How to repair a serialized string which has been corrupted by an incorrect byte count length?

Question

I am using Hotaru CMS with the Image Upload plugin, I get this error if I try to attach an image to a post, otherwise there is no error:

unserialize()

Answer 1

In my case I was storing serialized data in BLOB field of MySQL DB which apparently wasn't big enough to contain the whole value and truncated it. Such a string obviously could not be unserialized.
Once converted that field to MEDIUMBLOB the problem dissipated. Also it may be needed to switch in table options ROW_FORMAT to DYNAMIC or COMPRESSED.

Answer 2

$badData = 'a:2:{i:0;s:16:"as:45:"d";
Is \n";i:1;s:19:"as:45:"d";
Is \r\n";}';

You can not fix a broken serialize string using the proposed regexes:

$data = preg_replace('!s:(\d+):"(.*?)";!e', "'s:'.strlen('$2').':\"$2\";'", $badData);
var_dump(@unserialize($data)); // Output: bool(false)

// or

$data = preg_replace_callback(
    '/s:(\d+):"(.*?)";/',
    function($m){
        return 's:' . strlen($m[2]) . ':"' . $m[2] . '";';
    },
    $badData
);
var_dump(@unserialize($data)); // Output: bool(false)

You can fix broken serialize string using following regex:

$data = preg_replace_callback(
    '/(?<=^|\{|;)s:(\d+):\"(.*?)\";(?=[asbdiO]\:\d|N;|\}|$)/s',
    function($m){
        return 's:' . strlen($m[2]) . ':"' . $m[2] . '";';
    },
    $badData
);

var_dump(@unserialize($data));

Output

array(2) {
  [0] =>
  string(17) "as:45:"d";
Is \n"
  [1] =>
  string(19) "as:45:"d";
Is \r\n"
}

or

array(2) {
  [0] =>
  string(16) "as:45:"d";
Is \n"
  [1] =>
  string(18) "as:45:"d";
Is \r\n"
}

Answer 3

I don't have enough reputation to comment, so I hope this is seen by people using the above "correct" answer:

Since php 5.5 the /e modifier in preg_replace() has been deprecated completely and the preg_match above will error out. The php documentation recommends using preg_match_callback in its place.

Please find the following solution as an alternative to the above proposed preg_match.

$fixed_data = preg_replace_callback ( '!s:(\d+):"(.*?)";!', function($match) {      
    return ($match[1] == strlen($match[2])) ? $match[0] : 's:' . strlen($match[2]) . ':"' . $match[2] . '";';
},$bad_data );