System requirements for installing Blog2Social

Blog2Social works fine with standard settings. However, here are some general system requirements that you should check, in case something does not work as expected.

First of all, you should check the performance and speed of your website to make sure your WordPress installation as well as plugins like Blog2Social can work with optimal performance. The page speed of your website is one of the most important factors for your Google ranking as well as for the social media to display your posts and images correctly. There are several options to find out, whether your website loads with appropriate page speed.

You can test your PageSpeed scores with the Google page speed checker by entering the URL of your website URL on the following page: https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/  
The tool will offer suggestions on how to improve your page speed if your scores are below average.

Another option to test the response of your website is by using Traceroute, Ping, MTR, and PathPing:
https://www.clouddirect.net/knowledge-base/KB0011455/using-traceroute-ping-mtr-and-pathping
These are network tools or utilities that test if your website can be reached at all, the response time of your website and if the performance of your website ensures a good user-experience.

Please make sure to check the following system requirements for your blog to make sure to get the best out of your work with Blog2Social:

• Wordpress Version > 4.7.0
• PHP Version > 5.5.3
• PHP Extension OpenSSL  
• MySQL Version > 5.5.3
  The MYSQL user (see wp-config.php in the Wordpress installation) needs the following rights to install Blog2Social correctly:
  - SELECT
  - UPDATE
  - INSERT
  - DELETE
  - CREATE
  - ALTER
  - INDEX
  - SHOW
  You can adjust the rights of the database user via your hoster panel (PHPMyAdmin).
• Memory limit > 256M
  Solutions:
  a) in wp-config.php File (in root folder of WordPress) define ("WP_MEMORY_LIMIT", "256M");  //512M   (M=MEGABYTE)  Minimum 256M 
  b) in .htaccess File (in root folder of WordPress): "php_value memory_limit 256M"   c) in php.ini File (in Apache Folder): "memory_limit=256M"
• Activate Heartbeats
  Wordpress is working with heartbeats by default. Of course, you can deactivate or regulate heartbeats with plugins such as "Heartbeats Control" or "WP Rocket". However, deactivating heartbeats prevents the background tasks of Wordpress and Blog2Social from being executed properly.
  For instance, sharing posts automatically in your social media is blocked by the plugin "Heartbeat Control". Please make sure that the plugin is not set to "disable everywhere".
  
  It might occur that no heartbeat is sent between the time you publish your post on your blog and logging out if heartbeats are limited with the plugin "WP Rocket". If you log in again, a heartbeat will be executed directly, which will send the data. Therefore, please do not limit heartbeats to make sure that your posts are shared automatically on your social media.
  However, if you want to regulate heartbeats anyway, you can do so without selectively deactivating the plugin: http://www.wpbeginner.com/plugins/how-to-limit-heartbeat-api-in-wordpress/
  
  Please note: Some Hosting services such as WPEngine restrict heartbeats by default. If you encounter the following message and have not actively restricted heartbeats, please contact your hosting service and ask them to enable heartbeats for you.
  
  
• Hotlink Protection: Several performance plugins or security tools provide Hotlink Protection. Hotlinking describes the embedding of external images or videos on your own website. A Hotlink is generated, for instance, if somebody visits your website and shares one of your videos or images on his own website or on social media. Social networks and third-party tools like Blog2Social use Hotlinks to display your images in the post preview correctly. Hotlink Protection blocks this option and prevents you and your social media community of this option to share your images, your infographics, or your videos across the internet. To check, if your website or your images are blocked by Hotlink Protection, you can use the following tools:
  
  Hotlink-Checker: Free-Webhosting offers such a service for free. You can check the URL of your image to see if your image is blocked by Hotlink Protection. Just make sure to clear the cache of your browser (press ctrl + F5 in your open browser window) before you do the check! 
  
  Blog2Social Troubleshooting Tool: You can use the Blog2Social Troubleshooting Tool in the Blog2Social dashboard. The protocol will show you if your website has activated Hotlink Protection.
  
  To deactivate Hotlink Protection you should check and uninstall or deactivate all activated plugins for Hotlink Protection or deactivate the Hotlink Protection settings in your plugins. If you are not sure which of your plugins enable Hotlink Protection, you can find some example plugins in the WordPress.org directory.
  
  Or, select your „htaccess“-directory, check on the following entries and delete them if necessary, as these entries might prevent third-party sites and services like social networks and Blog2Social from accessing your images and videos:
  
  
  • RewriteEngine on
  • RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
  • RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http(s)?://(www\.)?yourdomain.com [NC]
  • RewriteRule \.(jpg|jpeg|png|gif)$ - [NC,F,L]
  • RewriteRule .*\.(jpe?g|gif|bmp|png)$ - [F]

• PHP CURL extension enable in php.ini
  STEP BY STEP Solution:
  - Locate your PHP.ini file. (normally located in the bin folder of your apache install e.g.)
  - Open the PHP.ini in notepad.
  - Search or find the following: ';extension=php_curl.dll'
  - Uncomment this by removing the semi-colon ';' before it.
  - Save and Close PHP.ini.
  - Restart Apache.
• Max execution time  >= 40 Seconds
  Solutions:
  a) in .htaccess File (in root folder of wordpress): "php_value max_execution_time 40"
  b) use wordpress plugin: https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-maximum-execution-time-exceeded/
• Max post size (optional)
  Solution:
    a) in .htaccess File (in root folder of wordpress): "php_value post_max_size 200M"
• Enable PHP DOM extension
• Permission to write into the database: Please make sure that you have permission to write into the database of your blog.
• PHP mbstring extension:
  Please activate server-side the PHP "mbstring" extension in your "php.ini" file to use the character limit function.

Firewall settings

If you use an additional Firewall, please make sure that your settings allow outgoing connections or include an exception or whitelisting for Blog2Social.

More tips for troubleshooting

• The connection to the server failed. Please try again!
• How to check your blog settings with the Troubleshooting-Tool
  
• My Dashboard is freezing
• Social Media Connections don’t load
• What should I do if I get the message “Please make sure that your website address is reachable.”?
• 403 Forbidden error solution
• Social Media Connections don’t load