otto
"Most preferably" actually means we didn't tested the add-on with such low version of GD and can't say in advance if it will work with it. It's possible it doesn't work exactly because of that. For determining a reason, view the source of Captcha page, locate Captcha's HTML code and paste it directly in the browser's address field. If it will say something like "Impossible to generate an image because it contains errors", view that page's source again and there you will probably find the missing function or the reason of error.

If you are not sure why it's not working, try to contact me privately providing your server details, I could debug and investigate it at no fee (and maybe also let the default add-on work with older version of GD).

Despite having the CAPTCHA plugin installed, my boards are still getting flooded with messages. Apparently, someone is getting around my flood protection (scripting and macros?). Any ideas how I can stop this?

Thanks,
Donahue87

donahue87
First of all, you must be sure this is really automated spam. As it was discussed some time ago, Chinese spammers can spam a lot manually and there is no work around it, except banning their IP addresses, preferably the whole sub-network.

Also, you can experiment with Captcha settings and set different fonts, different characters number amount, different colors etc. If somebody found a way to break the visual implementation (though I really doubt it), you can always set up the new Captcha layout and that way let the intruders to work on a different algorithm.

Paul,
Thanks for the help. I think you are right in that it is not automated spam.

I now know what the problem is, I need to make guests enable captcha every time but I cant find out how to do this. Any help here would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Donahue87

donahue87
Under bb_plugins.php, there are few Captcha options. Try to set:

Works! Thanks for the prompt response.

In latest version of addon_authorize.php, it seems that there is a parse error on line 22 !!!

This is quite impossible if you didn't get a "pirated" version of this add-on, and if you have installed it properly (did you?) and if your own custom include doesn't cause it... The latest version of this add-on is installed here on our forums, and in many other places. We would definitely notice it earlier if that would be true.

I have bought CAPTCHA, but it doesn't work at all.

It means you have installed it incorrectly.

Should this be done before pasting the code into bb_plugins.php:

QUOTE FROM README.TXT for CAPTCHA

Set also

$displayPopUpLink=TRUE;

in bb_plugins.code.txt if you want the pop-up link appearing near each form.

I've just installed CAPTCHA, but the image with the code doesn't show. I see only grey field.
On my error log file I see:
PHP Warning: imagettftext(): Could not read font in ...path.../addon_captcha.php on line 69

FreeType and the GD Library are installed on my server. Maybe problem in libraries' settings?

How can I solve this?

It may be related to the fonts path, which is specified under addon_captcha_options.php -> $fontsPath. Try to set full server path to the fonts folder there.

As it is mentioned in add-on's README,

Paul
I correct font path to path I get by "echo getcwd()". Unfortunately it didn't solve the problem. I still cannot see the captcha and error text is the same.