[PharaohsPaw]

Read a few posts back where the last guy asked about substring matches and i explained it in detail.

[PharaohsPaw]

AdsQL Advertisements System Support

I will try to provide a reasonable level of support for AdsQL, since I chose to fork it into a separate plugin/webui release. In return, and in order for maintaining AdsQL to remain enjoyable for me, I need AdsQL users to put a reasonable level of effort into helping themselves with problems as well.

Please keep in mind how much you paid for AdsQL. Refunds are always available if you are not completely satisfied.

Important - Let's stay focused on AdsQL here. This thread is not the right place to ask for help with "peripheral issues" such as:

- How to set up a gameserver or sourcemod

- How to upload files to your web host

- How to configure Apache virtual hosts or make PHP work

- How to install PHPMyAdmin

The answers to questions like these and others can be found elsewhere if you will take the time to look in the right places. Google and these forums are your friend...

Before posting about a problem, you need to do the following. You may even answer your own question without having to post:

1.
Before posting to ask for help, make sure your issue isn't already addressed in the Installation instructions in the first post, the Known Issues / To-Do List Post, the Troubleshooting, FAQ, and Web Banner Customization Post, or the Changelog. You should also read through the other users' posts in this forum thread in case it is not something I have already added to one of these special posts.

If you post asking for help with something that has already been documented and addressed, making time for a response is fairly unlikely from me.

2. Pay Attention To Your Server Log And Console Messages
The messages adsql.smx logs and/or prints to the server console are there to highlight factors that will affect which ads the plugin can be expected to find and display. The non-debug-level log messages (log messages you see when adsql_debug is disabled) are not cryptic at all, and if you have read the install instructions and the FAQ/Troubleshooting post (link in #1 above), nobody should need to explain to you what those messages mean.

3. Running the Latest?
I support the latest version only. If you are not running the latest version of the plugin or the web interface, update and determine if the problem you are seeing still occurs. Many issues have been fixed since the original public release (see The Changelog Post). If however, you find a problem that did not exist with a certain previous version but does exist on the latest, please do point out which version you were running previously as it should help me fix it faster.

4. Information - Help Me Help You
Please don't make me GUESS what the problem you're reporting is. If you are reporting error messages or what you believe to be a bug, make sure you provide enough details, log output, and configuration info for me to be able to tell what the problem is, or at least understand what you are talking about.

If you see a pattern as to the steps or conditions to make the problem happen, list them in your post. If things were working fine until you did something, then post what you did.

Logs: Plan on me wanting to see the AdsQL log message entries from the time the server was last started/restarted, and which covers the timeframe of a problem you are seeing. These can be found in your sourcemod and/or server log files.

Debug Level Logs:If the problem is not obvious from regular AdsQL log messages, set adsql_debug to 1 in cfg/sourcemod/adsql.cfg (to ensure debug is enabled as soon as the plugin loads) and restart your server. Then try to reproduce the problem so that there will be more detailed logs. You may be able to solve your own problem this way. Or if you need to post for help, you'll already have the debug-level logs I am likely to ask for. In any case, if you will be posting AdsQL log messages to the forums, you shouldn't need to "spam" your entire log file to the forums - use your best judgement.

5. Post to the Forums, not PM
If you have a problem or a question, post it to the forums rather than sending me PM's. This is for the benefit of others who may have the same issue/question (or may in the future). I am subscribed to this thread so I do receive notifications anytime someone besides me posts to it.

[PharaohsPaw]

So just to post a bit of an update on the Russian language issue --

I've been looking into this off and on over the last few days. It looks like there may actually be different problems that need to be taken care of. 2 URL's I have found helpful in my review:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4...mysql-database

http://developer.loftdigital.com/blo...f-8-cheatsheet

I believe there are 2 main problems here. One is that the database .sql table setup script sets latin1 character set and utf8_swedish_ci collate on many tables. The adsmysql table, the one that actually stores the ad text, does at least set utf8 character set on the 'text' column, but still sets utf8_swedish_ci collate, which is probably not good. It should be possible to correct this part of the problem with a new .sql script for new users having problems.

The other problem.... the web interface does set utf8 charset encoding with my changes in 1.7.5. But it is looking like some php mbstring foo may be needed in the ads add/edit functions.

I will work on this - and believe I can get it straightened out - but it is probably going to take a little time and I will need a tester or two that is trying to use Russian ads (or another language that the ad text doesn't display correctly) - so I can know whether I am doing the right things or not. I won't be ready for testers just yet but if anyone is interested, please let me know.

Without some testers I am not really going to be able to fix this (as I won't have any way of knowing I've fixed anything!)

Thanks,
PharaohsPaw

[PharaohsPaw]

EDIT: REMOVED ATTACHMENT - UPDATED .SQL SCRIPT IS IN THE DISTRIBUTION .ZIP ON PAGE 1 NOW

Hello everyone,

I am afraid some more work may still be needed, but in case the only problem is the database setup, I am wondering if anyone trying to create ads in Russian (or any other language character set you have tried and seen problems with the ads displaying a bunch of ????? characters in the game instead of the ad) can try creating a new ads database and use the adsmysql-utf-test.sql SQL script file to set up the database tables instead of the adsmysql.sql script inside the distribution .zip file.

If the only problem is the database table setup, this will probably fix it.

To test this, please try setting up again by creating a NEW database and then using this .sql file instead of the adsmysql.sql one inside the .zip file to set up the tables, create yourself a user account etc. like the install instructions say, then delete the sample ads and try to put some Russian (or the other language you use) ads in with the web interface and let me know how it goes.

Thanks!
PharaohsPaw

PS: The .sql file is inside the adsmysql-utf-test-sql.zip file, I couldn't attach an .sql type file to the post.

[psychonic]

You also need to run the following query after connecting, before any of the other ones, in both the php and plugin. (I didn't look at the php, but the version of the plugin on the first post doesn't have it).

SET NAMES 'utf8'

[PharaohsPaw]

Thanks psychonic! The .php doesn't have it either, will fix both.

[PharaohsPaw]

In light of Psychonic's advice, we might as well hold off on doing any testing with the new .sql table setup script until I can get the plugin and web interface changed to use SET NAMES 'utf8' queries. Looking at what this does, it does seem pretty important, it sets a few connection/session parameters to tell the database server we want our results etc. in UTF8.

It will probably be this evening sometime before I can start on this -- I have to write a small query handler callback function in the plugin and add some similar query/return check code to the web interface.

[Payalnick]

Don't work this sql.
All is equal (??????)
My opinion trable in plugin, plugin need save in UTF-8 (no BOM)
I tried, but why that - save only ANSI.

[PharaohsPaw]

Payalnick, thanks for testing. I think the new .sql is going to be a keeper, but as Psychonic mentioned above, it looks like we need (at minimum) to set UTF8 on the DB connection in the plugin as well as the web interface. The web interface of course is what writes the ads to the db so that will be probably as important as having the plugin ask the database server to use UTF8 when returning our queries.

The web interface itself has the right headers in it already to set UTF8 for the browser clients, but we have to do the SET NAMES db query in the PHP code like Psychonic was talking about. We may still have to do more as well. Will start looking at it all sometime this evening when I'm off my day job.

[PharaohsPaw]

PS: the plugin only ever *READS* from the database, it never writes to it