I’ve been a big fan of the ReCAPTCHA service since it launched and was eager to implment it on my blog when MT4 was released last year. It was a complete kludge to get it working, but I eventually did figure out the voodoo necessary. You would think I’d leave well enough alone, but alas, I did not. I attempted to upgrade to the latest version, failed and then took the long road back to version .01.
How It All Began
For starters, I decided to upgrade to version 4.1 from version 4.01 of MovableType. I exported my entries and comments, deleted the entire site from the server and then did a clean install and import. Once I was sure everything was running properly, I began adding my plugins back and saw that there was an update for the MT ReCAPTCHA plugin. That’s when I played with fire and decided to upgrade to the new version only to find out it didn’t work.
What Went Wrong
The plugin itself installed just fine and the one big change that I saw what that the public and private key information was stored properly now in the plugin. Previously you had to enter this into the plugin itself, so this was a nice change. There could be other enhancements, but that was the one that I noticed.
So far so good, but as I walked through the rest of the instructions, I ran into a huge snag.
8. Edit Javascipt index template, to remove these lines of code which calls delayShowCaptcha… [snip] …If your install does not have these lines in JavaScript index template, these lines should be in GlobalJavaScript, which is a global system template.
Guess what, there was nothing in the Javascript index template that matched the calls I was looking for. Moreover, there isn’t a GlobalJavaScript template in the default build of 4.1.
Hitting a dead end, I tried rebuilding the site in the hopes that everything would work anyway, but of course it didn’t. No errors, but no display of the ReCAPTCHA code either.
Time For A Rewind
Luckily, I had copies of my templates and the old plugin, so I figured I’d simply revert back to what I had previously. Things didn’t work out that way because in an effort to get the new version working, I’d made changes in the “Blog Settings” as well.
“No problem”, I thought, because I could just pull up Josh Carter’s original reference of how to implement version .01 of the plugin. Unfortunately, it appears that he’s moving his site to TextDrive and that page is no longer available. CRAP!
Doing a Google Search and then pulling up the cached version though did save the day and I was able to get my blog configured properly again. *WHEW*
Plugin Redux
With everything back up and running properly, I decided to indulge in one more whim. I kept the templates and blog settings like they were for .01 and just dropped in the .02 version of the plugin. My hope was that the problem existed with the templates and not the plugin itself, but that didn’t work either.
So as it stands, only the hacked .01 method has successfully worked for me. The new version simply doesn’t work in any way shape or form. Looking in the forums, I see that other people are having trouble with it too, so at least I’m not alone.
Given the fact that Josh’s site is down and that I can’t seem to find the earlier version of the plugin, I’m thinking I might need to create a post specifically on how to get this working as a resource for others. Maybe even go so far as to provide the original plugin. I don’t know. What do you think?