Log: [Warning] Couldn’t follow the redirect URL

  • Resolved roam92

    (@roam92)


    2 years ago

    Hi, thank you very much for this great plugin!

    I’ve got some links on my site which go to external pages that readers have told me no longer work. When I click on those links, I get a bunch of offsite redirections but eventually the pages go to “404 Not Found.”

    However, the Broken Link Checker does not seem to be picking these bad destinations up. It doesn’t follow the links to the end? They appear under the BLC Redirection tab with “301 OK” – and when I click on “Details”, I see:

    Log: [Warning] Could’t follow the redirect URL (if any) because safemode or open base dir enabled
    === HTTP code : 301 ===

    That text is quite cryptic. What does it mean? Is there any way the BLC plugin can help me identify broken pages elsewhere which are linked from my site, but go through redirects?

    (Note: These are not Amazon or Facebook or Instagram links/pages.)

    Other sites are changing all the time, and while I can keep my own site in order, I’m hoping for a solution (other than human readers) that will tell me when all links which go offsite stop working.

    Thanks again!

    • This topic was modified 2 years ago by roam92.
Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
  • Plugin Support Williams – WPMU DEV Support

    (@wpmudev-support8)

    Hi @roam92

    I hope you’re well today!

    This is related to server – specifically, PHP – configuration on your server. There are two settings (but we cannot determine in plugin which one applies in this case) that may be involved and they result in blocking the CURL_FOLLOWLOCATION option.

    CURL is a PHP library used to fetch these URLs and the CURL_FOLLOWLOCATION is special option that allows following these redirects. If it doesn’t work, then the plugin will not be able to follow these redirects either.

    In most cases, it doesn’t make much of the difference but if you see that it is, indeed, affecting link detection, it would have to be re-configured at server level.

    If you do have access to PHP configuration at your host (either via some tool in cPanel or via php.ini editor or any similar way), look for these two options in PHP configuration:

    safe_mode
    open_basedir

    One of them or both is set currently, causing the issue. If the first one is set to “on” currently, try setting it to “off”. If it’s already set to “off” then it would mean that “open_basedir” restriction is in place but that’d be a bit more tricky because your host may have a security policy in place that may not allow changing/disabling it so in such case I’d strongly recommend getting in touch with the host and asking them about it.

    Just to give you heads up also: we are working on a new and completely revamped version of Broken Link Checker that will also work as a “service”, meaning it will actually “crawl” site “from outside” (just like e.g. Google bots would) and that should eliminate most of such issues. I don’t have an ETA on release but just wanted to let you know about it anyway to assure you that we are working on a much improved version.

    Kind regards,
    Adam

    Thread Starter roam92

    (@roam92)

    Thank you so much, Adam – that’s a very helpful response! I will look into this. Interesting that it is a setting or policy on my own site’s host, rather than on the remote server.

    I wish you good luck with the new version of the plugin, and look forward to its release. One thing I’m guessing if BLC will be running as an outside service is that it would no longer be free? Or maybe you haven’t finalized that yet. In any event, I hope a free version of this great plugin will remain.

    Thanks again!

    Plugin Support Zafer – WPMU DEV Support

    (@wpmudevsupport15)

    Hi @roam92,

    You are welcome and thanks for the nice words.
    Yes, the details on new BLC has not finalized yet.
    We are marking this thread as resolved for now, please let us know if you need further help.
    Have a good one!

    Kind regards,
    Zafer

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
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