Settings not saved via web interface

still having problems, can anyone shed any light?

I don't know why sudo is asking for www-data's password when it's set to not require a password on pihole commands:

# /etc/sudoers.d/pihole
# ...snip...
www-data ALL=NOPASSWD: /usr/local/bin/pihole

Then only thing I can think of is that it's not actually executing /usr/local/bin/pihole, but trying to execute something else. That means that either pihole is not stored in that location, or something is trying to run non-pihole commands as sudo (bad). What is the output of which pihole?

hi again,

pi@raspberrypi:~ $ which pihole
/usr/local/bin/pihole

Do you think a full uninstall and reinstall is worth a shot?
If so, how can i do it to enusre myPi is 100% free of pihole?

The uninstaller needs some more love, especially in terms of removing FTL. If you're able to, I'd suggest a full re-install of Raspbian. Otherwise, go through the uninstaller and do these extra (untested) steps:

sudo service pihole-FTL stop
sudo rm /usr/bin/pihole-FTL
sudo rm /etc/init.d/pihole-FTL

You could try:

sudo -s
sudo -u www-data pihole enable
exit

and have a look what that says

as my system runs other 'things' id ratehr not re-install for this.

Ill try the below commands from @DL6ER

it asks me for a password...i enter my root pass and no good?

pi@raspberrypi:~ $ sudo -s
root@raspberrypi:/home/pi# sudo -u www-data pihole enable

We trust you have received the usual lecture from the local System
Administrator. It usually boils down to these three things:

    #1) Respect the privacy of others.
    #2) Think before you type.
    #3) With great power comes great responsibility.

[sudo] password for www-data:

Try:

echo 'www-data ALL = NOPASSWD : ALL' | sudo tee -a /etc/sudoers

sudo -s
sudo -u www-data pihole enable
exit

sudo sed -i '$ d' /etc/sudoers

pi@raspberrypi:~ $ echo 'www-data ALL = NOPASSWD : ALL' | sudo tee -a /etc/sudoers
www-data ALL = NOPASSWD : ALL
pi@raspberrypi:~ $ sudo -s
root@raspberrypi:/home/pi# sudo -u www-data pihole enable
::: Blocking has been enabled!
root@raspberrypi:/home/pi# exit
exit
pi@raspberrypi:~ $ sudo sed -i '$ d' /etc/sudoers
pi@raspberrypi:~ $

reboot my Pi?

Nothing fixed yet so reboot is no use.
Try run below one and after, check if fixes anything (FYI, it will add a line to the sudoers file):

echo 'www-data ALL = NOPASSWD : ALL' | sudo tee -a /etc/sudoers

If it didnt fix anything, run below one to delete that line again (undo):

sudo sed -i '$ d' /etc/sudoers

OK, so i seem to be able to make changes in adin page, aqnd they look to be saving.
but, i still see adverts in my chrome on laptop....i have not set up the DNS server manually on the laptop.
i also see adverts on android device, with no dns set manually...id like to avoid this?

i guess a solution would be to use pi-hole as dhcp server?

Setup DNS manually first on the laptop to see if works.
Below one should display the Pi-Hole admin page and if not, something is still wrong:

http://pi.hole/admin/

Ps. when you activate the DHCP services on Pi-Hole (make sure router DHCP server is disabled first) , the DHCP leases need renewal on the clients.
Either disconnect network and reconnect or reboot the clients.

thanks for your help.

if i set DNS manually on laptop, adverts seem to be blocked.

http://pi.hole/admin/ gives me a 404 error. But i have changed the port from the default 80 as it was interfering with my home assistant install...emulated hue componenet requires port 80

A little bit more work but you can configure the Pi to have two IP addresses.
So Pi-Hole can bind to the first IP address (recommended) and the other port 80 service could bind to the second IP addrerss.
Have a look at below one how its done with lighttpd and nginx (both competing for port 80):

whats the benefit of doing this method?

i simply changed the lighttpd.conf file in /etc/lighttpd

Redirected ads will hit port 80, and we can't change that. So if you set up a dedicated Pi-hole IP address, then the blocked ads will be handled by the Pi-hole instead of the hue component setup you have on port 80 right now.

a ok, so even having changed server.port = 8017 in /etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf ads are still sent to port 80?

Affirmative.

123456789

copy that....

and, also

what!?!

Messages should be at least 20 characters long :smiley: