Very strange bahaviour from Perch admin area and perch_content_custom

Hello,

I've come across a very strange problem which I think you should be aware of. I've fixed the problem, but I wanted to run it past you in case you'd heard of similar occurrences.

Basically, the problem manifested itself by the Perch admin area constantly redirecting to /perch/core/update (which resulted in a 404 because the /update folder had been deleted). On the front-end, any content pulled into a page using perch_content_custom() or perch_blog_custom() was missing. No error messages were shown. Content pulled in using perch_content() and perch_blog_recent_posts() appeared as expected.

I fixed the problem by replacing the /perch/core folder with its equivalent from the staging version of the site.

According the client, the problem occurred when he was working on a draft blog post. He had saved and clicked on preview, then left the tab with the draft blog post and the preview tab open while he left his computer briefly (he works alone - there was no-one else that could have touched the computer). The problem started when he refreshed the preview page when he returned.

After I replaced the Perch core, there were two new page instances listed in the page list. They were both "ghost" pages - imprints of existing pages but possessing invalid directory structures.

My first thought was malware, but nothing was found when we checked our systems.

As I've mentioned - this is just for your info. The problem is fixed AFAIK. If you need any further info, though, please let me know.

Thanks, Jon

Here's the diagnostics.

    Perch: 2.8.8
    Production mode: Production (100)
    Installed apps: content (2.8.8), assets (2.8.8), categories (2.8.8), perch_blog (4.6), perch_backup (1.2)
    DB driver: PDO
    DB tables: perch2_blog_authors, perch2_blog_comments, perch2_blog_index, perch2_blog_posts, perch2_blog_posts_to_tags, perch2_blog_sections, perch2_blog_tags, perch2_categories, perch2_category_counts, perch2_category_sets, perch2_content_index, perch2_content_items, perch2_content_regions, perch2_navigation, perch2_navigation_pages, perch2_page_templates, perch2_pages, perch2_resource_log, perch2_resource_tags, perch2_resources, perch2_resources_to_tags, perch2_settings, perch2_user_privileges, perch2_user_role_privileges, perch2_user_roles, perch2_users
    Users: 2
    App runtimes:

    <?php
        $apps_list = array(
            'content', 
            'categories',
            'perch_blog',
            'perch_backup'
        );

    Scheduled tasks for perch_blog: delete_spam_comments (1440 mins)
    Editor plug-ins: markitup
    H1: 00784e28ebc9953570bc4aaa4193b0a4
    L1: 80d34e58150f2d8e0ef7851cecd0a0ad
    headerColour: #ffffff
    content_singlePageEdit: 1
    helpURL:
    siteURL: /
    hideBranding: 0
    content_collapseList: 0
    lang: en-gb
    update_2.8.6: done
    latest_version: 2.8.8
    on_sale_version: 2.8.8
    perch_blog_update: 5.0
    perch_blog_post_url: /article/{postSlug}
    headerScheme: light
    perch_blog_slug_format: {postID}-{postTitle}
    perch_blog_akismet_key:
    perch_blog_max_spam_days: 0
    dashboard: 0
    hide_pwd_reset: 0
    content_hideNonEditableRegions: 0
    content_frontend_edit: 0
    perch_blog_comment_notify: 0
    logoPath: /perch/resources/nexus_logo.png
    update_2.8.7: done
    update_2.8.8: done
    PERCH_DEVELOPMENT: 10
    PERCH_STAGING: 50
    PERCH_PRODUCTION: 100
    PERCH_DB_USERNAME: nexus-323
    PERCH_DB_SERVER: 10.16.16.4
    PERCH_DB_DATABASE: nexus-323
    PERCH_DB_PREFIX: perch2_
    PERCH_TZ: Europe/London
    PERCH_EMAIL_FROM: jon@jonathanbrain.com
    PERCH_EMAIL_FROM_NAME: Jon Brain
    PERCH_LOGINPATH: /perch
    PERCH_PATH: /home/cluster-sites/4/n/nexusb2b.com/public_html/perch
    PERCH_CORE: /home/cluster-sites/4/n/nexusb2b.com/public_html/perch/core
    PERCH_RESFILEPATH: /home/cluster-sites/4/n/nexusb2b.com/public_html/perch/resources
    PERCH_RESPATH: /perch/resources
    PERCH_HTML5: 1
    PERCH_CLEAN_RESOURCES:
    PERCH_RUNWAY:
    PERCH_ERROR_MODE: DIE
    PERCH_DATE_LONG: %d %B %Y
    PERCH_DATE_SHORT: %d %b %Y
    PERCH_TIME_SHORT: %H:%M
    PERCH_TIME_LONG: %H:%M:%S
    PERCH_DEBUG:
    PERCH_PREVIEW_ARG: preview
    PERCH_TEMPLATE_PATH: /home/cluster-sites/4/n/nexusb2b.com/public_html/perch/templates
    PERCH_DEFAULT_DOC: index.php
    PERCH_DEFAULT_EXT: .php
    PERCH_PRODUCTION_MODE: 100
    PERCH_RWD:
    PERCH_HTML_ENTITIES:
    PERCH_SSL:
    PERCH_STRIPSLASHES:
    PERCH_PROGRESSIVE_FLUSH: 1
    PERCH_AUTH_PLUGIN:
    PERCH_DB_CHARSET: utf8
    PERCH_DB_PORT:
    PERCH_DB_SOCKET:

