Captcha Problem Version 7

[gtekser]

I was pleased to find Gabriel Crowe’s HTML code fix for the captcha tutorial discovered recently @ http://community.actinic.com/archive...p/t-34301.html

I don't know that much about the HTML and my web host company volunteered to amend my files to implement the Gabriel's captcha fix.
i.e.
ContactUs,
Primary,
mail_form,
and
P-mail_form


I assume that 4 files needed amending not 3, Unfortunately Gabriel Crowe’s code didn't work in this instance – maybe because I have the older version Actinic V7. To explain a bit more about what happened with amended code/fix……..

My hosting company originally explain to me where the code ought to go within each file - to prevent any errors (on my part) he re-emailed me the amended files, I put them into my Site1 folder in the appropriate place and uploaded to the website.
http://www.guitartechnicalservices.c...CTION=SHOWFORM

Initially I did not refresh the website but just did an ‘upload’. When this didn't work, I then did a complete ‘site refresh’ which also didn't work? The contact form still allowed e-mails to be sent – the captcha window for inserting the code was present but captcha image would not appear !

As a last resort, my hosting company said that they could get it to work only by tweaking it 'on the server', however if I did a site refresh in the future, it would wipe out their work and have to be redone again.
I have no idea what they tweaked.
Obviously this is only a temporary solution and I would prefer it to work properly irrespective of site refreshing.

So I now I have two situations …
a) to sort the captcha out so it stays stable regardless of site refresh
b) fix the spam that I still get after captcha installed

NB: The hosting company got it to work on Wednesday and on Friday I received spam bot rubbish so, either captcha hasn't stopped automatic spam or its going a different route.

What I did notice in the spam e-mail source properties was ………..
X-Source: /usr/bin/perl
X-Source-Args: /usr/bin/perl mf000001.pl
X-Source-Dir: guitartechnicalservices.co.uk:/public_html/cgi-bin

So I don't know whether the spam bots are navigating around the HTML.

In conclusion I don't know whether there is
a) something special that needs to be done with version 7 actinic for captcha to work without server tweaks
b) and also whether something needs to be done with the Perl script.- this was modified years ago to prevent the email address propagating spam – another forum fix.

I hope that I am not alone with this problem and would much appreciate your thoughts on resolving this issue

Thank you in anticipation

[gtekser]

After going over this problem for days, one significant difference between Captcha working or not seems to come down to the mail_form.
Clearly putting the code in as shown by Mr Crowe didn't work. This modification shown here was done for me - So, I have shown here what was eventually uploaded via the actinic mechanism and have called this “mail_form uploaded”. Now before people start jumping on this and saying it is wrong, this is the result after Actinic v7 has gone through the process of uploading.
Currently the site will show the effect of this for today only - not an April fools joke.

What was actually put into the HTML folder ready for upload was the following, which I have called “mail_form forced” - to differentiate. Now the reason I call this forced is because, when this is uploaded directly by the server (by-passing actinic) and forcing it into the ‘actalog folder’, the Captcha works!

I have tried comparing the two files with WinMerge but it shows massive differences which are partially down to large spaces.
Therefore the fundamental question/problem is why is this being churned out onto the web server differently from how it started? …and how to correct it?