$250 a year or a month?  If it's a year that's barely over $20 a month.  If it's working and you can get away with it it's fine but in general, I wouldn't trust that for any client sites.  You're going to get something a lot more consistent and reliable that can host many client websites (not to mention better support) in the $50 to $100 range.  I think we pay $150 for a dedicated server through OVH.  

Glad you upgraded a VPS, that'll be a lot better for everything you're doing.

they are not cheap hosting they are around $250 a year, the issue comes from cPanel turing this feature of by default and have told all hosting companies to do so.

I spun up a VPS server the other day and do an install of cPanel and yep there it was turned off by default.

here is an excerpt from the ticket from a large hosting company here in Australia

We have checked and confirmed with our System Administrators that the PHP Functions (show_source, system, shell_exec, passthru, exec, popen, proc_open, allow_url_fopen, pcntl_exe) are all disabled on all Shared Hosting servers. This change was made due to potential vulnerabilities being exploitable using those functions. For the same reason, the decision was not made public and was on the advice from WHM/cPanel.

Some hosts turn off the ability to run linux binaries.  It's not the case above, the server just doesn't have some libraries installed that are required.

But regarding hosting, I wouldn't host on less than a VPS.  The problem with shared hosting is that you can get thousands of other websites hosted on the same server as yours and during busy times it can slow down, etc.  I'm also skeptical of cheap cheap hosting.  How much are you paying now and what kind of hosting plan is it?  

I have run into this with a few hosts now and it seems that every single web hosting company that is using cPanel has turned this feature off and has been told to by cPanel due to some security risk with binarys being run on servers now.

I have spoken with 3 hosting companies in Australia and they all say the same thing and refuse to turn it back on and said if you want this then you need to buy a VPS to get the feature control and turn it off at your own risk.

This is only going to get worse as more and more hosting companies turn this off.

Might be worth looking into another solution for the plugin as i have 5 websites that now can't do this.

I noticed that...BUUUUTT...then I noticed, repeatedly, that the testing all binaries fails. Thanks.

Hi Dave,

I will send the suggested email to GoDaddy hosting. It's a new, deluxe (but shared) hosting account with a standard SSL Cert. And I "get it" about sometimes needing to go through multi-layers of support in order to get what my clients need.

Thank you kindly!

Your host may not have the default linux libraries required to run the wkhtmltopdf binary that createPDF uses.  You could try asking their support.  Sometimes you need to ask a few times to get past first level support.  Try an email such as the following:

Hi support,. 

I'm trying to use a linux PDF creation library https://wkhtmltopdf.org/ but I'm getting this error: 

home/b1q0r2z57to2/public_html/oeAdmin273/plugins/createpdf_1-09/createPDF/wkhtmltopdf/wkhtmltopdf-0.12.5-1.ubuntu18.04_bionic_i386: error while loading shared libraries: libjpeg.so.8: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory 

It seems the libjpeg libraries aren't installed on the server.  Could you ask the server admins to install/update those?  I believe this can be done with the linux command: yum install libjpeg

Can you let me know if that's possible? We need to be able to create PDFs for the website.

Thanks in advance!

Also, which godaddy account type is it?

Hope that helps!  Let me know what they say.

From the test output above, it looks like two of the binaries are at least partially working (they are generating a PDF of a secure page, but not an insecure one): 

• wkhtmltopdf-0.12.5-1.centos6.x86_64
• wkhtmltopdf-0.12.4_linux-generic-amd64

To test these out, update the $GLOBALS['CREATEPDF_BINARY_FILE'] value at the top of the createPDF.php file with either of the binary names, for example:

$GLOBALS['CREATEPDF_BINARY_FILE'] = 'wkhtmltopdf-0.12.5-1.centos6.x86_64';

After changing that, try visiting the Test Server Requirements link again to see if the tests pass. If one of them works then you can go into /cmsb/plugins/createPDF/wkhtmltopdf/ and remove all the other binary files (files starting with "wkhtmltopdf-")

Let me know how that works out or if you need help with anything else.

