A Modified File Is Evidence, Not a Verdict: Practical File Integrity for PHP Applications
Hash mismatches are precise about bytes and deliberately silent about intent. That is exactly why they are useful.
4 min readREAD NOTE →
PRBLEM // TECHNICAL FIELD NOTES
Field Notes
Detailed notes on WordPress, XenForo, PHP, release integrity and the quiet failures that make production systems harder to trust.
The Production Readiness Checklist Every PHP Project Should Have
A deployment is not finished when the files upload successfully. Production readiness is a set of explicit checks that make hidden assumptions visible.
5 min readREAD NOTE →
PHP Upload Limits Are More Complicated Than upload_max_filesize
The number shown in php.ini may not be the number a user can successfully upload. The effective limit is the smallest relevant boundary in…
4 min readREAD NOTE →
HTTP 301 Is Not Always Good: The Hidden Cost of Redirect Chains
A redirect can be correct in isolation and still be part of a bad route. Trace the whole chain, not one response.
4 min readREAD NOTE →
Why WordPress Plugin Uninstallers Leave Data Behind
Uninstalling a plugin and deleting every trace of its data are not the same operation—and sometimes that is intentional.
5 min readREAD NOTE →
Stop ‘Repairing’ Databases You Haven’t Diagnosed
Database maintenance commands are changes, not diagnoses. The first job is to identify what is actually unusual.
5 min readREAD NOTE →
XenForo Cron Jobs Explained: How Scheduled Work Fails, Drifts and Recovers
A scheduled entry can exist, be enabled and still fail to produce the outcome you expect. Diagnose progress, ownership and timing separately.
5 min readREAD NOTE →
WP-Cron Is Not a Real Cron Job — And That Matters More Than You Think
WP-Cron is a scheduling mechanism, but its default execution model is request-driven. That difference explains many mysterious delayed tasks.
5 min readREAD NOTE →
SHA-256 Isn’t Just for Security: How to Verify the File You Actually Shipped
A checksum is a small piece of release infrastructure that can answer one very important question with byte-level precision.
6 min readREAD NOTE →
Your Site Returns 200 OK. That Doesn’t Mean It’s OK.
A healthy HTTP response proves that one request completed. It does not prove that the application around it is healthy.
6 min readREAD NOTE →