Topic on Project:Support desk

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T235554

I am having trouble installing MediaWiki version 1.35.1. Every time I install it (either via Softaculous/NameCheap, or manually), my site is completely garbled, but only in Chrome/IE and Edge. For some reason, Firefox displays fine. If I install 1.31.12, it all looks good.

The garbled version, is just all this stuff:

���T,�z��1e{<��s[^��"!�1H0�hYɦj?�}��$�� ��d[�Nf�f�2��4�_7�/������O��=�c�����6~�@r��^ #��?Q���$O�}O$�����I�yH.x���0����ia������s� �&2R�~�.�C���������,J� TA���-�eO �MpH � �<�����u��7��� ~�:

Namecheap hosting support said the installer is not creating the MySQL tables correctly (something to do with UTF/binary), but I don't know how to fix this. Can someone help me? I really want to use 1.35.1 as it has some new stuff I want to use that is not in 1.31.12.

Michael

Check if you have $wgDisableOutputCompression = true; set in your LocalSettings.php.

That is what was causing this on my wiki.

Thanks for the tip! However, this doesn't seem to fix it. Hmm. Should I comment it out, change "true" to "false"? Tried both, but not helping. :-(

Do you have a link to your wiki? If not, could you create a HAR file and link to it somewhere.

It does sound a lot like content-encoding header isn't matching the compression used by the webserver. If wgDisableOutputCompression isn't working, might be at the webserver layer instead.

I think the mysql encoding idea is likely not the issue unless its only page content like this and the rest of the site layout is fine (and your wiki is using a non-latin language)

Here you go!

• version 1.31.12 works:

https://beijerpedia.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page

• version 1.35.1 does NOT work:

https://beijerpedia.com/wiki2/index.php/Main_Page

I installed them both via Softaculous, in my Namecheap cPanel.

~~~~

This is what my website looks like:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uzkI2zZXLCGRJWOVo-9Ld1xAVawp3g4T/view?usp=sharing

Weirdly, it's garbled in ALL browsers (IE, Chrome, Edge) except Firefox:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DBoVoGammV1V9YYb2NDF90OZRFIzxBOw/view?usp=sharing

Darn, looks like I am going to have to think of an alternative plan. I really want to use the new VisualEditor, but can't use version 1.35.1, no matter what I try. VisualEditor is way too hard to get working on 1.31.12.

I am currently investigating BlueSpice, since they run an older version of MW (that isn't broken), but offer a working VE out of the box.

Yikes. Not sure what it is, but I don't like Bluespice. It also seems to be full of bugs, although that might just be my hasty manual install to have a quick look at it. Anyway, I am determined to get MediawWiki (and the VisualEditor) to work, one way or another, as it really is an amazing tool.

Two of my wikis are also experiencing this issue. Could you let me know if there's a solution discovered?

Fresh install 1.35.1 either by manual or by Softaculous on GoDaddy and A2 Hosting producing same issue and only visible by Firefox.

Grab the 1.34.4 and fresh install is all fine but will produce the same after upgrading to 1.35.1.

Uncomment and set $wgDisableOutputCompression true or false is no help on all my cases.

I have sent an email to my hosting provider (Namecheap) to ask them to remove 1.35.1 from their Softaculous installer, as it is totally broken.

This is what I wrote them:

Subject: MediaWiki v.1.35.1 (installed your Softaculous installer) is totally broken

I recently spent a while with your support team trying to figure out why MediaWiki 1.35.1 won't install (via Softaculous in my cPanel), and it now appears I am not the only one. A lot of people are having this exact problem. Please have a look at: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Topic:Vzxi8uroe2eo23gk

If 1.35.1 is installed, it is completely garbled on all browsers (also mobile), except Firefox.

Can you guys (temporarily) remove MediaWiki 1.35.1 from your Softaculous installer, as it is totally broken?

Regards,

Michael

What my site looks like in various browsers: https://beijer.uk/archive/screenshots/MediaWiki-1.35.1-bug.png

In firefox I can see that the server returns two Content-Encoding headers:

This is in your server response:

content-encoding: identity
content-encoding: gzip
content-length: 9124

Quote from RFC:

identity
The default (identity) encoding; the use of no transformation whatsoever. This content-coding is used only in the Accept-Encoding header, and SHOULD NOT be used in the Content-Encoding header.

I'm guessing this is what confuses the browsers, and possibly a webserver configuration error icw with the gzip compression that mediawiki applies.

> Uncomment and set $wgDisableOutputCompression true or false is no help on all my cases.

Not that there might be caching in play, which could cause it to take multiple minutes or even hours before you can see the result of such a change at the browser side. All depends on the configuration.

EDIT: Yeah nvmd, this is definetly https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T235554

I tried modifying includes/MediaWiki.php and commented out the line that outputting content-encoding: identity header

I don't know if it is a good practice but now it all looks go normal back.

Jesus Christ, that did it. I have no idea if it is a good idea to do, but I commented out exactly this line:

$response->header( 'Content-Encoding: identity' );

… and voilà, my site works again! Thanks for the tip. Hopefully this will get fixed, but at least I can work with my site again.

I can verify that this works! I have not noticed any additional problems that have come of this, but I'll keep an eye out.

Just updated from 1.35.0 to 1.35.1, and ran into this issue immediately. Commented out ./includes/MediaWiki:1069, line '$response->header( 'Content-Encoding: none' )' and all browsers but Firefox worked again

@Mave9 You mean:

MediaWiki.php