Problem with Vanilla installation permissions

merino

I am trying to install Vanilla and have allowed read and write accesses to the files the way it requires, but when I advance to the next step, I always get this screen:



What to do? I searched this forum numerous times, but none of the permissions issues seemed to touch mine. If anyone could help me, I'd be very grateful.

lech

After applying permissions to the /conf/ directory, double check to make sure there's nothing in it beyond a .htaccess and readme.txt file. Providing that you're installing from scratch, if there's database.php and other php files in there which contain incomplete settings you can safely delete them and start the setup again. It should run smoothly after, let us know how it works.

merino

Thanks for your input! There is nothing in the /conf/ directory besides the readme.txt (no .htaccess), but the problem persists. I am installing from scratch.

merino

Ideas, anyone? Still stuck as ever.

Minisweeper

Did you actually run those chmod commands on your server?

merino

I changed the permissions manually with my FTP program. Sorry, I'm very new to this and figured it was the same thing, but apparently not?

lech

Most FTP programs these days depending on which you're using should do an OK job of setting the permissions. The only REAL permission you need to set is 0777 on the /conf/ directory and 0755 should already be the default (but it's good to check to make sure) for any others .

It's possible that your host has limited the permissions for PHP to create files otherwise if you refreshed the directory even with a partial install they would have been made but left empty forcing you to delete them in order to start again. I would recommend contacting your host to see if they limited the scope of whether or not PHP is allowed to generate its own files or not and what a possible resolution could be if they don't allow for it.

Those are the only things that currently come to mind until someone else comes up with a better solution.

Minisweeper

Yeah aslong as those permissions are in place it should be fine. Can you try creating a blank settings.php,extensions.php,language.php, and database.php files with read and write permissions on them then run the installer?

lech

Mini, I think in most setups the installer/upgrade script will fail if it finds those files from the start. However I think you're on the right path as this is how we used to trick the installer in earlier versions. But in the latest install/upgrade scripts Mark made it so the script will deny you from overwriting previous configuration files.

I think a checklist item for the next installer should have an advanced page for manual setups in cases like this. That way the user can simple create local copies of the necessary settings and most likely still be able to create the database. Then it's just a matter of uploading the configurations to the /conf/ directory.

It's not really Vanillas fault or the hosts really, but because of some nerfed setups PHP isn't allowed file creation privileges and I've seen one too many of these threads already

Minisweeper

Ahh yeah I didnt think of that. Good point..

Hornswoggles

I had the same issue here. After review of my servers phpinfo() I discovered that allow_url_fopen is disabled. Which means Vanilla cannot write it's configuration files. Unfortunately I cannot have this variable enabled. I am curious whether or not I can simply write my own configuration files to the server. I have reviewed the configuration files of a local install and all of the lines of code are simply setting variables to specified paths. I can do that manually. Providing, I write my own configuration files without error; will I run into any other issues while using Vanilla if the allow_url_fopen variable is disabled?

fysicsluvr

You should only run into problems when installing addons or changing system settings.