Fantastico De Luxe Outdated Installations Notification

[edwurster]

What is driving the daily messages I am getting that say similar to this:

Domain Name: yourdomain.tld

Date/Time: June 25th, 2007 @ 5:19 PM

The following installations are not up-to-date:

Mambo Open Source:
+ / - 4.5(1.0.5) (4.6.2)

The messages started within the past few days.

[cmyksteve]

Since I don't plan to use Fantastico for updates, I used cPanel's File Manager to delete the appropriate text file found in the directory .fantasticodata (same level as my public_html)

/home/username/.fantasticodata/Joomla/MyDomain.com|

... I haven't gotten a notice since.

[neumannu47]

I'm getting these notices for a domain that has a current version (2.2.1) of WordPress installed and for one that does not have WP installed. In the second case, there is no reference to WP in .fantasticodata. What's the fix? The messages are getting very annoying. I would delete and recreate the account for the first one, but there is an installed custom application that I have no idea how to reinstall.

Edit: The problem is pretty rampant. Customers and hosting companies are furious with the developers of Fantastico. Here is an interesting thread on the topic: Click Here

Apparently PZ can turn them off.

[cmyksteve]

Originally Posted by neumannu47

The messages are getting very annoying.

If the messages just don't stop, you might try commenting out the code in the user_email.php file setting in that .fantasticodata directory. I have no experience with this- at least this patch could be easily undone if it should cause other problems.

[cmyksteve]

I looked at another cPanel account and this time there was no file named user_email.php in the .fantasticodata directory. So editing that file probably won't help you kill the messenger.

[edwurster]

Originally Posted by cmyksteve

If the messages just don't stop, you might try commenting out the code in the user_email.php file setting in that .fantasticodata directory. I have no experience with this- at least this patch could be easily undone if it should cause other problems.

What are the perm's on that file, where you do have it?

[cmyksteve]

Hi Ed,

The file user_email.php is set at rw-r--r-- (644)

[edwurster]

Originally Posted by cmyksteve

Hi Ed,

The file user_email.php is set at rw-r--r-- (644)

Thanks - I added that file to my directory, to see if I can send the email to a different email account.

I've turned off most of the notifications by deleting the .com file you mentioned.

[neumannu47]

I am beginning to think that there are some abandoned installations on prior servers that are causing the problem. That is just a guess, though. My accounts were previously on Ohio and another one prior to that. If I log into the current account (domain.tld:2082), the Fantastico installations are up to date or do not exist. Plus, there are no improper files in the .fantasticodata folders.

Since I don't have access to the prior servers, I don't know how to check the problem.

Edit: Actually, I just logged into Ohio (8.9.24.74:2086) and neither account is there, although most of my others are.

Second edit: My primary server is 8.9.22.11. My previous server was Ohio, which I think is 8.9.24.74. In a flash of genius, I read the IP address of the server sending the outdated message: southbend-124.pgzn.com. So, I logged into that server, and low and behold, there is one of the two outdated installations. The other domain is there, but WordPress is not installed. There was an empty WordPress folder in .fantasticodata, so I deleted it in hopes that the problem will go away. If you're having the Fantastico problem, read the header of the spam email. (I'll edit a third time if the problem is not solved.)

[Jim]

I assume that it was fixed by deleting the wordpress folder (no third edit).

This page has become pretty popular on google. Showing up in the logs as the #1 entrance page. Seeing that I thought the hacking bots were looking for a target. I guess not. The problem must be rampant on servers with Fantastico installed.

Any time the word "Fantastico" or "powered by ..." starts showing up in the search referral logs its a red flag that something is about to happen

Fantastico should fix these things before releasing it to the latest update. We have it (Fantastico) set to auto update every night, but shut off notifications manually in Fantastico for the people posting to this thread.