot directory.

As printed in the code.


// Provide absolute server path to forums.
// e.g. /home/cjohn/public_html/forums/

chdir('/path/to/forums/');
require_once './global.php';

Yes sorry i realised that this morning and changed it, i had just come back from the pub when i posted :) lol

BUT it still doesnt post :( No errors when i run the file, its set up on google RSS feed and has been set to post every 120m, its been active for 5h and still no post. Any suggestions?

[Velocd]

Snowbot, do you have a cron setup to execute the script every 120 minutes?

Even though each feed has a period in minutes at which it's posted, all feeds wont be posted if the articlebot.php script isn't executed every now and then.

What you should do is get an average in minutes from all your rss feeds, and then set a cron script to execute the articlebot.php at that average.

For me, most of my RSS feeds are at a period from 400 minutes to 600 minutes. So I have a cron script to execute articlebot.php every 500 minutes.

If this still doesn't work, try a more active RSS feed, like a Yahoo! news one. I don't recall Google updating it's RSS feeds very often (although, this shouldn't be a factor to why it isn't posting...)

[KW802]

Yes! Got it working....... I.... am... so... f'ing... happy! :banana:

This morning it struck me -- It wasn't the path that it wasn't liking but the actual PHP command it was issuing. Big item there. Did a little poking and found a few things....

The command "array_change_key_case" is only available as of PHP 4.2.0 and above. Well, turns out that my hosted provider is running 4.0.6! AAaaaaaggghhh!!!!! The same with "html_entity_decode" -- only available as of 4.3.0 and above. I commented out those two commands, ran the articlebot.php from my browser, and it worked.

Now I have to go harass my provider about updating their PHP. :ermm:

[SnowBot]

Snowbot, do you have a cron setup to execute the script every 120 minutes?

Even though each feed has a period in minutes at which it's posted, all feeds wont be posted if the articlebot.php script isn't executed every now and then.

What you should do is get an average in minutes from all your rss feeds, and then set a cron script to execute the articlebot.php at that average.

For me, most of my RSS feeds are at a period from 400 minutes to 600 minutes. So I have a cron script to execute articlebot.php every 500 minutes.

If this still doesn't work, try a more active RSS feed, like a Yahoo! news one. I don't recall Google updating it's RSS feeds very often (although, this shouldn't be a factor to why it isn't posting...)Well thats sorted it :) I had the cron set up for every 6 hours not 60minutes..LOL stupid me...

Sorry for the messing around and thanks for pointing me in the right direction :) All works great.

[rex_b]

I installed the hack and set the bot timer to 1 min just to see if it will post something.

I am using this feed: http://www.religionnewsblog.com/b2rss.php

but
I didn't set any contrab thing b/c I have no idea what that is, I just want the bot to post every damn 120 min but it won't post even after 1 min.

What could I be doing wrong?

[rex_b]

when I run /articlebot/articlebot.php I get this :

Warning: chdir(): No such file or directory (errno 2) in /home/rexb2/public_html/forum/articlebot/articlebot.php on line 42

Warning: main(./global.php): failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/rexb2/public_html/forum/articlebot/articlebot.php on line 43

Fatal error: main(): Failed opening required './global.php' (include_path='.:/usr/lib/php:/usr/local/lib/php') in /home/rexb2/public_html/forum/articlebot/articlebot.php on line 43

[rex_b]

fixed .. I'm an idiot.

[rex_b]

ok I ran the articlebot.php and it posted 1 article. So I changed the fetch in the admincp to 5 per interval and ran the articlbot.php again and nothing happend.

Any guesses?

[rinkrat]

Try changing the interval to less that it is. I have a special forum for the articles so I just cranked the fetch to 15 and the interval to 1 minute.

Speaking of this, is there a way I can just have it get ALL the articles and post them immediately?

[rinkrat]

I was checking out the posting times of the bot and realized that my cron isn't working but the scheduled task in VB admin is working. So I'll just go with the one in the control panel I guess.

[rinkrat]

KW802, add the template to your default style.

As for that error, check articlebot.php, and make sure you configured the absolute paths correctly.



Execute articlebot.php in your browser. No errors? There shouldn't be any if you configured the paths correctly.

For those using vB's scheduled tasks, I'll look into making Article Bot more integrated with it (the hack was not built for it).. although I can't guarantee it'll be anytime soon.

I do recommend you use a real cron setup anyway (if you're on a NIX server, via your cPanel or shell), instead of vbulletin's system.


Since the adminCP works for me I'll be waiting for this. It's way easier for most people if you can do it from the admin menu. at least it works so that's what really matters.

[klassicd]

This is the greatest MOD ever made. I love you.

See mine in action here: www.thepokerpost.com (http://www.thepokerpost.com)

For anyone using PHP 4.3.0 are earlier add this function to the top of articlebot.php.

if (!function_exists('html_entity_decode')) {
function html_entity_decode ($string, $opt = ENT_COMPAT) {
$trans_tbl = get_html_translation_table (HTML_ENTITIES);
$trans_tbl = array_flip ($trans_tbl);
if ($opt & 1) { // Translating single quotes
// Add single quote to translation table;
// doesn't appear to be there by default
$trans_tbl["&apos;"] = "'";
}
if (!($opt & 2)) { // Not translating double quotes
// Remove double quote from translation table
unset($trans_tbl["&quot;"]);
}
return strtr ($string, $trans_tbl);
}
}
// Just to be safe ;o)
if (!defined("ENT_COMPAT")) define("ENT_COMPAT", 2);
if (!defined("ENT_NOQUOTES")) define("ENT_NOQUOTES", 0);
if (!defined("ENT_QUOTES")) define("ENT_QUOTES", 3);

[fonzerelli_79]

installed this with no errors and on the surface everything seems to be ok

but no posts are being made by the blogs etc

ive used cron and the include in the php end template

the forum room isnt live - eg its display order is set to 0, but that shouldnt make a difference

what are the first things to check if posts arent being made

any help would be appreciated:)

[Code Monkey]

I installed this and it is fantastic. Thanks alot. I did have a problem with some code in the feed I am parsing. As well as keeping bold charecters intact. But I solved it by adding the following code.

I found

$article['description'] = strip_tags(html_entity_decode(trim($article['description'])));


and added above.


$article['description'] = str_replace('&lt;b&gt;', '', $article['description']);
$article['description'] = str_replace('&lt;/b&gt;', '', $article['description']);
$article['description'] = str_replace('</b>', '[/b]', $article['description']);
$article['description'] = str_replace('<b>', '[b]', $article['description']);
$article['description'] = str_replace('<br />', "\n\r", $article['description']);
$article['description'] = str_replace('&lt;br /&gt;', "\n\r", $article['description']);



And everything was fine. Thanks again for the great hack. :D

[alexisbellido]

Hi, I will give this hack a try in order to update my forum with the new entries in my blogs. I am not sure about the HTML support, most of my blog entries have links, will these still work?

[alexisbellido]

Hi, same problem as some of you in this thread, running articlebot.php manually does not give me any error, I followed exactly all the steps in the instructions but no post is being made by the bot. My feed is one generated by a Wordpress blog: http://www.ventanazul.com/weblog_en/feed/rss2/

Any ideas about what should I check?

Thanks!

Updated: It worked, just had to wait a few minutes, I did not understand the interval concept very well at first. Now it's working and it's great. My blog entries are being fed to my forum :) Thanks a lot for this. Nice work!

[fonzerelli_79]

alexis - everything is fine but unlike you i cant get the blogs to be imported to my forum

ive left the interval at the default of 120 - however, ive had articlebot up for a few days so im not sure how this can play any part in it?

[weaver]

Running /forums/articlebot/articlebot.php only brings up a white screen for me. Also, whenever I try to add an RSS feed I get an error:

Error: There is no file located at http://rss.news.yahoo.com/rss/topstories

[KW802]

Running /forums/articlebot/articlebot.php only brings up a white screen for me. Also, whenever I try to add an RSS feed I get an error:

Error: There is no file located at http://rss.news.yahoo.com/rss/topstoriesYou get the white screen because the PHP file has no output, it just updates your tables after it parses the feeds.

Can't help ya' on the Yahoo thing, appears to be a good link.

[weaver]

Thanks... So the white screen means it's working correctly? So now I just have to figure out why it's not accepting any RSS feeds as being legitimate. :(

[alexisbellido]

White screen is ok for articlebot.php, in fact is a good sign that main settings are ok.

It's always good to confirm if your feed is ok with a feed reader (I use www.bloglines.com).

I was not getting any post into my forums and I did this: Put the interval to 1 minute and the number of entries to be retrieved at 50 (I had like 28 entries in my blog but I read that articlepost.php can detect if there is less entries than you enter).

I run articlebot.php manually, got the white screen and after a few minutes my posts started to appear. You can refresh the bots manager page in your admincp and you will see when the next update will be.

After getting my blog entries I configured articlebot to 120 minutes interval and getting posts 1 by 1 again.

I hope it helps.

[weaver]

I keep getting an error saying there isn't a file at any of the links I put in.

[Velocd]

I keep getting an error saying there isn't a file at any of the links I put in.
I think those of you who are having issues with the bot not posting should read up on this post:

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showpost.php?p=538363&postcount=145

Make sure your cron script is set accordingly.


I installed this and it is fantastic. Thanks alot. I did have a problem with some code in the feed I am parsing. As well as keeping bold charecters intact. But I solved it by adding the following code.

I found

$article['description'] = strip_tags(html_entity_decode(trim($article['description'])));


and added above.


$article['description'] = str_replace('&lt;b&gt;', '', $article['description']);
$article['description'] = str_replace('&lt;/b&gt;', '', $article['description']);
$article['description'] = str_replace('</b>', '[/b]', $article['description']);
$article['description'] = str_replace('<b>', '[b]', $article['description']);
$article['description'] = str_replace('<br />', "\n\r", $article['description']);
$article['description'] = str_replace('&lt;br /&gt;', "\n\r", $article['description']);



And everything was fine. Thanks again for the great hack. :D


Ah, cool, I'll have to update the hack with a preg_replace version of this. ;)
(although I think there is already vB3 code for it somewhere)

[weaver]

The problem I'm having is that it's not accepting any of the links I'm entering for feeds. It keeps saying there isn't a file there when they are good urls.

[Velocd]

Can you post a sample link?

Also, what version of PHP is installed on your server?

[weaver]

PHP - 4.3.8 (That's what I got from the Admin Panel with VB).

These are a few of the links I've tried... I also tried without the http:// but that didn't work either.

http://rss.news.yahoo.com/rss/entertainment

http://csmonitor.com/rss/top.rss

http://www.infoworld.com/rss/columnists.xml

[KW802]

Velocd,

Would there be an easy way of adding a conditional to the logic so that if I search for the article and found a particular text value that I could over-ride the forum number and icon number that it's going to use?

Where I'm going with this is the scenario of having multiple RSS feeds but I would want one particular subject matter, no matter from which feed it came from, to always end up in the same forum.

Thoughts? :D

[Maikeru]

Warning: MagpieRSS: Failed to fetch http://rss.news.yahoo.com/rss/music. (HTTP Error: connection failed () in /home/maikeru/public_html/forums/articlebot/rss_fetch.inc on line 230

Warning: array_reverse(): The argument should be an array in /home/maikeru/public_html/forums/articlebot/articlebot.php on line 136

Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /home/maikeru/public_html/forums/articlebot/articlebot.php on line 140

Warning: MagpieRSS: Failed to fetch http://rss.news.yahoo.com/rss/tech. (HTTP Error: connection failed () in /home/maikeru/public_html/forums/articlebot/rss_fetch.inc on line 230

Warning: array_reverse(): The argument should be an array in /home/maikeru/public_html/forums/articlebot/articlebot.php on line 136

Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /home/maikeru/public_html/forums/articlebot/articlebot.php on line 140
This started appearing on the top of my forum a couple days ago... :\

Anything I can do to fix it?

Oh and none of my yahoo feeds will work, so I'm guessing that's why.

[Kwak]

NEW Modified RSS News Feed Hack - https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=63798&highlight=rss


What is the difference of the above hack and this Article Bot hack? I'm new in the RSS feed.

[KW802]

NEW Modified RSS News Feed Hack - https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=63798&highlight=rss

What is the difference of the above hack and this Article Bot hack? I'm new in the RSS feed.Same end results, just different ways of achieving it.

[weaver]

Well I found out that it is something my server is restricting that is causing it not to work. :( Thanks for trying to help though.

[Velocd]

Velocd,

Would there be an easy way of adding a conditional to the logic so that if I search for the article and found a particular text value that I could over-ride the forum number and icon number that it's going to use?

Where I'm going with this is the scenario of having multiple RSS feeds but I would want one particular subject matter, no matter from which feed it came from, to always end up in the same forum.

Thoughts? :D

Hmm. :\

My best recommendation is to use specific RSS feeds. e.g. If you have a general forum and a Yahoo! Latest News feed inside it, it's going to get content of all types.. that perhaps you have other specific forums for. Use more specific RSS feeds.

Doing conditionals would be rather rough, and I don't really have the time to experiment with it. :\

This started appearing on the top of my forum a couple days ago... :\

Anything I can do to fix it?

Oh and none of my yahoo feeds will work, so I'm guessing that's why.


Maikeru, what version is your PHP? Maybe you have the same problem as snobbymom, and it's a server-related issue.

[KW802]

Hmm. :\

My best recommendation is to use specific RSS feeds. e.g. If you have a general forum and a Yahoo! Latest News feed inside it, it's going to get content of all types.. that perhaps you have other specific forums for. Use more specific RSS feeds.

Doing conditionals would be rather rough, and I don't really have the time to experiment with it. :\No problem. I wasn't thinking anything fancy, maybe just some hard-coded conditionals before the inserts that if "X" is found in article[title] or article[description] then to over-ride the value of articlebot[forumid] & articlebot[iconid]. It'd be ugly, but useful.

[fonzerelli_79]

Well I found out that it is something my server is restricting that is causing it not to work. :( Thanks for trying to help though.

do you know what the problem is

i cant get this working (tried various feeds) - i run my own server but im not sure of anything that would conflict with the blogs

[fonzerelli_79]

this is strange - i tried a test feed and it kind of worked - several articles pulled through but they all had no content

im still congused as to why the other feeds arent pulling through as there has been updates to them

[Maikeru]

Maikeru, what version is your PHP? Maybe you have the same problem as snobbymom, and it's a server-related issue.
My version of PHP is 4.3.8.

[KW802]

Velocd, is the "RSS Label" value available as a variable name to use in the template? I'd like to have that value appear in my template so I'm hoping that there's a variable name for it. :D

[Velocd]

Yeah, it should be accessible by the variable $articlebot[label], which pertains to each RSS feed.

I found an awesome RSS feed directory on the web, whom also have a cool RSS news aggregator application in .NET.

http://www.newsisfree.com/sources/bycat/

Cool beans.

[KW802]

Yeah, it should be accessible by the variable $articlebot[label], which pertains to each RSS feed.

I found an awesome RSS feed directory on the web, whom also have a cool RSS news aggregator application in .NET.

http://www.newsisfree.com/sources/bycat/

Cool beans.To borrow a phrase from the 80's...... Most excellent! :D

[FirstStepBlake]

Great hack, working well. However the posts added by AB don't trip whatever gets tripped to send out an email to the forum members... Any way around this?

Thanks,
Blake

[Velocd]

What do you mean by trip?

[egn]

I still get..

Warning: main(/admincp/global.php): failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/mgunnin/public_html/forums/admincp/articlebot/articlebot.php on line 43

Fatal error: main(): Failed opening required '/admincp/global.php' (include_path='.:/usr/lib/php:/usr/local/lib/php') in /home/mgunnin/public_html/forums/admincp/articlebot/articlebot.php on line 43

I am not sure what to do to fix this, did everything step by step and check 100 times. I know it is something simple that I am just overlooking.

chdir('/home/mgunnin/public_html/forums/');
require_once './global.php';
include_once './articlebot/rss_fetch.inc';

Is that correct?

[Velocd]

The articlebot directory was not meant to go inside the admincp folder (according to install.html)

Still, if you're using chdir() it should relocate. The path seems to be referencing to /admincp/global.php though.

Are you sure the following line is correct?


chdir('/home/mgunnin/public_html/forums/');


The include_once certainly will give errors for your articlebot directory is in the admincp dir.

So change:

include_once './articlebot/rss_fetch.inc';

To:

include_once './admincp/articlebot/rss_fetch.inc';

[FirstStepBlake]

by trip, I mean that what I have here:

Email Addresses to Notify When there is a New Post
(Separate each address with a SPACE)

doesn't seem to be used when AB posts. Threrefore the people I want to see the new post aren't getting the normal email. They have to happen upon it, which isn't timely.

Thanks!

[KW802]

by trip, I mean that what I have here:

Email Addresses to Notify When there is a New Post
(Separate each address with a SPACE)

doesn't seem to be used when AB posts. Threrefore the people I want to see the new post aren't getting the normal email. They have to happen upon it, which isn't timely.

Thanks!Pardon my curiousity but..... what kind of RSS feed are you receiving that your users would want to get an email every time there is a new item received? Seems like an overkill to have site XYZ.com send an email every time there is a new item at ABC.com.

[FirstStepBlake]

Long story short on why, KW802: When I find an article of interest, I post it (quickly via FeedDemon) to my personal weblog. This is the RSS feed pulled by the bot to our internal vBulletin setup... I could log into the forum and post, but this is a quicker way. I only post a few items per day at most, so the volume isn't much.

[roundhost]

Wonderful, im about to install it, thanks a bunch :)

[roundhost]

Hmm, its all setup fine but the bots arent posting my feeds, i have set them to post every minute and have the cron executing every minute so im going to see if i can fix it and once i have them post once i will know its fixed :S

[roundhost]

ok its not working for me :( The bots just dont post, i use yahoo feeds and i have the cron set for every minute and i have the articles set for every minute but they just dont post....what can i do?

[roundhost]

ok its not working for me :( The bots just dont post, i use yahoo feeds and i have the cron set for every minute and i have the articles set for every minute but they just dont post....what can i do?

Still not posting for me...:cry:

[Velocd]

Go to the file articlebot.php in your browser, and see if it gives you any error.

Additionally, what is your PHP version?

[roundhost]

Go to the file articlebot.php in your browser, and see if it gives you any error.

Additionally, what is your PHP version?

PHP Version 4.3.8

articlebot.php returns a blank page...

*sighs*

[roundhost]

Two articles have posted :-o, hmm thats interesting. Maybe its randomly decided to work now...i shall get back to you if i get any more problems, thanks for the help anyways :)

[FirstStepBlake]

Hey, can you give me an answer on this on way or another? I need the email to go out on a new post. If you can't make it work, please let me know. Thanks!

[Velocd]

You certain you have the cron configured correctly? (something like /usr/local/bin/php /home/myfolder/public_html/forums/articlebot/articlebot.php). This is a cron tab, and not the vBulletin task system, eh?

Even so, running articlebot.php manually should get the bots going.

Not that this should matter, but your vBulletin version is?

[Megareus Rex]

Whenever I try to add a RSS feed to an article bot, I get this error:

Error: There is no file located at http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/Technology.xml

This happens with any and all RSS feeds from any site. What could the problem be?

[croft]

ok lol i must be stupid or something cause every time i try to add a news feed to a bot i get this error.

Error: There is no icon of ID 1.

[Megareus Rex]

That means that you have no Post Icon with an ID of 1. Go to Post Icons, and select which Icon you want all posts by the bot to make, and then check out its ID number, and put that in the field.

But, I still need MY question answered =/

[roundhost]

my article bots havent posted since the first time :( , i set the cron perfectly and i also tried manually without results, ver 3.0.3

[Maikeru]

Warning: MagpieRSS: Failed to fetch http://rss.news.yahoo.com/rss/music. (HTTP Error: connection failed () in /home/maikeru/public_html/forums/articlebot/rss_fetch.inc on line 230

Warning: array_reverse(): The argument should be an array in /home/maikeru/public_html/forums/articlebot/articlebot.php on line 136

Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /home/maikeru/public_html/forums/articlebot/articlebot.php on line 140

Warning: MagpieRSS: Failed to fetch http://rss.news.yahoo.com/rss/tech. (HTTP Error: connection failed () in /home/maikeru/public_html/forums/articlebot/rss_fetch.inc on line 230

Warning: array_reverse(): The argument should be an array in /home/maikeru/public_html/forums/articlebot/articlebot.php on line 136

Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /home/maikeru/public_html/forums/articlebot/articlebot.php on line 140
Would this stop if I used something for my feeds other than yahoo?

[Megareus Rex]

Would someone please answer my question?

[sully02]

I appear to be having the following problems. It worked just fine the first time through, but now, here are the results:

Warning: Warning: MagpieRSS: Failed to parse RSS file. (junk after document element at line 233, column 16) in /home/sportsd/public_html/forums/articlebot/rss_fetch.inc on line 230

Warning: array_reverse(): The argument should be an array in /home/sportsd/public_html/forums/articlebot/articlebot.php on line 137

Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /home/sportsd/public_html/forums/articlebot/articlebot.php on line 141

This error repeats several times throughout (Likely once for each rss source I have). I've attached my articlebot.php file, if it'll help.

[Coyote75]

I know someone else had this problem but didnt see what the solution was

Warning: chdir(): No such file or directory (errno 2) in /home/hardcore/public_html/articlebot/articlebot.php on line 42

Warning: main(./global.php): failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/hardcore/public_html/articlebot/articlebot.php on line 43

Fatal error: main(): Failed opening required './global.php' (include_path='.:/usr/local/lib/php') in /home/hardcore/public_html/articlebot/articlebot.php on line 43

[Wential]

Installed and very impressed!

[Geographic2]

When I run my articlebot it made posts with no title and no description, only the link would be within the post...

I tracked it down to determin the problem and the entire pregreplace section doesn't seem to be working right with me... perhaps it's my regular expressions retardedness or perhaps it's something else...


When I comment out this section and the corresponding one for the title it works fine and posts titles and descriptions... Otherwise it turns the article[title] and article[description] strings into empty strings.... :(


/* if ($articlebot['global_regex_desc_search'] || $articlebot['regex_desc_search'])
{
if ($articlebot['regex_desc_search'])
{
$articlebot['global_regex_desc_search'] = $articlebot['regex_desc_search'];
$articlebot['global_regex_desc_replace'] = $articlebot['regex_desc_replace'];
}

$article['description'] = @preg_replace(
"$articlebot[global_regex_desc_search]",
"$articlebot[global_regex_desc_replace]",
$article['description']
);
}
*/


I've also tried leaving the reg ex's blank as well as using search: * and replace $1


Could anyone give me some ideas?
Could you also tell me why we call the preg_replace function with:
@preg_replace(...)?

Also, very nice hack. An idea for future implementation would be to search the RSS feeds for keywords... each feed having it's own set of keywords or a global keyword much like you have the pregreplace. so if you were interested in news about pumpkins, or video games, or bottlecaps you could then only post news about bottlecaps, videogames or pumpkins... ;) I may do myself but I figured you might like the idea.

Alternatly we could all create an RSS feed from our forums with entries being threads that match our keywords, links in the posts would be displayed with our keyword linked (http://www.vbulletin.org), an XML feed with participating sites could be hosted somewhere and we could all deploy some nice keyword linking out across the net...

Thanks.

[KW802]

... An idea for future implementation would be to search the RSS feeds for keywords... each feed having it's own set of keywords or a global keyword much like . ....See my earlier posts..... :lick: I ended up doing mine with some hard-coded logic in the articlebot.php file itself.

[RetroDreams]

Anyone get the ESPN feeds to run regularly? I get them to run once then they fail from then on out.

[sully02]

Anyone get the ESPN feeds to run regularly? I get them to run once then they fail from then on out.
I can't get them to work either. I got one ESPN feed, then they went to crap for me.

[we_are_borg]

I have a strange problem i have several feeds 18 in total. But 2 of them will not post i have tryed all sort of things to make it work but to no avail. The other 16 works fine there updating and all. I run php 4.3.8. Also i get a blank page when i run articlebot.php

[alexisbellido]

I've been meaning to make an update fixing the bugs discussed so far, but just haven't had the time.

Probably at the weekend I will do so.

Do the trimming of the thread title mentioned here (https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showpost.php?p=534728&postcount=80), and hopefully that erases some duplicate threads that are only off by whitespace.

This hack checks for threads of the same title that already exist, and if they do, it wont post them again. Unless there is a bug. ;)

Hi everybody, I've been using ArticleBot several weeks with no problem.

Today I noticed I am getting duplicate threads, I have not changed anything in my Wordpress blog , vBulletin or ArticleBot config.

Afaik the trimming of title is already included in my ArticleBot version (1.1) to avoid duplicate threads. As I said, everything was working ok for the last weeks and the duplicated threads just started a couple of days ago.

Any idea why this started happening?

[Megareus Rex]

Why hasn't anyone answered my question yet?

[ChessMess]

Running the SQL install script on PHP5 produces these errors due to the code not containing proper initialization of variables:

Warning: array_merge() [function.array-merge]: Argument #2 is not an array in C:\xampp\xampplite\htdocs\forum\includes\init.php on line 517

Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in C:\xampp\xampplite\htdocs\forum\includes\sessions. php on line 270

Warning: array_merge() [function.array-merge]: Argument #2 is not an array in C:\xampp\xampplite\htdocs\forum\includes\functions .php on line 3616

Warning: array_merge() [function.array-merge]: Argument #1 is not an array in C:\xampp\xampplite\htdocs\forum\includes\functions .php on line 3616

Warning: array_merge() [function.array-merge]: Argument #2 is not an array in C:\xampp\xampplite\htdocs\forum\includes\functions .php on line 3616

At least that is what I gathered from the PHP 5 Released thread and the results of me trying to run this on a PHP 5 server. Just a FYI for those using XAMPP setup.

[we_are_borg]

I have some additional information about my problem.

I have 7 forums and 17 rss feeds only the first 5 forums are being filled the others are not. In those 5 forums there running 15 feeds now. If i try to add a feed to a new forum it will not run/fill the forum, if i setup a other feed in a forum that is running then it works fine.

[-Caged-]

First I want to say great job on the hack, I really appreciate the time and effort that went into this. And next, on to the bad stuff ;)

I kept getting 'Error: File Not Found at http:/.... even though I could paste the address in my address bar and load the file up perfectly.

I took the error suppression off file_get_contents and its returning a 404 which I can't seem to figure out why. I tried manually adding 'OK' headers to the page using the header() function, but I still recieved the same message. And just to elimiate the fact that it had to do with fopen wrappers or whatnot I tried to grab an rss feed from a file on the same server, but different account and it worked perfectly.

I've screwed with this for about 4 hours now and i've tried everything that I'm aware of to try, anyone else have any idea what might be causing the problem?

Cheers -Justin

[Megareus Rex]

First I want to say great job on the hack, I really appreciate the time and effort that went into this. And next, on to the bad stuff ;)

I kept getting 'Error: File Not Found at http:/.... even though I could paste the address in my address bar and load the file up perfectly.

I took the error suppression off file_get_contents and its returning a 404 which I can't seem to figure out why. I tried manually adding 'OK' headers to the page using the header() function, but I still recieved the same message. And just to elimiate the fact that it had to do with fopen wrappers or whatnot I tried to grab an rss feed from a file on the same server, but different account and it worked perfectly.

I've screwed with this for about 4 hours now and i've tried everything that I'm aware of to try, anyone else have any idea what might be causing the problem?

Cheers -Justin

Thats the exact problem i have...

[Maikeru]

Warning: MagpieRSS: Failed to fetch http://rss.news.yahoo.com/rss/topstories. (HTTP Error: connection failed () in /home/maikeru/public_html/forums/articlebot/rss_fetch.inc on line 230

Warning: array_reverse(): The argument should be an array in /home/maikeru/public_html/forums/articlebot/articlebot.php on line 136

Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /home/maikeru/public_html/forums/articlebot/articlebot.php on line 140

Warning: MagpieRSS: Failed to fetch http://rss.news.yahoo.com/rss/music. (HTTP Error: connection failed () in /home/maikeru/public_html/forums/articlebot/rss_fetch.inc on line 230

Warning: array_reverse(): The argument should be an array in /home/maikeru/public_html/forums/articlebot/articlebot.php on line 136

Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /home/maikeru/public_html/forums/articlebot/articlebot.php on line 140

Warning: MagpieRSS: Failed to fetch http://rss.news.yahoo.com/rss/tech. (HTTP Error: connection failed () in /home/maikeru/public_html/forums/articlebot/rss_fetch.inc on line 230

Warning: array_reverse(): The argument should be an array in /home/maikeru/public_html/forums/articlebot/articlebot.php on line 136

Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /home/maikeru/public_html/forums/articlebot/articlebot.php on line 140

Warning: MagpieRSS: Failed to fetch http://rss.news.yahoo.com/rss/politics. (HTTP Error: connection failed () in /home/maikeru/public_html/forums/articlebot/rss_fetch.inc on line 230

Warning: array_reverse(): The argument should be an array in /home/maikeru/public_html/forums/articlebot/articlebot.php on line 136

Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /home/maikeru/public_html/forums/articlebot/articlebot.php on line 140

Warning: MagpieRSS: Failed to fetch http://rss.news.yahoo.com/rss/tv. (HTTP Error: connection failed () in /home/maikeru/public_html/forums/articlebot/rss_fetch.inc on line 230

Warning: array_reverse(): The argument should be an array in /home/maikeru/public_html/forums/articlebot/articlebot.php on line 136

Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /home/maikeru/public_html/forums/articlebot/articlebot.php on line 140

Warning: MagpieRSS: Failed to fetch http://rss.news.yahoo.com/rss/movies. (HTTP Error: connection failed () in /home/maikeru/public_html/forums/articlebot/rss_fetch.inc on line 230

Warning: array_reverse(): The argument should be an array in /home/maikeru/public_html/forums/articlebot/articlebot.php on line 136

Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /home/maikeru/public_html/forums/articlebot/articlebot.php on line 140
It's getting worse I think.. :\

[sully02]

It's getting worse I think.. :\
And I'm noticing that a lot of people's questions are going unanswered. You'd think something up for HotM could get a little support around here :classic:

[Kwak]

That doesn't look good Maikeru. :(

[Megareus Rex]

And I'm noticing that a lot of people's questions are going unanswered. You'd think something up for HotM could get a little support around here :classic:

Maybe the support people are on vacation >_>

[johnnyb]

Just a suggestion.

This would be a great script, however the problem with this (and the other RSS vB scripts) is that it uses a user account as a source. It would be better if it used a different method of post, or somehow exclude the bot from being part of the user database. I don't know if I'm making sense, but I don't like when the new posts page is flooded with bot articles and the bot reaches 400 posts a day. I just don't like it, however I do love the concept of the script.

:ermm:

What do you think?

[we_are_borg]

Just a suggestion.

This would be a great script, however the problem with this (and the other RSS vB scripts) is that it uses a user account as a source. It would be better if it used a different method of post, or somehow exclude the bot from being part of the user database. I don't know if I'm making sense, but I don't like when the new posts page is flooded with bot articles and the bot reaches 400 posts a day. I just don't like it, however I do love the concept of the script.

:ermm:

What do you think?


Well it could work if the bot directly inputed its data in the db instead of posting it on the board. The load is way to high i'm getting time outs because the load is to high.

[johnnyb]

Oh, so you gave it a try?

[we_are_borg]

Oh, so you gave it a try?

no i did not give it a try but it sounds like it will work.

[johnnyb]

It's a pain, everytime I click on view new posts, it has like 50 posts from the news bot! I'm sure my members aren't liking it either!

[Megareus Rex]

*sigh*

Why is it support STILL isnt here?

[Maikeru]

*sigh*

Why is it support STILL isnt here?
maybe Velocd is busy. his life isn't to watch this place all the time. i know he has a life outside vbulletin.org.

[GlitterKill]

I have everything setup except the crontab until I get things running right. I created a NewsBot user to posts the articles and everything shoudl e setup right. When I go to execute the articlebot.php file manually i get a white screen and no errors (which I figure is a good thing). But no headlines are posted. The first one I setup is Slashdot's RSS feed located at http://slashdot.org/index.rss

Any tips on where to look to figure out why this isn't working?

[GlitterKill]

I am now able to get the Slashdot feed to work by turning off the similar threads option and by turning off the option to ignore posts without a description.

I also have a feed setup for Bluesnews and The Inquirer. Both of these two are setup the same as the Slashdot feed but articles from them are not posting. I am using the same user to post all three and I assume that part is ok.

Any ideas?

[roundhost]

Ok, im going to install this all over again, i wasnt very happy last time as it went slightly wrong, lets hope this time the results are better ;)

[roundhost]

/me wonders why he even bothered try to install it again, he realises he has wasted his time and wonders if there is still a way to fix the mod so it will asctually post news!

[johnnyb]

Than you need to follow the instructions percisely, and read on modifications that fix the bugs.

[johnnyb]

What I'd really like to see happen with this is two things.

a) The news posts don't count towards user post total. Although the forum properties are set to it, it still posts towards the total amount.

b) Automatically prune the news after X amount of posts.

Although I realize no one is innovating on this script, I hope there is a chance.

[Milorad]

vbulletin should have an auto-pruning option on each forum, like phpbb does. That would solve your problem if your RSS forums were distinct from your regular forums.

You should perhaps look at this: https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=67049

I don't really care too much about the post count thing, but I agree that it would be proper for it not to count.

[Holidazed]

I installed this hack and setup my cron and all that. I am getting no errors, but no articles are being posted. I setup my BOT and put its ID in the proper field. It is active. I then setup my feed and pointed it to that BOT and pointed it to the forum I want it in.

My feed is http://www.gov.ab.ca/acn/RSS_FEEDS/RSS_ALL_News.xml

I also edited my articlebot.php file with the proper path.

What is wrong?

[johnnyb]

Run the articlebot.php manually, than if something does show up it's your crontab input. If not, try a different RSS feed, make sure the userID is right, etc. Just double check everything.

[johnnyb]

vbulletin should have an auto-pruning option on each forum, like phpbb does. That would solve your problem if your RSS forums were distinct from your regular forums.

You should perhaps look at this: https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=67049

I don't really care too much about the post count thing, but I agree that it would be proper for it not to count.

Thanks, I guess this should somewhat help. My main concern is the post count, and the new posts selection.

It's like one annoying post +++++!

[Holidazed]

Ok, it seems to be working. A new article showed up. But it does not give me a link to the full article? See for yourself.

http://www.dungeonkeepersdomain.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1387

Help?

[johnnyb]

It's the RSS feed man. Try finding another feed.

Also, fix the crontab to make it automatic, so you don't have to manually keep putting in the articlebot.php url for it to update.