Thanks,

"

• • PDF Conversion Program This plugin is using: /home/b1q0r2z57to2/public_html/oeAdmin273/plugins/createpdf_1-09/createPDF/wkhtmltopdf/wkhtmltopdf-0.12.5-1.ubuntu18.04_bionic_amd64
    Plugins settings: CREATEPDF_BINARY_FILE: auto-detected
    If all the test below don't pass you can try: download updated binaries and testing all binaries
  • Passed! Run external program on server Testing shell_exec() with command: pwd
    Result: /home/b1q0r2z57to2/public_html/oeAdmin273
  • Failed! Test running PDF conversion program on server Testing pdf binary with command: /home/b1q0r2z57to2/public_html/oeAdmin273/plugins/createpdf_1-09/createPDF/wkhtmltopdf/wkhtmltopdf-0.12.5-1.ubuntu18.04_bionic_amd64 -V
    Result: 0 bytes returned
    Output:
    Error: No output returned from command! (Exit code: 127)
  • Passed! Create and remove temp file on server Creating temp file: /home/b1q0r2z57to2/public_html/oeAdmin273/createPDF_e550a9f64930810ff38282aabbac5092.tmp
    Removing temp file: /home/b1q0r2z57to2/public_html/oeAdmin273/createPDF_e550a9f64930810ff38282aabbac5092.tmp
  • Passed! Test downloading content from remote URL Downloading content from url with: getPage('http://www.google.com/');
    Result: HTTP status code 302 (view source, html)
  • Passed! Test downloading content from this server Downloading content from url with: getPage('http://omegaengraving.com/');
    Resolve hostname 'omegaengraving.com' to IP address: 107.180.50.180
    Result: HTTP status code 301 (view source, html)
    Check that this is returning your website's homepage!
  • Failed! Test converting a web page to a PDF Created PDF with: HTML from: https://www.google.com/
    Result: 0 byte PDF returned
    Error: Conversion program returned errors:
    /home/b1q0r2z57to2/public_html/oeAdmin273/plugins/createpdf_1-09/createPDF/wkhtmltopdf/wkhtmltopdf-0.12.5-1.ubuntu18.04_bionic_amd64: error while loading shared libraries: libjpeg.so.8: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory Error executing wkhtmltopdf! (Exit code: 127)
    
    
  • Visually review PDF output (link) Visually inspect the PDF below, correct any error message, then make sure the graphics and fonts display as expected:

" THEN, when I click "test all binaries" I get an across the board set of failures:

"Binaries folder: /home/b1q0r2z57to2/public_html/oeAdmin273/plugins/createpdf_1-09/createPDF/wkhtmltopdf

Tips: You can use a specific binary with the $GLOBALS['CREATEPDF_BINARY_FILE'] setting at the top of the plugin.
Tips: Once you have a working binary you can erase the ones you don't need to save disk space.
Tips: You can find even more binaries here: http://wkhtmltopdf.org/downloads.html

