For the funny characters I have no idea. I dump the contents from wget (or links i cant remember) of my script. Actually I just realised I get slightly different characters of that error message.
Warning: fopen(
http://www.lab4games.net/zz85/blog/) [function.fopen]:
failed to open stream: HTTP request failed! & empty($doing_rss) ) {
include(ABSPATH . '/wp-feed.php'); exit; } else if ( is_trackback() &&
empty($doing_trackback) ) { in /opt/lampp/htdocs/test/fopen.php on line 6
Bad!
knoppix@turtleshell:/opt/lampp/htdocs/test$ links
http://127.0.0.1/test/
http://127.0.0.1/test/fopen.php
Warning: fopen(
http://www.lab4games.net/zz85/blog/) [function.fopen]:
failed to open stream: HTTP request failed! **>@*Z...Iy? *1@*Z.. in
/opt/lampp/htdocs/test/fopen.php on line 6
Bad!
For my source,
<?php
$url = "http://www.lab4games.net/zz85/blog/";
$fh = fopen ($url,"r");
if (!$fh) die("Bad!");
while (!feof($fh))
{
$output = htmlspecialchars(fgets($fh,1024));
echo ("$output<br />");
}
fclose($fh);
?>
You can test it for yourself here.
http://zz85.homedns.org/test/fopen.php
Oh, could it be also caused by a timeout?