TOPIC: Freetype Support

Hi there,
I have the captcha image not displaying problem.
I checked my php config and the freetype support is not installed.
I have asked my web host to enable it but they said "due to the nature of shared hosting we don't make modifications to the server as it can affect other users negatively"

Is there any way I can install this myself on a web hosting service? - also I am pretty new at all this and learning as I go along so please bear with me.

Many Thanks

Nope. You need root access to the Linux OS to install the FreeType library for the PHP/Apache server. It's impossible and I advise you to seek a new host, that's pretty poor that they don't have FreeType. Basically it's needed to turn some text (generated from the captcha security code) into an image.

I'm not sure, but the next release that should have ReCaptcha support might not even need FreeType. Until then, you'll have to make do without Captcha security at all.

Thanks for you help, I have asked the host again and asked what their other joomla clients do? Maybe they will find a solution!

Thanks for your good work.

OK so my hosting company enabled the freetype support after a bit of probing and things looked good and started working with the captcha image and text. I tried out a few comments and it seemed to be working fine.

Then the server went down at the hosting company and the site went down. When the server was up again the sql user was not restored by the company so I manually created it and now the site appears to be working again. - But the captcha image has disapeered again.

I guess they have changed the configuration but who knows where.

So my configuration is
Joomla 1.5.14
Apache version 2.2.13 (Unix)
MySQL version 5.0.81-community
PHP version 5.2.11
GD Support enabled
GD Version bundled (2.0.34 compatible)
FreeType Support enabled
FreeType Linkage with freetype
FreeType Version 2.2.1
GIF Read Support enabled
GIF Create Support enabled
JPG Support enabled
PNG Support enabled
WBMP Support enabled
XPM Support enabled
XBM Support enabled

Any ideas on what else could have stopped the captcha this time.

Once again thanks for your help!!

Lol... they probably restored from a backup, the fact that the Database user was not restored sounds very dodgy. They probably borked the FreeType library now...

I really don't know. All I can suggest is to move to a better, modern, Joomla-working host such as GoDaddy or HostGator, or wait for 4.0 RC1 which will have ReCaptcha (I dont think that needs FreeType).

OK i'll wait for the next release - I've only just taken out the hosting so will wait til it expires next year. At least I am learning a lot about the setup this way

Thanks again for your time