PHP - Cannot access external URLs

Question

I have recently upgraded my website's servers due to high amounts of traffic. On the new servers, some aspects of PHP seem to be broken. I have a very specific code that isn't working. However, due to copyright reasons, I can only show the non-confidential equivalent to you:

<?php
echo file_get_contents('http://www.google.com');
?>

This code worked absolutely flawlessly before the upgrade, and now some odd setting here or there has prevented this code for working.

To be specific, the file_get_contents function doesn't work at all, regardless of what external URL you put in (file_get_contents('index.php') works fine);

Any help is appreciated!

UPDATE #1
This code does not work either:

<?php
ini_set("allow_url_fopen", "On");
echo file_get_contents('http://www.google.com');
?>

UPDATE #2
This code works...

<?php
    ini_set("allow_url_fopen", "On");
    $url = "http://www.google.com/";
    $ch = curl_init();
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
    $data = curl_exec($ch);
    curl_close($ch);
    echo $data;
?>

... but if I try to do simplexml_load_file($data); bad things happen. Same if I do simplexml_load_file('http://www.google.com')...

[allow_url_fopen](http://ch2.php.net/manual/en/filesystem.configuration.php#ini.allow-url-fopen) — str, May 25 '13 at 09:35
Does it work if you use IP address instead of URL? I've had this issue in the past where PHP has been unable to resolve domain names. And do things other than file_get_contents work for external URLs? — Sysyphus, May 25 '13 at 09:37
@VCNinc `"On"` is not a boolean. What does `ini_set()` return? — str, May 25 '13 at 09:45
Check that you have the same configuration in php.ini in both machines. Probably some of the permissions are not set correctly in the new configuration as @str said. — Mike, May 25 '13 at 10:10
Maybe firewall issue. Can initialize an external connection in anyway from your new server ? — GiDo, May 25 '13 at 10:19
@VCNinc According to the documentation you should use `"1"`. — str, May 25 '13 at 14:56
@str The one thing I didn't try! `"1"` didn't work either, I still can't get the `simplexml_load_file();` function to work! — VCNinc, May 26 '13 at 04:34

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered May 25 '13 at 09:35

2

First check file_get_contents return value. If the value is FALSE then it could not read it. If the value is NULL then the function itself is disabled.

answered May 25 '13 at 09:35

Vivek Sadh

4,230
3
32
49

hi, if I write `echo file_get_contents("http://www.google.com");`, nothing is echoed. I assume NULL – VCNinc May 25 '13 at 12:17

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered May 25 '13 at 09:37

2

Try CURL instead.

$url = "http://google.com/";
$ch = curl_init();
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
$data = curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);

The contents will be stored in $data.

answered May 25 '13 at 09:37

Krasi

46
2

score 1 · Answer 3 · edited May 25 '13 at 10:07

1

You could throw in headers

reference file-get-contents

<?php
// Create a stream
$opts = array(
  'http'=>array(
    'method'=>"GET",
    'header'=>"Accept-language: en\r\n" .
              "Cookie: foo=bar\r\n"
  )
);

$context = stream_context_create($opts);

// Open the file using the HTTP headers set above
$file = file_get_contents('http://www.example.com/', false, $context);
?>

edited May 25 '13 at 10:07

Chris

5,584
9
40
58

answered May 25 '13 at 09:37

JohannesAndersson

4,550
2
17
30

score 1 · Answer 4 · answered May 26 '13 at 04:44

1

I found the answer but the credit goes to Krasi;

I used CURL and then used simplexml_load_string($data);

Thanks for all of your help

answered May 26 '13 at 04:44

VCNinc

747
1
9
25

PHP - Cannot access external URLs

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