hCaptcha giving similar error as ReCaptcha before

Dear admin,

About six months ago I switched from Breezing to your form solutions with good succes. We had some issues with the ReCaptcha code ( see this post ) but that worked in the end. However the amount of spam coming from the website (and with that from the forms used) is still significant, so I wanted to increase the security on it. I now have email verification swithced on and I wanted to start using the hCaptcha module. However the same issue is introduced where the captcha code is not valid. See this test form .

Hallo Jeroen,

danke für den Link zum ehemaligen Post bezüglich ReCaptcha.
Könntest du bitte für diesen zwar ähnlichen Fall aber trotzdem folgende Fragen beantworten:

- Q1: Was genau führt zu dem Fehler?
- Q2: Worin äußert sich der Fehler?
- Q3: Was ist das erwartete Verhalten?

Liebe Grüße, Ingmar

Hello Ingmar,

Using hCaptcha in the form (see the link in the initial post) results in the message "Could not validate the captcha" (Q1) after clicking the submit "Verzenden" button (Q2). The suspected response (Q3) should the form being send and on the page being replaced by a thank you message.

Hello Jeroen,

I also think it's the exact same problem as with Recaptcha back then.
If the server or IP address under which the website is running is untrusted, then validation with CURL won't work.
We will try to make the same change to hCaptcha as we did for Recaptcha back then.

We consider this a bug in Visforms and will adjust the behavior.
I created a development issue in the bug list:
Issue [VF-1499] Forum: hCaptcha error when used under untrusted IP address (analogous to Recaptcha)

When we release the bug fix, you will be explicitly informed about the release here in the topic.
There may also be a file-based hot fix for this bug in the very near future.
Thank you again for your report!

Best regards, Ingmar

Hello Jeroen,

There is a test fix to resolve the bug for:
Joomla 5 and the current Visforms version 5.4.1.

Could you please test this test fix on your site to see if it resolves the issue?

Please back up the old file beforehand in case any unexpected problems occur.

Download the following file:
- vi-solutions.de/forum-bugfixes/Hcaptcha.php_5.4.1.txt
Rename the downloaded file to
- Hcaptcha.php
Overwrite the following file on the server with the downloaded and renamed file:
- components/com_visforms/src/Hcaptcha/Hcaptcha.php

Best regards, Ingmar

Hello Ingmar,

The file solved the issue! The form was successfully processed and I received the mail from it.