FAQ

GD has been included with PHP since version 4.3 but some older PHP installations do not support it. You will need to contact your webhost to request GD support, or recompile PHP with GD support if you are running Securimage on your own server.

See the Installing/Configuring GD page on php.net for more information.

To have Securimage use the regular imagecreate() function a background image must not be used and transparent text needs to be turned off. Under these two conditions the imagecreate() function will be used.

Note: This function will not work with GIF images. It is recommended to use the PNG format for your images.

You can still use Securimage but you will need to use GD fonts instead of TTF fonts. It is advised to use TTF fonts if possible as certain features of Securimage will not work when using GD fonts (i.e. multiple letter colors, image distortion, transparent text, angled text). GD fonts are also system dependent and can be difficult to find.

First see if the text will appear by setting use_transparent_text to false (ex. $img->use_transparent_text = false;).

If the text still does not appear, you will need to make sure the path to the TTF font file is correct and that the font file is accessible. It is recommended to use an absolute path to the TTF file. This varies between configurations and web hosts but some examples are (/home/yoursite/public_html, /var/site/html for Unix/Linux or C:\inetpub\wwwroot on Windows). If you are unsure of the path, check with your host or try the following code: $img->ttf_file = $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] . ‘/securimage/font.ttf’; The font name and Securimage folder will depend on where it was uploaded and what font is uploaded.

To verify that another problem doesn’t exist, try viewing the image directly in your browser by going to securimage_show.php in your browser.

After saving the file with those changes go to securimage_show.php in your browser to see if any errors are displayed that can help in determining why the image is not showing.

If you are unsure of your path, contact your host or try changing the include to include $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] . ‘/securimage/securimage.php’;.

Securimage will attempt to attach itself to an existing session but will attempt to create a new one if one does not exist. Because of this, your code must have a session established or securimage.php must be included before any HTML is sent. The easiest way to solve this is to start a session at the very beginning of the first page that is named in the error message (page.php as shown above). To do this use <?php session_start(); ?> on line 1 of the page.

If you are integrating securimage.php into an existing software platform you should make sure starting a session yourself will not interfere with its operation.

2. Check to make sure the HTML input tag’s name attribute for the captcha code input is the same name that is being checked in your validation code. If your form uses <input type=”text” name=”captcha_code” /> then the form processor must reference $_POST['captcha_code'] when calling $Securimage->check().

3. If the variable names are the same this may be due to a problem with the PHP session that is used to keep track of the user and what their code is. It is possible that the session was not started or more likely that the session name being used in securimage_show.php differs from the session name used in the script that does the code validation. It is common for other software platforms (forums, content management systems, form processors etc.) to use a session name other than the PHP default. If this is the case, you must determine what session name is used by the software and use the same session name in securimage_show.php and securimage_play.php.

A non-default session name can be passed to Securimage so it can share a session with another software platform with the following code: $img->session_name = ‘your_session_name’;

Note: Securimage will NEVER destroy a session so it is safe to use with systems that persist user data with sessions; it only changes its own session variables.