• Failed! wkhtmltopdf-0.12.5-1.ubuntu18.04_bionic_i386
• Program version reported: (Error: Exit code 127)
• Create PDF of non-secure page http://www.example.com/ - Errors: /home/b1q0r2z57to2/public_html/oeAdmin273/plugins/createpdf_1-09/createPDF/wkhtmltopdf/wkhtmltopdf-0.12.5-1.ubuntu18.04_bionic_i386: error while loading shared libraries: libjpeg.so.8: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory Error executing wkhtmltopdf! (Exit code: 127)
• Create PDF of secure page https://www.google.com/ - Errors: /home/b1q0r2z57to2/public_html/oeAdmin273/plugins/createpdf_1-09/createPDF/wkhtmltopdf/wkhtmltopdf-0.12.5-1.ubuntu18.04_bionic_i386: error while loading shared libraries: libjpeg.so.8: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory Error executing wkhtmltopdf! (Exit code: 127)
• Failed! wkhtmltopdf-0.12.5-1.ubuntu18.04_bionic_amd64
• Program version reported: (Error: Exit code 127)
• Create PDF of non-secure page http://www.example.com/ - Errors: /home/b1q0r2z57to2/public_html/oeAdmin273/plugins/createpdf_1-09/createPDF/wkhtmltopdf/wkhtmltopdf-0.12.5-1.ubuntu18.04_bionic_amd64: error while loading shared libraries: libjpeg.so.8: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory Error executing wkhtmltopdf! (Exit code: 127)
• Create PDF of secure page https://www.google.com/ - Errors: /home/b1q0r2z57to2/public_html/oeAdmin273/plugins/createpdf_1-09/createPDF/wkhtmltopdf/wkhtmltopdf-0.12.5-1.ubuntu18.04_bionic_amd64: error while loading shared libraries: libjpeg.so.8: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory Error executing wkhtmltopdf! (Exit code: 127)
• Failed! wkhtmltopdf-0.12.5-1.ubuntu16.04_xenial_i386
• Program version reported: (Error: Exit code 127)
• Create PDF of non-secure page http://www.example.com/ - Errors: /home/b1q0r2z57to2/public_html/oeAdmin273/plugins/createpdf_1-09/createPDF/wkhtmltopdf/wkhtmltopdf-0.12.5-1.ubuntu16.04_xenial_i386: error while loading shared libraries: libjpeg.so.8: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory Error executing wkhtmltopdf! (Exit code: 127)
• Create PDF of secure page https://www.google.com/ - Errors: /home/b1q0r2z57to2/public_html/oeAdmin273/plugins/createpdf_1-09/createPDF/wkhtmltopdf/wkhtmltopdf-0.12.5-1.ubuntu16.04_xenial_i386: error while loading shared libraries: libjpeg.so.8: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory Error executing wkhtmltopdf! (Exit code: 127)
• Failed! wkhtmltopdf-0.12.5-1.ubuntu16.04_xenial_amd64
• Program version reported: (Error: Exit code 127)
• Create PDF of non-secure page http://www.example.com/ - Errors: /home/b1q0r2z57to2/public_html/oeAdmin273/plugins/createpdf_1-09/createPDF/wkhtmltopdf/wkhtmltopdf-0.12.5-1.ubuntu16.04_xenial_amd64: error while loading shared libraries: libjpeg.so.8: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory Error executing wkhtmltopdf! (Exit code: 127)
• Create PDF of secure page https://www.google.com/ - Errors: /home/b1q0r2z57to2/public_html/oeAdmin273/plugins/createpdf_1-09/createPDF/wkhtmltopdf/wkhtmltopdf-0.12.5-1.ubuntu16.04_xenial_amd64: error while loading shared libraries: libjpeg.so.8: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory Error executing wkhtmltopdf! (Exit code: 127)
• Failed! wkhtmltopdf-0.12.5-1.ubuntu14.04_trusty_i386
• Program version reported: (Error: Exit code 127)
• Create PDF of non-secure page http://www.example.com/ - Errors: /home/b1q0r2z57to2/public_html/oeAdmin273/plugins/createpdf_1-09/createPDF/wkhtmltopdf/wkhtmltopdf-0.12.5-1.ubuntu14.04_trusty_i386: error while loading shared libraries: libjpeg.so.8: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory Error executing wkhtmltopdf! (Exit code: 127)
• Create PDF of secure page https://www.google.com/ - Errors: /home/b1q0r2z57to2/public_html/oeAdmin273/plugins/createpdf_1-09/createPDF/wkhtmltopdf/wkhtmltopdf-0.12.5-1.ubuntu14.04_trusty_i386: error while loading shared libraries: libjpeg.so.8: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory Error executing wkhtmltopdf! (Exit code: 127)
• Failed! wkhtmltopdf-0.12.5-1.ubuntu14.04_trusty_amd64
• Program version reported: (Error: Exit code 127)
• Create PDF of non-secure page http://www.example.com/ - Errors: /home/b1q0r2z57to2/public_html/oeAdmin273/plugins/createpdf_1-09/createPDF/wkhtmltopdf/wkhtmltopdf-0.12.5-1.ubuntu14.04_trusty_amd64: error while loading shared libraries: libjpeg.so.8: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory Error executing wkhtmltopdf! (Exit code: 127)
• Create PDF of secure page https://www.google.com/ - Errors: /home/b1q0r2z57to2/public_html/oeAdmin273/plugins/createpdf_1-09/createPDF/wkhtmltopdf/wkhtmltopdf-0.12.5-1.ubuntu14.04_trusty_amd64: error while loading shared libraries: libjpeg.so.8: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory Error executing wkhtmltopdf! (Exit code: 127)
• Failed! wkhtmltopdf-0.12.5-1.debian9_stretch_i386
• Program version reported: (Error: Exit code 127)
• Create PDF of non-secure page http://www.example.com/ - Errors: /home/b1q0r2z57to2/public_html/oeAdmin273/plugins/createpdf_1-09/createPDF/wkhtmltopdf/wkhtmltopdf-0.12.5-1.debian9_stretch_i386: error while loading shared libraries: libjpeg.so.62: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory Error executing wkhtmltopdf! (Exit code: 127)
• Create PDF of secure page https://www.google.com/ - Errors: /home/b1q0r2z57to2/public_html/oeAdmin273/plugins/createpdf_1-09/createPDF/wkhtmltopdf/wkhtmltopdf-0.12.5-1.debian9_stretch_i386: error while loading shared libraries: libjpeg.so.62: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory Error executing wkhtmltopdf! (Exit code: 127)
• Failed! wkhtmltopdf-0.12.5-1.debian9_stretch_amd64
• Program version reported: (Error: Exit code 127)
• Create PDF of non-secure page http://www.example.com/ - Errors: /home/b1q0r2z57to2/public_html/oeAdmin273/plugins/createpdf_1-09/createPDF/wkhtmltopdf/wkhtmltopdf-0.12.5-1.debian9_stretch_amd64: error while loading shared libraries: libpng16.so.16: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory Error executing wkhtmltopdf! (Exit code: 127)
• Create PDF of secure page https://www.google.com/ - Errors: /home/b1q0r2z57to2/public_html/oeAdmin273/plugins/createpdf_1-09/createPDF/wkhtmltopdf/wkhtmltopdf-0.12.5-1.debian9_stretch_amd64: error while loading shared libraries: libpng16.so.16: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory Error executing wkhtmltopdf! (Exit code: 127)
• Failed! wkhtmltopdf-0.12.5-1.debian8_jessie_i386
• Program version reported: (Error: Exit code 11)
• Create PDF of non-secure page http://www.example.com/ - Errors: Error executing wkhtmltopdf! (Exit code: 139)
• Create PDF of secure page https://www.google.com/ - Errors: Error executing wkhtmltopdf! (Exit code: 139)
• Failed! wkhtmltopdf-0.12.5-1.debian8_jessie_amd64
• Program version reported: (Error: Exit code 127)
• Create PDF of non-secure page http://www.example.com/ - Errors: /home/b1q0r2z57to2/public_html/oeAdmin273/plugins/createpdf_1-09/createPDF/wkhtmltopdf/wkhtmltopdf-0.12.5-1.debian8_jessie_amd64: error while loading shared libraries: libssl.so.1.0.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory Error executing wkhtmltopdf! (Exit code: 127)
• Create PDF of secure page https://www.google.com/ - Errors: /home/b1q0r2z57to2/public_html/oeAdmin273/plugins/createpdf_1-09/createPDF/wkhtmltopdf/wkhtmltopdf-0.12.5-1.debian8_jessie_amd64: error while loading shared libraries: libssl.so.1.0.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory Error executing wkhtmltopdf! (Exit code: 127)
• Failed! wkhtmltopdf-0.12.5-1.centos7.x86_64
• Program version reported: (Error: Exit code 127)
• Create PDF of non-secure page http://www.example.com/ - Errors: /home/b1q0r2z57to2/public_html/oeAdmin273/plugins/createpdf_1-09/createPDF/wkhtmltopdf/wkhtmltopdf-0.12.5-1.centos7.x86_64: error while loading shared libraries: libpng15.so.15: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory Error executing wkhtmltopdf! (Exit code: 127)
• Create PDF of secure page https://www.google.com/ - Errors: /home/b1q0r2z57to2/public_html/oeAdmin273/plugins/createpdf_1-09/createPDF/wkhtmltopdf/wkhtmltopdf-0.12.5-1.centos7.x86_64: error while loading shared libraries: libpng15.so.15: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory Error executing wkhtmltopdf! (Exit code: 127)
• Failed! wkhtmltopdf-0.12.5-1.centos7.i686
• Program version reported: (Error: Exit code 127)
