Fixing Mint after Switching Servers

After switching Perishable Press to its current home at A Small Orange, I began noticing an unusual problem with referrer data displayed in Mint. Specifically, the first item recorded in the XXX Strong Mint data panel — for both “Most Recent” and “Repeat” views — displayed several thousand hits for various site resources, all reporting the following IP address:

127.255.255.255 
zxw59eit.emirates.net.ae

Apparently, this particular location represents an invalid “loopback address.” The requested resources appear valid, indicating typical traffic patterns, but the loopback address is not the actual referrer. This issue was preventing Mint from accurately recording mountains of vital referral data.

Researching this issue reveals that the underlying problem involves the switching of a Mint installation between a 32-bit server and a 64-bit server. Installing Mint on either type of server without switching to the other should not trigger this problem. It is the switch from one to another that results in the generation of the loopback address.

Quick Fix

Fortunately, there is a straightforward fix for this issue. Open your Mint database via phpMyAdmin (or whatever you prefer) and execute the following commands (don’t forget to backup your data before you begin!).

Step 1

Within the mint_visit table, make any changes needed to ensure that all of the following fields display a value of UNSIGNED for the “Attributes” column (check out this screenshot).

• mint_visit » id
• mint_visit » dt
• mint_visit » ip_long
• mint_visit » referer_checksum
• mint_visit » domain_checksum
• mint_visit » resource_checksum
• mint_visit » local_search_found

Step 2

Next, EMPTY the mint_visit table. In phpMyAdmin, open the mint_visit table and click the “Empty” tab (located in the upper row along with other SQL commands). Theoretically, Mint’s default settings will eventually flush out the invalid referrer data, however it may take several weeks or longer.

All Done

That’s all there is to it. After implementing this fix, I saw immediate resolution of the issue. The 127.255.255.255 address disappeared from the referrer data, as did the thousands of associated entries of requested resources.

Moreover, I implemented this fix several months ago and have not experienced any ill effects or repeat issues whatsoever. Indeed, the referrer data has been repopulated with accurate data, and Mint is once again a virtually flawless piece of statistical software.

About the Author

Jeff Starr = Web Developer. Book Author. Secretly Important.