Thanks, Mith!

Always good to see you around and thanks for some remarkably wonderful contributions here recently.

That explains why I was having difficulties and the rationale for what had to be done to make it work. Makes perfect sense.

Thanks, again...

Mike D.

Thanks, stefan88, for your reply.

Yes, I do have the latest SmartObject. I was able to get the blocks to show, but only when I permissioned each block through the regular block control interface. Is that the way it's supposed to be. I was under the impression that it basically bypassed the block interface that was previously being used. That may be a bad assumption..

Again, thanks. And, grateful for any further thoughts you might have.

So, it's probably something really simple that, as usual, I'm not getting. I have done an extensive search and still am missing how to make SmartBlocks show the blocks. They just aren't showing...

Here's the data:

XOOPS Version: 2.0.16
Module Name/Version: SmartBlocks (latest version - 1.0)
PHP Version: 5.1
MySQL Version: 4.something
Web Server Software (Apache/IIS/Other): Apache 1.3
Operating System: Linux, Unix, or something ix
Theme you are using: Skidoo2
Custom template: (Yes/No) No
PHP Debug Messages: None
MySQL Debug Messages: None
Smarty Debug Messages: None that are relevant
A full description of the issue: I set three blocks to appear on the front page. My XOOPS prefs say that I have "None" as my starting module. None of the SmartBlock blocks appear. I do have some blocks that show up (main Menu, User Menu) but none that are set by the SmartBlock module.

Does the default block management part of XOOPS override this module in some way? Is there some way that I have to tell the default block management module to get out of the way and let SmartBlocks work its magic? This would make a great tutorial for someone who's figured it out... Thus far, that would not be me... It does look great, though...

Any ideas?

BTW, if I may make a suggestion, it would be a good idea, security-wise, to update to a later version. I think you'll ultimately be happy you did.

Thanks a bunch for the help and the clarification. I'm thrilled if they found my site. I'm PO'd that I turned it off now. It's back on now, thanks to you.

Additionally, I think I may have found the blocks issue. I had been using the Spotlight module to manage my recent news block. Why it just did this I have no idea, but when I turned off Spotlight, the blocks went back to normal. Is it that Spotlight doesn't play nice with 2.0.16 or the new news module? I have no idea. All I know is that it appears normal now.

Ya' know, I think I'm a pretty benevolent person. So security is not my strong suit. Our site just wants to help folks and keep the lights on. I learned a little here, so that helps. I just hope yahoo keeps on coming by.

Thanks again for your response, and for the added insight. IT was very helpful. Nor am I disputing your comments. Really, I am trying to learn about an area I know relatively little about as well as protect my site. Does this suggest that I was just listed by Yahoo and new users found me - and that the user number kept growing. I'm not saying that's the case, I just really don't know. Does the IP indicate the IP address that the visitor was referred from or the IP of the users home/work computer?

Next, I am still concerned about how I restore my blocks? Any ideas? I will turn my site back on if it will help. I just didn't want to turn it on if someone was messing with it. We had hits from these IPs approximately every thirty seconds...

Thanks for the responses!

@ Cuidiu:

I have a bunch of mods installed - none of them added in recent days, and certainly none immediately before this began to happen.

Here's the mods installed:
Forms
Sudoku
Code Data Management
XF Planet
Web Digest
XF Article
SmartObject Framework
Cards (eXTGal)
Chat
Chess
Paypal Donations
WF-Downloads
Books of Interest
WordPress
SmartFAQ
Forums (CBB)
Frozen Bubble
WebLinks
News
Polls
Newsletter
Smartsection
Subscriptions
Sitemap
Contact Us
Link 2 Us

I have changed the htaccess to reflect the comments you made. I'll check later to see if I can see the IPs in phpmyadmin.

@Lloyd
I'll check that out, Lloyd!

Again, thanks to both of you. Any more suggestions as to where to look to straighten out the block situation would be appreciated.

Earlier today I noticed someone on my site under the IP 74.6.vvv.yyy. The YYY represented above was a constantly changing set of digits. The 74.6. were constant.

I noticed that my front page began to have the blocks showing up in all different positions. I checked the blocks in the admin module but they appear to be as they are supposed to be as far as the block supposing to be on the left, right, etc. But, they don't show up as they are designated to be on the front page.

I made no changes to the site itself prior to noticing the difficulties. I just noticed an ever increasing number of "users" on the site (usually runs about 10-25, but at this time up to 58 at one time). The admin area itself does not appear to have been violated nor is there any evidence that the password was broken. But, something happened and not subsequent to anything I did, so far as I can tell.


I am running 2.0.16 with protector installed.

To resolve this, I re-uploaded the 2.0.16 core files, the theme files, cleared the cache directory, cleared the templates_c directory, updated the system module, everything I could think of.

I checked a few minutes ago and it appears they are still trying to hack my site. I have reported it to the host and fully expect their genuine help. BUt, what do I do about restoring the site? What would they have done that I can undo? Thanks for any help,

Chappy

It's working fine on my install with those versions and using 2.0.16. Did you try the debug function? Any errors?

Not sure what you mean by "restarted my installation." What version are you using? What version were you installing from and to?

For starters, I'd re-upload my files taking care to: 1) Not overwrite my mainfile.php and 2)make sure you upload your core files to the right place. Beyond that, without more information about version, what you were doing when this happened (upgrading, initial install, etc), there's little I can offer apart from the above advice. When it says selected module does not exist, it means the module directory/files for a given module cannot be found in your XOOPSROOT/modules directory. In this case, I'm just guessing here, I suspect that your system module folder is either not loaded up to the right directory or perhaps it was not unpacked correctly.