• Create PDF of non-secure page http://www.example.com/ - Errors: /home/b1q0r2z57to2/public_html/oeAdmin273/plugins/createpdf_1-09/createPDF/wkhtmltopdf/wkhtmltopdf-0.12.5-1.centos7.i686: error while loading shared libraries: libjpeg.so.62: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory Error executing wkhtmltopdf! (Exit code: 127)
• Create PDF of secure page https://www.google.com/ - Errors: /home/b1q0r2z57to2/public_html/oeAdmin273/plugins/createpdf_1-09/createPDF/wkhtmltopdf/wkhtmltopdf-0.12.5-1.centos7.i686: error while loading shared libraries: libjpeg.so.62: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory Error executing wkhtmltopdf! (Exit code: 127)
• Failed! wkhtmltopdf-0.12.5-1.centos6.x86_64
• Program version reported: wkhtmltopdf 0.12.5 (with patched qt)
• Create PDF of non-secure page http://www.example.com/ - Errors: Exit with code 1 due to network error: HostNotFoundError Error executing wkhtmltopdf! (Exit code: 1)
• Create PDF of secure page https://www.google.com/ - 87670 byte PDF returned
• Failed! wkhtmltopdf-0.12.5-1.centos6.i686
• Program version reported: (Error: Exit code 127)
• Create PDF of non-secure page http://www.example.com/ - Errors: /home/b1q0r2z57to2/public_html/oeAdmin273/plugins/createpdf_1-09/createPDF/wkhtmltopdf/wkhtmltopdf-0.12.5-1.centos6.i686: error while loading shared libraries: libjpeg.so.62: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory Error executing wkhtmltopdf! (Exit code: 127)
• Create PDF of secure page https://www.google.com/ - Errors: /home/b1q0r2z57to2/public_html/oeAdmin273/plugins/createpdf_1-09/createPDF/wkhtmltopdf/wkhtmltopdf-0.12.5-1.centos6.i686: error while loading shared libraries: libjpeg.so.62: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory Error executing wkhtmltopdf! (Exit code: 127)
• Failed! wkhtmltopdf-0.12.4_linux-generic-i386
• Program version reported: (Error: Exit code 127)
• Create PDF of non-secure page http://www.example.com/ - Errors: /home/b1q0r2z57to2/public_html/oeAdmin273/plugins/createpdf_1-09/createPDF/wkhtmltopdf/wkhtmltopdf-0.12.4_linux-generic-i386: error while loading shared libraries: libXrender.so.1: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory Error executing wkhtmltopdf! (Exit code: 127)
• Create PDF of secure page https://www.google.com/ - Errors: /home/b1q0r2z57to2/public_html/oeAdmin273/plugins/createpdf_1-09/createPDF/wkhtmltopdf/wkhtmltopdf-0.12.4_linux-generic-i386: error while loading shared libraries: libXrender.so.1: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory Error executing wkhtmltopdf! (Exit code: 127)
• Failed! wkhtmltopdf-0.12.4_linux-generic-amd64
• Program version reported: wkhtmltopdf 0.12.4 (with patched qt)
• Create PDF of non-secure page http://www.example.com/ - Errors: Error: Failed loading page http://www.example.com/ (sometimes it will work just to ignore this error with --load-error-handling ignore) Exit with code 1 due to network error: HostNotFoundError Error executing wkhtmltopdf! (Exit code: 1)
• Create PDF of secure page https://www.google.com/ - 88124 byte PDF returned
• Failed! wkhtmltopdf-0.12.2.1_linux-centos5-i386
• Program version reported: (Error: Exit code 127)
• Create PDF of non-secure page http://www.example.com/ - Errors: /home/b1q0r2z57to2/public_html/oeAdmin273/plugins/createpdf_1-09/createPDF/wkhtmltopdf/wkhtmltopdf-0.12.2.1_linux-centos5-i386: error while loading shared libraries: libjpeg.so.62: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory Error executing wkhtmltopdf! (Exit code: 127)
• Create PDF of secure page https://www.google.com/ - Errors: /home/b1q0r2z57to2/public_html/oeAdmin273/plugins/createpdf_1-09/createPDF/wkhtmltopdf/wkhtmltopdf-0.12.2.1_linux-centos5-i386: error while loading shared libraries: libjpeg.so.62: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory Error executing wkhtmltopdf! (Exit code: 127)
• Failed! wkhtmltopdf-0.12.2.1_linux-centos5-amd64
• Program version reported: (Error: Exit code 11)
• Create PDF of non-secure page http://www.example.com/ - Errors: Error executing wkhtmltopdf! (Exit code: 139)
• Create PDF of secure page https://www.google.com/ - Errors: Error executing wkhtmltopdf! (Exit code: 139)

So, NOW, I have no idea what to do and am asking for assistance. 

Help me Obi-Wan-Dave-Edis-Obe...you and your team are my only hope.