If something did work OK, and it doesn't work now, it's 100% problem of your host. The miniBB script, like any other script, cant change its "mind" randomly.

I can't investigate your problem straight away, because it seems errors are disabled on your server. I have no ideas about the nature of the error, and like it's mentioned above, it could be the problem you could investigate with your hosting provider.

If you remember I posted here my CAPTCHA problem.. I found the problem.. when I set php.ini to memcached it didn't work anymore:

session.save_handler = memcache

and got this error with captcha:

Warning: session_start() [function.session-start]: Cannot find save handler 'memcache' - session startup failed in /public_html/addon_authorize.php on line 13

If I revert the change to "session.save_handler = file" it works.

I think it's not compatible with CAPTCHA.

Paul
my host set errror logging to max. It appears that font errors occured.
Problem was fixed by correcting $fontsPath in addon_captcha_options.php

Tnx for your help.

With $enableForSearch= in bb_plugins (TRUE or FALSE) i can enable or disable captcha for the searchfunction.

But is this setting then always valid for guests AND registered users. There is probably no way to fix this only to guests?

A little later ... i think it goes through the adjustment of the 3 condition ...

Yes, the condition you provide may open the Captcha for search for guests only; at least you may try it :)

I had asked my question, and later i came up the solution ... and had to answer the question myself ;-) Yes - it works! Thanks for your confirmation.

not to detract from captcha (usually takes me 10 clicks to read them)
but , did anyone get this to work?
areyouahuman.

(i have it working as stand alone file. but not integrated.
how to link it into our php, off the register button?

demo (use test or any name)
fixkick dot com/bbs/sample.php

It works here, on our forum. Try to register an account or post as a guest on a business time. You'll see that asking for the code.

I agree, there are tons of "solutions" which do not allow to recognize the code even by a human. But hopefully, miniBB captcha is a bit more easy to guess ;) I think you may try our solution worth cups of coffee than trying something awful but free on side.

The solution you have shown in your example, is IMO truly awful... you can't integrate in miniBB something like this easily. I would disrespect myself for the whole life, if I'd install something like this and then would spend extra time & money for another solution anyway.

Thanks!
imho, they all are awful,, it's like asking someone a question, with loud traffic noise.
ill bet you in the end , this.
when you get it so good, no spambot OCR, can read it , neither can any humans. (im there)
as the spam bots improve, the humans lose. we can't buy an eyeball upgrade, not yet.
it's not about cost, but quality,
personally I like the sites, that ask simple random questions. (questions fun, noise not so.)
you should offer choices.
Thankyou and happy trails.

We're running international project. So for English-only version, giving a question would be OK. But it makes it impossible to translate the questions to all users on Earth. Numbers are more adequate in this case ;)

that really is the crux of it all.!
languages, blind, etc.
there is no solution to that.
that is correct, numbers are best , for most languages.

end the end , captcha will lose. ( and for sure simple numbers, it's really an intelligence test.? how to find the non intelligent, how to fool a robot but not the human, like in chess,, we lost that game long ago to the intelligent computer)
In the military (ECM) electronic counter measures, and ECCM (counter counter) (i did this for many years) It's the same thing.
They throw cash and huge resources at this. and in many cases, zero gain. ( tax payer lost $$$)

but in this case, captcha has only 1 ploy, noise. (and indexes full of them) it is futile. (but fun to watch it evolve....) LOL

On fun ploy like this is watch the movie, DUNE (1st) the human test.
ouch.
I wonder what Robert A. Heinlein was say, RIP? my guess. is it violated rule 1.

A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.
the battle is lost.

So you say you are 100% retired. Then you may take you free relaxing time, hour a day, sharing it to this revolutionary task. Busy people like me prefer to steal an existing approach instead of spending days and nights without any profit re-inventing the wheel...

I bet you could add a solid sum to your retirement pension afterall ;)

Unfortunately, this is closely to a genius task. Taking into attention the existing web technologies and human abilities, I personally so far can't find a better alternative than Arabic numerals.

You say that or whomever... I suppose, the battle is just started ;)

so , how to blind a robot and not the human?
lost.

It depends on what do you expect and what this would be for.
I've mentioned the Captcha solution for miniBB above. It's very customizable. You can design and use your own fonts, which would be recognizable by a human, but would become a tricky task for a robot. You can set a difficult-to-guess secret key, which is impossible to de-cypher. You can set the Captcha to ask for entering more symbols (let's say 8 symbols are almost not guessable by a robot).

By default it comes with a very basic fonts set. So far I know some cases, when miniBB is being spammed by "Chinese humans" which could break any robot. But this is manual spam. The Captcha version we have, could be called an "absolute balance" between the human abilities and robotism. So far I can't recommend a better solution than this.

You know, spamming always grows, as the technologies grow. Whatever you would invent, could be broken; if broken not in a day, then in a week or so. So the task is not about "how to blind a robot and not a human", because you can't blind a robot...

Just to add: the ideal solution could be when a client and server are very closely tied up. For example, you have an identified browser, which has its unique identification ID (you have registered it, or got the number on the company's invoice when purchasing it and so on). When you connect to the server, it identifies your browser and compares it with the World Wide Identification Database. If you browser's ID is found there, it is considered "authorized" and the server allows to get the POST/GET/FILES data from it then. If it's not authorized, you can't pass data to this server. In this case, no such tools like Captcha would be required, in general.

It's an utopia of course, because such system would mean the "total control" over everything. But the Internet became popular mostly because of its freedom of choice and anonymity. Unfortunately, there also can't be kept the right balance between those two factors. Keeping anonymity, you can send everything to everywhere and having almost no responsibility for it (or which is hard to discover). Being totally controlled, you need to follow common rules, but then the freedom factor is lost, and 90% of the "Internet population" amongst of it.

So... I would say: if you would like to rid off the spam, afraid of opening your web project at all ;) but truly, who knows. Only the "controlling" system like I described may work in the very near future. "Web 3.0" if we could say so ;)