Hosting settings

    PHP: 5.4.26
    Zend: 2.4.0
    OS: Linux
    SAPI: cgi-fcgi
    Safe mode: not detected
    MySQL client: mysqlnd 5.0.10 - 20111026 - $Id: c85105d7c6f7d70d609bb4c000257868a40840ab $
    MySQL server: 5.5.5-10.0.14-MariaDB
    Extensions: Core, date, ereg, libxml, openssl, pcre, zlib, bz2, calendar, ctype, hash, filter, ftp, gettext, gmp, SPL, iconv, pcntl, readline, Reflection, session, standard, shmop, SimpleXML, sockets, mbstring, tokenizer, xml, cgi-fcgi, bcmath, curl, dom, enchant, fileinfo, gd, imap, intl, json, ldap, exif, mcrypt, mssql, mysqlnd, mysql, mysqli, odbc, PDO, pdo_dblib, pdo_mysql, PDO_ODBC, pdo_pgsql, pdo_sqlite, pgsql, Phar, posix, pspell, recode, soap, sqlite3, sysvmsg, sysvsem, sysvshm, tidy, wddx, xmlreader, xmlrpc, xmlwriter, xsl, zip, mhash, ionCube Loader, Zend Guard Loader
    GD: Yes
    ImageMagick: No
    PHP max upload size: 64M
    PHP max form post size: 64M
    PHP memory limit: 128M
    Total max uploadable file size: 64M
    Resource folder writeable: Yes
    Session timeout: 24 minutes
    Native JSON: Yes
    Filter functions: Yes
    Transliteration functions: Yes
    PATH: /usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin
    UNIQUE_ID: VZ@F438AAAEAAFx9bqcAAAAI
    HTTP_HOST: nexusb2b.com
    HTTP_USER_AGENT: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.3; WOW64; rv:39.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/39.0
    HTTP_ACCEPT: text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,*/*;q=0.8
    HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE: en-US,en;q=0.5
    HTTP_ACCEPT_ENCODING: gzip, deflate
    HTTP_REFERER: https://nexusb2b.com/perch/core/settings/diagnostics/
    HTTP_COOKIE: __utma=10778283.943419592.1423669937.1436344290.1436453729.25; __utmz=10778283.1435061039.17.2.utmcsr=nexusb2b.jonathanbrain.com|utmccn=(referral)|utmcmd=referral|utmcct=/blog/article/12-integrating-inbound-marketing-with-outbound-sales-is-essential; __hstc=153692839.34a4ac75b5f2d22a1cead8a2cc4da267.1427979519438.1436344308059.1436453730093.23; hsfirstvisit=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nexusb2b.com%2F||1427979519437; hubspotutk=34a4ac75b5f2d22a1cead8a2cc4da267; cmsa=1; cookieconsent_dismissed=yes; __utmc=10778283; __hssrc=1; PHPSESSID=ab3s9ti8hnd7cca3r9mc9cval0
    HTTP_X_BRAND: 123
    HTTP_CONNECTION: close
    SERVER_SIGNATURE: <address>Apache/2.4.12 (Unix) Server at nexusb2b.com Port 80</address>
    SERVER_SOFTWARE: Apache/2.4.12 (Unix)
    SERVER_NAME: nexusb2b.com
    SERVER_ADDR: 10.16.12.13
    SERVER_PORT: 80
    REMOTE_ADDR: 86.27.81.239
    DOCUMENT_ROOT: /home/cluster-sites/4/n/nexusb2b.com/public_html
    REQUEST_SCHEME: http
    CONTEXT_PREFIX: /
    CONTEXT_DOCUMENT_ROOT: /home/cluster-sites/4/n/nexusb2b.com/public_html
    SERVER_ADMIN: root@localhost
    SCRIPT_FILENAME: /home/cluster-sites/4/n/nexusb2b.com/public_html/perch/core/settings/diagnostics/index.php
    REMOTE_PORT: 37861
    GATEWAY_INTERFACE: CGI/1.1
    SERVER_PROTOCOL: HTTP/1.1
    REQUEST_METHOD: GET
    QUERY_STRING: extended
    REQUEST_URI: /perch/core/settings/diagnostics/?extended
    SCRIPT_NAME: /perch/core/settings/diagnostics/index.php
    PHP_SELF: /perch/core/settings/diagnostics/index.php
    REQUEST_TIME_FLOAT: 1436517859.6064
    REQUEST_TIME: 1436517859