I first turned my head and started paying attention last year when DISQUS introduced version 2.0 which integrated syncing comments with the local WordPress database.  Then, most recently, DISQUS announced syncing of comments with FriendFeed and I was sold. On top of the incredible feature set DISQUS keeps pumping out, I kept hearing positive story after story about their customer support and friendly staff.  Well, I had the chance to put those stories to the test, and I must say, I’m quite impressed.

Installing the plug-in went as smooth as a baby’s bottom, but when I went to import my WordPress comments, I received the following error:

There was an error exporting your comments. If your forum API key has changed, you may need to reinstall DISQUS. If you are still having issues, please contact help@disqus.com.

I double checked my settings to insure the API key was inserted and then uninstalled and reinstalled the plug-in.  Still no luck.  I sent an email to the help email address provided and went to sleep.  I didn’t hear from DISQUS all day, so I sent out the following tweet:

Tried to get @disqus working on my blog last night, but ran into issues with importing current comments. Waiting to hear back from support

Within about an hour of my tweet, I received an email from Jason.  After a few email exchanges, Jason asked me to check to see if there were any errors showing up in my server logs when running the import.  Sure enough, here is what I found:

Reporting queued error: faulting application w3wp.exe, version 6.0.3790.3959, faulting module php_curl.dll, version 5.2.5.5, fault address 0×00018ed8.

Apparently the version of cURL I am running was the root of the issue.  Jason sent over a quick code fix which I have included below:

Try modifying disqus-comment-system/lib/url.
php around:

// Try curl, fsockopen, fopen + stream (PHP5 only), exec wget

if(function_exists(‘curl_init’)) {
if (!function_exists(‘curl_setopt_array’)) {
function curl_setopt_array(&$ch, $curl_options)

and change the second line (line 238 in the file) from:

if(function_exists('curl_init')) {

to:

if(function_exists('curl_init') && false) {

After making this simple change, I attempted to import my comments again and it worked.  Special thanks to Jason Yan and the DISQUS team for helping me out so quickly and efficiently!

But now, I need to turn to my readers and FriendFeed friends to make sure commenting and syncing is working as it should be.  I think you know what you need to do.

Till next time…