• PHP version >=4
• Email accounts on your database are valid accounts In php.ini file be sure that:
• allow_url_fopen = On
• safe mode = Off
• open_basedir = Off

The explanations found in this document assume that you have direct access to your php.ini file. This assumption is correct for those of you who manage your own webservers or who have unrestricted ssh access to the webserver hosting your Joomla site. For those of you who's only access to the webserver is via a control panel, be it Plesk, Cpanel etc you will not be able to implement many of these suggestions. You will have to rely on your hosting company to do it for you.

allow_url_fopen

On a number of hosting providers this feature is globally disabled, and on some it may be enabled on a per user case. Furthermore some hosting providers do not allow this function to be overwritten in code while in others it may. As such any of these combinations can cause the previewing of the magazine to fail. Please examine your server log files for the reason behind the failure.

Some hosting providers allow it to be set by including this piece of code in your scripts

@ini_set("allow_url_fopen", 1);.

Please contact them and ask them nicely to turn allow_url_fopen ON or to suggest a solution.

What is fopen?

fopen is a php function available for all versions of php >=4 It binds a named resource, specified by filename, to a stream.

If PHP has decided that filename specifies a local file, then it will try to open a stream on that file. The file must be accessible to PHP, so you need to ensure that the file access permissions allow this access.

If you have enabled safe mode, or open_basedir further restrictions may apply.

If PHP has decided that filename specifies a registered protocol, and that protocol is registered as a network URL, PHP will check to make sure that allow_url_fopen is enabled. If it is switched off, PHP will emit a warning and the fopen call will fail.

open_basedir

What is open_basedir?

Limits the files that can be opened by PHP to the specified directory-tree, including the file itself. This directive is NOT affected by whether Safe Mode is turned On or Off.

When a script tries to open a file with, for example, fopen() or gzopen(), the location of the file is checked. When the file is outside the specified directory-tree, PHP will refuse to open it.

If open_basedir is in effect the following line will be something like:

open_basedir = path_to_basedir

Otherwise this line will be commented out. A commented out line will be preceded by a ";"

;open_basedir =

safe_mode:

Safe mode needs to be OFF in order for our components to function correctly. As such the limitations that safe mode places on this function should be of no consequence to you. Click here for more information of how to turn safe mode OFF.