I’m sorry, Jason. I don’t understand what to do with either option that you suggested. I guess this just isn’t my strength.
I’ve been trying to get siteground to help me with the problem. I was told to upgrade to a dedicated server for more money that could be structured to use Apache 2. We’re not a rich, money making site and I really don’t want to spend more at siteground.
Then a supervisor told me that you were lazy because you hadn’t checked to see if your software worked on really old, heavily modified apache. i couldn’t believe it.
At home I use MAMP to locally test things before I do it live. I’m using Apache 2 at home. So I can’t reproduce siteground’s performance either.
I’m pasting the whole discussion here. I don’t know what to do. Moving the site will cost us too because we’ve recently renewed for two years.
Thank you again. Leslie
ID: 680585 Domain: ldlewis.com
Issue Date: 2012-02-14 05:45pm Owner: ldlewis
Category: Service Related Problems->General Hosting related problems->General Hosting related problems
Subject: Wordpress s2 member requires Apache 2
Description: this morning I updated S2 member for my wordpress site. The update caused the site to crash and I had to pay for a siteground technitian (Stanislav B.) to repair the issue:
“I was able to fix the problem for you. It was caused by the following lines placed into your .htaccess file during the update of this plugin:
# BEGIN s2Member GZIP exclusions
#
# RewriteEngine On
# RewriteBase /
# RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} (?:^|?|&)s2member_file_download=.+
# RewriteRule .* – [E=no-gzip:1]
#
# END s2Member GZIP exclusions
I have disabled them and now your website is loading fine. You can check the results on your end:
http://www.yummymath.com/”
I questioned the lead author of S2member and he suggested that I leave siteground if you can’t upgrade to an Apache that hasn’t been in this format since 2000. This is what Jason suggested:
“Thanks for sharing those details from Siteground. I can’t say that I sympathize with them in this regard. Apache 1.x is VERY old news, and this is a perfect case-in-point why Apache 1.x should be upgraded as soon as humanly possible. Apache v2.x has been available since the year 2000, and was adopted fully around 2004.
http://www.apachehaus.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=119&Itemid=104
As a developer who constantly works with security-related issues and PCI compliance, I can tell you there are more security issues related to Apache 1.x than just mod_status. While this company might be actively working with a custom variation of this software, I can’t advise that you run s2Member with this host. You might try MediaTemple.net, HostGator, BlueHost, or another WordPress-recommended hosting provider. See: http://wordpress.org/hosting/”
I’ve been very happy with using S2 member as a way of making some of the documents for our site, member only documents. I’ve also been very happy with siteground.
Now, I don’t know how to resolve the incompatability of you both. Do you have any suggestions? Can I alone upgrade to Apache 2? Thanks, Leslie
Replies: 2012-02-14 05:51pm by Atanas.S – Hello Leslie,
Thank you for contacting our Help Desk.
The version of the Apache web service is indeed 1.3.42 on all of our shared and semi dedicated servers, however it is custom build and we can not replace it on our servers as it has more security mechanisms and hack prevention systems inside it than any Apache 2.x service.
If your application requires the usage of Apache 2.x the only solution for you will be to upgrade to a dedicated server, which you can do through your customer area -> Order.
Best Regards,
Atanas S.
SiteGround.com
2012-02-15 06:34am by ldlewis – We are a site devoted to supplying teachers with mathematics that is centered around current events for their classrooms to motivate and involve students in the mathematics happening daily around them. We offer a membership level for teachers that want answer keys and excel documents. The rest of what we produce is free. For those answer sheets we charge a $12 fee per year and use a wordpress plugin called S2 member. Our yearly income is about $700.
S2 member upgraded their software with this modification yesterday:
(s2Member) File downloads. GZIP conflicts can now been resolved for file downloads. s2Member now introduces an .htaccess rewrite rule, which is automatically installed during activation and/or a future upgrade of the s2Member® Framework plugin. These rewrite rules are installed into your root .htaccess file for WordPress (if it’s writable). If your .htaccess file is not writable, you will get a warning in your s2Member -> Download Options panel.
Updating S2 member caused our site to crash and necessitated getting help from one of your great technitians, Stanislav B., and a fee.
The issue seems to be Apache 1.3. You guys may be great at making a secure site with Apache 1.3 but developers expect Apache 2 (evidently used exclusively since 2004) to be compatable with their software.
Your technitian, Atanas S., informed me yesterday that upgrading to a dedicated server is my only option for becoming compatable with S2 member.
We are not a large, income producing site. We already pay siteground $200 a year for hosting, domain name, nightly backups, and an add on slot. I feel very annoyed that you want even more money to let us access Apache 2 which is used in my local host test site, at WordPress, at S2 member, and I have no idea where I will next find a conflict.
I would appreciate any recommendations that you have. I can’t update my S2 member plugin and I can’t test locally for what might happen from Apache 1.3.
