Question

WordPress error "file_get_contents: unable to request the remote URL"

Posted on July 14, 2017
Ubuntu 16.04 PHP WordPress
Asked by Jessy Forsyth

Hello,

I’m getting the error “file_get_contents: unable to request the remote URL” with a opt-in plugin. I tested it on my shared server and there were no issues. No such luck on my droplet.

I spent a few days searching forums. I’ve enabled the following lines in my php.ini.


allow_url_fopen = On
allow_url_inclure = On

I created a test file to make sure it work the allow_ worked.

What else can be the issue? I contacted the plugin developer and they passed it off saying to contact the host. Nice paid support, eh?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

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Flamber Hansen • July 14, 2017

Accepted Answer

@jforsyth

This is an open forum, so you might want to delete that account again.

What I meant be “URL”, was not where the error occurs, but rather which URL the function file_get_contents is chocking on.

We probably need to check the error log for more details. This command will show the last 30 lines from the error log, which has it’s default location here:

tail -30 /var/log/apache2/error.log

Jessy Forsyth • July 14, 2017

Ok. So on Digital Ocean I can’t use the same email address as my Mailchimp account but it worked on my shared server. I tried a random email address and it worked on Digital Ocean…

It is such a simple bug…

Thanks for your help @hansen