WP-Piwik cannot communicate when I have SSL forced on my Piwik installation

Can you please provide the following information:

1. Run the test script and post one of the shown HTTP headers. This is a part of the output which looks like:

string(182) "HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Tue, 02 Jun 2015 10:31:12 GMT
Server: Apache
Vary: Accept-Encoding
X-Powered-By: PleskLin
Content-Length: 2131
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8

2. Go to Settings -> WP-Piwik -> Support and post the information about cURL and fopen, e.g.:

Either allow_url_fopen has to be enabled or cURL has to be available:

    cURL is available.
    allow_url_fopen is enabled.

Thank you!

Hi there,

Here is the requested information. I really appreciate the assistance. ??

string(276) “HTTP/1.1 302 Found
Date: Wed, 03 Jun 2015 03:50:50 GMT
Server: Apache
X-Powered-By: PHP/5.4.16
Location: https://dd[…%5Dns.com/analytics/
Cache-Control: max-age=0
Expires: Wed, 03 Jun 2015 03:50:50 GMT
Content-Length: 0
Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8

1. cURL is available.
2. allow_url_fopen is enabled.

May I join in?

WP-Piwik 1.0.1 was not able to connect to Piwik using your configuration. Check the ?Connect to Piwik? section below.

HTTP/1.1 405 Method Not Allowed
Allow: GET, HEAD, OPTIONS, TRACE
Content-Type: text/html
Server: Microsoft-IIS/7.0
X-Powered-By: ASP.NET
Date: Wed, 03 Jun 2015 12:33:46 GMT
Content-Length: 1293

cURL is available.
allow_url_fopen is enabled.

Any clue?
We have to Piwiks:
1.9.2 (proper SSL)
2.13.1 (internal SSL cert.)

Both do not work and SSL verification has been disabled.

Dustin: Looks like an issue with your URL configuration. Your server answers “HTTP/1.1 302 Found”, which means a redirection. You should use the specific Piwik URL, not a redirection (e.g., if https://example.com/piwik redirects to https://www.example.com/piwik, you should use https://www.example.com/piwik).

Shonu: Your issue is not related to this, because you get a different error code. Your server answers “405 Method Not Allowed”. See line two: “Allow: GET, HEAD, OPTIONS, TRACE” – POST should be allowed here, too.

Hi braekling,

I have three different URL’s (non-SSL) which can access the Piwik web app. They are:

1) https://analytics.dd…ns.com/
2) https://dd…ns.com/analytics/
3) https://www.dd…ns.com/analytics/

Number one forwards to number three. Number two also forwards to number 3. I can reproduce this in my web browser. Number three is the ultimate destination.

I caught that the URL I had in WP-Piwik was number two, so following your advice I changed it to number three. However it still occurs.

Any other possible root causes you can think of? I did some research and sure enough the 302 does suggest a redirect, but I mean I just take the URL shown in the web browser, so I am not sure what other redirect occurs beyond that.

So, also using the third URL the setting script still answers 302? (To be sure, can you disable WP-Piwik’s caching before running the test script again? Settings -> WP-Piwik -> Expert settings)

But I’m sorry – I can’t tell you which redirects may be done on your server. Did you configure it on your own or do you have a server admin / hosting service you can ask?

Maybe you can check your Apache access log to get some more information about redirects (run WP-Piwik test script and check the entries in your access log).

Are WordPress and Piwik running at the same server? In this case, you can also try to use the PHP connection.

Ok, I took a bit of a closer look at this. I have found/confirmed a couple of things the last couple of days.

I followed the redirects to the ultimate destination from the URL I had in the WP-Piwik plugin, using this tool: https://redirectcheck.com/index.php

I found that the ultimate URL is what is number three above which I copied below for reference too.
(3) https://www.dd…ns.com/analytics/)

But even with that URL in the URL bar for WP-Piwik, connecting over SSL does not work. So then I changed the URL to read “https://www.dd…ns.com/analytics/” (note the HTTPS) and it still did not connect. But when I tried the diagnostic test again, it didn’t even give an HTTP response, so I can’t say why that is when I can connect using that URL no problem to the Piwik app via my web browser.

So then I tried connecting again with the HTTPS URL but with the “Disable SSL peer verification” but nothing changed, still unable to connect.