Thank you, Leslie
2012-02-15 07:43am by val – Hello Leslie,
Thank you for the update. It is very unlikely that the issue is indeed due to Apache version difference, since the actual operation of the web server differs very little between 1.3 and 2.x versions. The two major releases are very different, but in the way they work internally. What you and the script sees however is pretty much the same — a request is made to a given page, the request is being ‘routed’ to the PHP engine, it then replies to the server and the response is given back to the requester browser.
What caused the issue (and I’m not trying to point any fingers at someone) is that the developers of the component did not actually check what is the underlying software they are running on. It is much like installing motor boat engine in an airplane — they just don’t work the same. Instead you would need to just check if you are on a motor boat and install the appropriate engine for that type of vehicle.
What broke the website are the rules added to the .htaccess file which are only readable by Apache2. In fact, they are only needed by Apache version 2.x, since there is no mod_deflate for Apache 1.3 and there was no issue to be solved at the very first place.
While I do not question the developers set of requirements, I cannot help but disagree with their point of view, when you have reported the problem. What they actually told you is: “We are too lazy to make sure our software works as expected on a different version. It is completely doable, but regardless we will not do it and since we are too lazy you should change your host to save us some work”.
Again, I’m not pointing fingers or blaming anyone — just my thoughts on the situation. If you are still experiencing any difficulties running the software, please let me know and I will check what can be done so it will work properly.
If you have any other questions or comments, please don’t hesitate to contact us!
Best Regards,
Val M.
Senior Supervisor,
Technical Support Team
2012-02-15 07:54am by ldlewis – Thank you Val. I can’t risk trying to update S2 member again without risking bringing the site down again. Teachers use us daily. We’ve just put out a Presidents day activity that teachers will want access to in these days before February break.
I just don’t see how I can update S2 member knowing what happened yesterday morning. Can you assure me that it won’t happen again? Can you be working with me while I try to update it in case the update crashes my site again?
I don’t know enough to know what is going to crash the site again. I’ve loved S2 member. It took a considerable amount of time and energy to perfect the system as it is running now. Teachers depend on us. Instead of pointing fingers maybe you could lead me through a solution.
I’ve also had great success working with Siteground. But this problem I don’t know how to resolve.
Thanks, Leslie
2012-02-15 08:05am by ldlewis – One more thought.
As we make our site look good we check out how it looks in IE 10, 9, 8 and 7 but don’t check out 6 or before. Nor do we make sure it looks good in Netscape Navigator or Early Firefox.
I really don’t believe that s2 member is doing anything that resembles lazy.
Thank you again, Leslie
2012-02-15 08:44am by val – Hello Leslie,
Let me know if there is anything specific I can help you with. I’m afraid that I cannot provide you with any kind of guarantee that a future upgrade of this particular software will not cause any issues, simply because we are not developing this software and it does not depend on us.
If you have any other questions or comments, please don’t hesitate to contact us!
Best Regards,
Val M.
Senior Supervisor,
Technical Support Team
2012-02-15 11:09am by ldlewis – I’ve tried really hard to explain that I can’t test my site locally with Apache 2 and expect that what happens on siteground will mirror what happens locally for me.
I can’t use S2 member on siteground it seems.
Most everyone that has helped me at siteground has been helpful and an excellent resource. This woman, Val M., seems more interested in calling the S2 member developers “lazy” then in helping me be able to use siteground for my site.
If your Apache system is so much like Apache 2 then there should be no problem … but there is a problem and it appears that you are not interested in accomodating my needs.
Val M. is clearly not of the same quality of individuals that I have had the pleasure of dealing with before.
I will need to find another server. Sad. Leslie
2012-02-15 11:41am by val – Hello,
I’m sorry to hear that you are not satisfied with my replies, yet you haven’t actually stated what exactly is the issue you are experiencing, hence why I’ve asked you if there is anything specific that you would need help with. I can’t really help you if you only state the obvious, which is that we are using Apache 1.3.
As explained earlier in this ticket Apache 1.3 acts much like Apache 2.x versions and the difference is how it handles the tasks internally. The problem comes due to the fact that the developers of S2 member plugin are using code which is only understood by the Apache 2 and they do not check if they are actually on Apache 2 server.
Moreover, the .htaccess rules are fixing an issue which only occurs with Apache2 and your website was not affected at all. Yet, the developers of the plugin decided to put the code and break your website without even checking if they actually needed to do this.
To sum it: the solution, according to the developers of the plugin, is to move to a host using Apache2, where the website would have been broken because of the gzip compression and then successfully fixed by the introduction of the .htaccess rules, regardless that you didn’t really needed this at very first place. It doesn’t sound right to me.
I’m sorry that you do not find me of the same quality of individuals as my colleagues simply because I’ve tried to explain you what the issue is. I probably shouldn’t have done so.
Best Regards,
Val M.
Senior Supervisor,
Technical Support Team
Pre-Sale FAQs
Video Tutorials
Community Forum
Knowledge Base
News/Updates
s2 Codex / Docs
GPL v2 License
Contact A Human
About Us
Our Customers
Support Policy
Privacy Policy
Old Forums (READ-ONLY): The 
