Error on Visitor > Custom Variables screen after update to 2.5

Hi

I had some issues updating Piwik from version 2.4.1 to 2.5. After the auto update the Piwik worked fine but crashed one day later. It didn’t show anything when accessing it. Also all requests to the tracking URL where answered with and 500 server error.

I managed to get it working again by downgrading to 2.4.1 and then manually installing the 2.5. version. Now everything seems to work again except the custom variable page under the customer section. When I open the page following error message is shown.


Oops… there was a problem during the request. Maybe the server had a temporary issue, or maybe you requested a report with too much data. Please try again. If this error occurs repeatedly please contact your Piwik administrator for assistance.

Any ideas what’t going wrong here?

when you upgrade to 2.5.0 what errors do you see in your error log file of your web server?

it is important we get more info from your error with 2.5.0 as we would like to solve this issue. thanks

Hi Matt,

getting the error logs is a problem for me. I’m running Piwik on a hosted environment without direct access to the server and therefore I cannot access any log files. There is a option in the hoster’s UI to view error logs, but they are empty. Also piwik logging doesn’t work, neither file and screen nor database.

After your message I tried to check the setting of my piwik installation again, now it seems as it is crashed again completely as after the first upgrade to 2.5. Every request to piwik is answered with a 500 server error. I cannot access the piwik admin page. The behaviour is very strange as the application worked after the update, but then stopped working from one moment to the other. Can this be related to the archive.php. I patched the file like described at Make ./console core:archive work on CGI (use case 1&1 hosting/managed server) · Issue #6012 · matomo-org/matomo · GitHub as I had the same issue.

As my company is relaying on a running piwik installation, is it ok to run a 2.5 database with a 2.4.1 files? Or is there a way to revert the db migration from 2.4.1. to 2.5.?

Every request to piwik is answered with a 500 server error.

so there should be some error logged in your web hosting panel “error log” viewer? if not please ask your webhost to see the error log

Hi Matt,

I asked the hoster for the error logs, this was his answer (translated from German):

So no real help from this side.

Is there a way to really downgrade to 4.2.1 or can I run the Piwik 4.2.1 with a 2.5 database?

… This error was generated by Piwik itself (via the header()-function of PHP). So it won’t show up in the server logs. In these cases the application should write its own logs. …

But how does your host know this?
we need more info to help you, it seems your host already has more info than was given in this forum thread. cheers

Sorry, I know that this is not enough information but I can only tell you what the hoster told me. I will try to get more information. In another thread a user reports the same problem.

In another thread a user reports the same problem.

maybe we can continue the discussion in that thread to keep it all in the same place. Let us know there when you get more info

Hello Matt
Same trouble after update to 2.5.0 with the “Live real time visits” widget. The other widgets work right.
I am an individual user and I usually update piwik by ftp uploading of the latest version above the previous in preserving the former config.ini.php. Externally hosted, very small traffic (10-20 visits per day).
After the problem happened, I erased the full piwik folder on host, then re-upload piwik: same error message.
Then I removed the widget and tried to reload it. The preview window stay with the message “Chargement du widget, veuillez patienter…” (Widget loading, be patient…).
Thanks if you find something.
Charles

Then I have loaded the workaround from “michael-t-weber” . It works.

Here’s the error from our apache’s error log:


[Mon Aug 25 13:02:34 2014] [error] [client x.x.x.x] Error in Piwik: Impossible to access an attribute ("idVisit") on a string variable ("error") in "@Live/getLastVisitsStart.twig" at line 6, referer: https://stats.xxxxxx.xx/index.php?module=CoreHome&action=index&date=yesterday&period=day&idSite=1

The content of the “visitor” variable in this case seems to be “error” and “Referrer type ‘’ is not valid.”

So this is indeed related to 301 Moved Permanently

could you maybe check / comment on this issue? 2.5.0 Upgrade - Breaks Visitor Log · Issue #6049 · matomo-org/matomo · GitHub

I had the same issue and the patch posted by michael-t-weber on the below issue solved the problem:
http://forum.piwik.org/read.php?2,118765

Thanks for the hint, but version 2.6.1 also solved the issue.