Put in a command like this:

php -q /home/yourusername/public_html/forums/articlebot/articlebot.php

[ambrosious]

Get this message, can someone decipher it for me, tell me what is wrong?

Warning: MagpieRSS: Failed to parse RSS file. (mismatched tag at line 122, column 2) in /home/ambro/public_html/vbulletin/articlebot/rss_fetch.inc on line 230

Warning: array_reverse(): The argument should be an array in /home/ambro/public_html/vbulletin/articlebot/articlebot.php on line 137

Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /home/ambro/public_html/vbulletin/articlebot/articlebot.php on line 141

[N00BIE]

Ok i've installed this hack without no installation problems. didn't do the cron way i went with

include_once './articlebot/articlebot.php';


all seems fine up to this point i even uploaded the RSS.xml to my server ( dunno if this was correct) and linked to it from the AdminCP as seen on the attached piccy

but now where do i see the rss feed info on my site ?? it's linked to the MAIN FORUM yet i see no sign of the template that i was asked to m8 in the hack ?? any ideas peeps ???

[ambrosious]

I've fixed mine, and NOOBIE, your's may be similar to what I was experiencing. Look for, do a search on MAGPIE compatible RSS feeds. Use those links and it should start putting out. That's how mine worked, anyway.

[N00BIE]

does it matter where i place the XML file on the server ?? of have i got to link to it somewhere else ??

[RS25com]

I, like others, am also getting this error:

Error: There is no file located at http://washingtondc.craigslist.org/cgi-bin/search?areaID=10&subAreaID=0&query=fixer&cat=rfs&minAsk=min&maxAsk=max&format=rss


But when you click that link - go ahead and try - there is something there. Wazzup? ;)

Any ideas?

[Megareus Rex]

Yes RS25com, that is my error...


I'll post mine again, using one of the RSS feeds i intend to install:
Error: There is no file located at http://www.npr.org/rss/rss.php?topicId=7

I ask again, what is the problem??? I've triple-checked EVERYTHING, so I have no frickin' idea.

[RS25com]

The only thing I can think of is that my link and your link both have URL variables. That means the server is creating the content on the fly. Maybe the script is looking for something like www.site.com/file.rss and not /file.rss?id=1&car=2 etc.

Is there a fix for this? :D

[Megareus Rex]

Nope, I tried that too. Besides, the variables tell which RSS feed to pick up if the site has multiple different topics of RSS feeds.

[ambrosious]

I've been using the feeds that are XML format, cause the others just dont seem to work. Also, put the "includes" function on your index.php. That helped too.

[jluerken]

I've been using the feeds that are XML format, cause the others just dont seem to work. Also, put the "includes" function on your index.php. That helped too.
Putting the includes function in the index.php will increase the load of your board heavily.

4velocd: It would be nice to have an option to delete threads posted from the RSS Bot after X days.

[roundhost]

mines working great! :D All i need to do is get the cron to work it just refuses to cron!

[roundhost]

Ok i got the cron working but i get this error:


<html dir="" lang="">
<head>
<title>YoungCoders</title>


</head>
<body>


<br />
<br />
<br />

<table class="tborder" cellpadding="" cellspacing="" border="0" width="70%" align="center">
<tr>
<td class="tcat"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="panelsurround" align="center">
<div class="panel">
<div align="">


<!-- main error message -->


<blockquote><p>Unable to add cookies, header already sent.<br />
File: <br />
Line: 0<br /></p></blockquote>


<!-- / main error message -->


</div>
</div>
<!--
<div style="margin-top:px">
<input type="submit" class="button" value="" accesskey="s" onclick="history.back(1); return false" />
</div>
-->
</td>
</tr>
</table>

<br />


<!-- forum jump -->
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0" align="center">
<tr>
<td></td>
</tr>
</table>
<!-- / forum jump -->


<br />



</body>
</html>


What should i do to fix this?

[RS25com]

Is there any support for this? Am I missing something? I really like all the features, but cannot get it to work.

:(

[DFence]

I also have the "Error: There is no file located at http://xml.newsisfree.com/feeds/14/1614.xml" Problem. I've tried every possibility with a dozen seperate feeds.

No way. It still shows this error....

Has anyone solved this yet?

Thanks and regards
DFence

[Holidazed]

It's the RSS feed man. Try finding another feed.

Also, fix the crontab to make it automatic, so you don't have to manually keep putting in the articlebot.php url for it to update.

Put in a command like this:

php -q /home/yourusername/public_html/forums/articlebot/articlebot.php
No it is not the feed. I used the other RSS hack and it works fine. That hack has other problems which is why I went to this one.

ideas?

[Pagandream]

hello,

sorry for my "ugly" English!

Is there a way that the Forum doesn't count the Post from the Bot? I made a Extra-Forum were Post will not be counted, Post from normal Users are not counted but the Post from the Bot are still counted. :(

bye

[xug]

I Installed this on V3.0.3 with the cronjob and everything seems to look fine except my date stamp, everything what is posted, even yesterday, has a post stamp of 'Today 12:00PM'

What could be wrong here?