For what it’s worth, the method I am using to implement the HTTPS is the instructions found on this URL: https://piwik.org/faq/how-to/#faq_91

Am I supposed to be doing something different for the plugin to recognize it’s connecting via SSL instead of non-SSL? For all intents and purposes, the Piwik installation and consuming it over SSL works perfectly fine and as expected according to the Piwik documentation. Nothing _seems_ wrong on the server end. This makes me wonder if it’s a configuration problem with my WP-Piwik plugin or if it’s not recognizing something it needs, that maybe I can help expose to it.

Any other suggestions would be great. Thank you!

PS – Yes, the WordPress and Apache are running on the same server, however not all my websites are on the same server, so using the PHP connection would not be an option for all cases, unfortunately.

Hm, ok…if you enable Piwik’s force SSL feature, the final URL should be https://www.dd…ns.com/analytics/ – please make sure this URL does not do any other redirections (you determined https://www.dd…ns.com/analytics/ as “final” URL, but what happens if you test https://www.dd…ns.com/analytics/?).

With force SSL enabled https://www.dd…ns.com/analytics/ should cause one more redirection to https://www.dd…ns.com/analytics/ (performed by Piwik itself). Supposed, https://www.dd…ns.com/analytics/ is the final URL now… our question is: why doesn’t the http connection work?

First, can you try to check your error logs after performing the test script without HTTP response? Maybe your log files can give a hint why the request is not executed. Just an idea: Are you using mod_security and whitelisted https://www.dd…ns.com/analytics/ but not https://www.dd…ns.com/analytics/? If there is no HTTP response, in most cases the request was blocked by some security plugin, firewall, or similar restrictions.

Shonu: In version 1.0.2 you can also choose to use GET, so you don’t need to change your configuration. The release will be available very soon, I just have to finish some lines of code.

Hi

What I found out meanwhile:
1) 405 came as WP Piwik requested the url …/piwik/? instead of …/piwik/index.php?
2) When I added index.php, WP Piwik adds a /at the end making it index.php/?
3) Latter leads to a redirect (I guess) so now I cannot get the 302 go away.

How can I tell WP Piwik to accept /index.php as a base and not /piwik/ ?

I believe that this will then resolve my issues as I tested the url’s from the test script by a PHP script on that box with the token, and it worked as soon as index.php was used

On a side note, please expand the input fields for token and URL to be 100% or at least as broad enough to show common URL’s and values.

thanks

It should not be necessary to add index.php to the Piwik URL (and it would require a lot of other changes to WP-Piwik which may cause several side effects). So if possible, I want to try to avoid this (or just add an option to force the use of index.php if absolutely necessary).

But did you try to force WP-Piwik to use GET instead of POST, first? (See Settings -> WP-Piwik -> Expert settings.) If you switch to GET, the 405 error should disappear (following your server’s response, GET should be allowed).

If your problem persits, please open your own thread because your issue is not related to the initial one. Thank you.

The 405 had gone away alright by using GET and meanwhile POST had been added as an acceptable method on the webserver, but the index.php issue I must discuss with the admin, if there is any reason or way to reconfigure it, perhaps within piwik.
Yes, I will then reopen a new thread

We apparently have an out of the box installation of Piwik on Windows with IIS 7.
The default behaviour of Piwik is
/piwik/index.php?module=CoreHome&action=index&idSite=1&period=day&.....
using and enforcing index.php.

I all actions in Piwik are just params on index.php, I would believe that an url-parameter has to be just changed in the plugin. Or is the url hardcoded whenever a URL request is prepared?.

my issue is that the URL field after save contains the ending slash
https://domain.de/piwik/index.php/
If that could be removed, it may then work already, but the slash itself again kills the request by redirect removing the slash.

Normally a web server should map domain.de/piwik/ to domain.de/piwik/index.php, so adding index.php is not necessary. But I don’t know if IIS doesn’t support this (would be strange if not) – afaik it’s a standard behavior.

So this URL:
https://demo.piwik.org/index.php?module=API&method=API.getPiwikVersion&format=xml&token_auth=anonymous
equals this URL:
https://demo.piwik.org/?module=API&method=API.getPiwikVersion&format=xml&token_auth=anonymous

If I allow to add /index.php, I have to consider this on several code lines (e.g., if the tracking code is manipulated). So I would like to avoid this if possible… maybe (if IIS really doesn’t support default index pages) I can just add an option “add index.php to API calls”.

Again: Please open your own thread on further questions, because your issue is not related to the initial one. To keep it clear and to avoid confusion. Thank you.

before you tamper many locations, perhaps all is needed to avoid appending the / for Piwik url’s that end with a script (.php)
I cannot give you details on this as my IT guy says, “out of the box” and I must believe him as well.

thanks