Title: Auto Minify using wrong paths
Last modified: August 30, 2016

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# Auto Minify using wrong paths

 *  [levymetal](https://wordpress.org/support/users/levymetal/)
 * (@levymetal)
 * [10 years, 11 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/auto-minify-using-wrong-paths/)
 * I run a few sites using W3 Total Cache. They’ve been fine for years, but over
   the weekend, all of these sites stopped working (well, they had no styles and
   no JS). Perhaps my hosting provider changed some settings, but I cannot for the
   life of me figure out how to fix this.
 * The issue is that minify stopped working. I enabled logging, and the issue is
   that w3 total cache is somehow generating totally incorrect paths. For example:
 * `File "/home/xxxxxx/public_html/wp-content/plugins/home/xxxxxx/public_html/home/
   xxxxxx/public_html/wp-content/themes/acf/lib/chosen_v1.3.0/chosen.min.css" doesn't
   exist`
 * And
 * `File "/home/yyyyyy/public_html/wp-content/plugins/home/yyyyyy/public_html/home/
   yyyyyy/public_html/wp-content/themes/varga/style.css" doesn't exist`
 * These are two separate websites, and I have others with the exact same error 
   too.
 * As you can see, it should be looking for the file in /home/yyyyyy/public_html/
   wp-content/themes/varga/style.css, not /home/yyyyyy/public_html/wp-content/plugins/
   home/yyyyyy/public_html/home/yyyyyy/public_html/wp-content/themes/varga/style.
   css
 * I mean, these URLs are very weird. It’s like [PLUGIN_PATH][ROOT_PATH][FILE_PATH]
   instead of just being [FILE_PATH].
 * Any idea why this is happening? I’ve had to disable minify on all of my websites
   because of this, which is quite annoying.
 * [https://wordpress.org/plugins/w3-total-cache/](https://wordpress.org/plugins/w3-total-cache/)

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)

 *  [Scott Hartley](https://wordpress.org/support/users/destac/)
 * (@destac)
 * [10 years, 11 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/auto-minify-using-wrong-paths/#post-6321700)
 * What happens if you use manual minify?
 *  Thread Starter [levymetal](https://wordpress.org/support/users/levymetal/)
 * (@levymetal)
 * [10 years, 11 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/auto-minify-using-wrong-paths/#post-6321704)
 * Manual minify is unacceptable.
 * I’ve done a bit of digging and managed to narrow the issue down to w3_get_document_root()
   inside define.php.
 * Doing a var_dump( $_SERVER[‘SCRIPT_FILENAME’] ) results in this: 2string(94) “/
   home/xxxxxx/public_html/wp-content/plugins/w3-total-cache/pub/minify.phpnify.
   phpinify.php”
 * To me, this looks like a server issue, so I’m going to investigate some more 
   to try and figure out why this might be happening.
 * But if anyone has any ideas, please let me know.
 * EDIT: It looks like I’ve found someone else with the same issue: [https://wordpress.org/support/topic/again-error-occurred-while-creating-the-css-js-minify-cache-no-sources](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/again-error-occurred-while-creating-the-css-js-minify-cache-no-sources)
 * There are no solutions on that thread. I would really appreciate a solution, 
   or at least information as to why the filename is getting assigned to minify.
   phpnify.phpinify.php so that I can contact my hosting provider.
 *  [botty](https://wordpress.org/support/users/botty/)
 * (@botty)
 * [10 years, 11 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/auto-minify-using-wrong-paths/#post-6321797)
 * **I FOUND A FIX!!!**
 * The problem, as [@levymetal](https://wordpress.org/support/users/levymetal/) 
   said, is in the _$\_SERVER[‘SCRIPT\_FILENAME’]_ in _w3\_get\_document\_root()_
   inside _/inc/define.php_
 * I still don’t know why it takes the wrong file name, but I think it’s an error,
   or a different way, in which the LiteSpeed server compared to Apache server is
   configured, because my hoster switched from Apache to LiteSpeed overnight (without
   me knowing) and before this change it was working perfectly.
 * In my case (sometimes, not always) it returned: “/home/xxxxx/public_html/wp-content/
   plugins/w3-total-cache/pub/minify.php/0nify.php/0inify.php”
    instead of “/home/
   xxxxxx/public_html/wp-content/plugins/w3-total-cache/pub/minify.php”
 * To fix it, I changed this **line (760)** in the file **/inc/define.php** of the
   plugin
 *     ```
       $document_root = substr(w3_path($_SERVER['SCRIPT_FILENAME']), 0, -strlen(w3_path($_SERVER['PHP_SELF'])));
       ```
   
 * with this:
 *     ```
       $filename = strtolower(w3_path($_SERVER['SCRIPT_FILENAME']));
       if (substr_count($filename, ".php") > 1) {
       	$pos = strpos($filename, ".php");
       	$filename = substr($filename, 0, $pos+4);
       }
       $document_root = substr($filename, 0, -strlen(w3_path($_SERVER['PHP_SELF'])));
       ```
   
 * Essentially it checks if there is more than one “.php” in the file name (which,
   theoretically, it shouldn’t be the case) then deletes all the character after
   the first “.php” and goes on normally.
 * **BEWARE:**
    On my site this workaround works perfectly, but you should implement
   it at your own risk, because you could have a configuration different from mine.
   I have a pretty standard configuration (shared hosting, WP installed in root,
   not in sub-folder, no multisite network) and the minify function doesn’t parse
   any file with parameters (file.ext?par=value) so I know for sure that if there
   is more than one “.php” is an error (if you use parameters, it may be possible
   that the presence of more than one “.php” is correct and intentional, so check
   carefully all the file)
 * **IMPORTANT!!!**
    The function _w3\_get\_document\_root()_ that I modified is
   used generally by W3 Total Cache and not only by the minify function. So please
   be aware of the change you are making!!!
 * I hope that this could be useful to other people too.

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)

The topic ‘Auto Minify using wrong paths’ is closed to new replies.

 * ![](https://ps.w.org/w3-total-cache/assets/icon-256x256.png?rev=1041806)
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 * 3 replies
 * 3 participants
 * Last reply from: [botty](https://wordpress.org/support/users/botty/)
 * Last activity: [10 years, 11 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/auto-minify-using-wrong-paths/#post-6321797)
 * Status: not resolved