Fatal error during upgrade - no_permission phrase missing?

[antiekeradio]

Hi There,

I've been running a vBulletin installation since about 2008 without any updates... also.. no problems. Until recently my hosting provider decided to do an upgrade that required me to update.
While I'm about it, just as well go to the newest version there is. Mods, styling etc could use a makeover.

anyways, to work. I created a test environment and up to the point that the installer scripts went running everything was fine. However, at the step from 4.0.0 Beta 2 to the next one, I get a fatal error:

400b3 Step #1

Fatal Error Occurred
Error Could not find phrase 'no_permission'. Arguments given were: on /home/[my domainname etc]/core/vb/api/template.php : 468

Script: 400b3
Step: 1

I have no clue what's going on. I have read in another thread on a similar problem that it might have something to do with the user session being used to 'do stuff' (my admin account is NOT userid=1) but I can't find anywhere in the vb5 install/upgrade and config to specify another user. Also, I didn't even have to login other than the usual customer number login.

what would be the next first thing to do??

[Trevor Hannant]

The error is that the Admin chosen to run the upgrade doesn't have permission to that that Node. Please make sure that the Admin User with the lowest User ID is specified in the /core/includes/config.php file as a Super Administrator.

You will be editing this section:
// ****** SUPER ADMINISTRATORS ******
// The userids specified below will have permission to access all areas of vBulletin 5.
// Note that this is different to vB3 & vB4 where they only had extra permissions in the
// Admin Control Panel. Be very careful who you grant this super power to.
// The name of this setting has changed from superadministrator to superadmins.
// This is to avoid the accidental granting of this permission when using older config files.
$config['SpecialUsers']['superadmins'] = '1';

Add the User ID (number) in place of the 1.

Then run the upgrade again.

[antiekeradio]

Hi Trevor, thanks a lot, this did indeed work. I was led astray by the new config.php file in the root directory. The config file in the location you pointed me at looks familiar and more complete.

anyways, almost there! A lot of steps have progressed but now there is another thing that won't pass and the error specifically mentions to contact vbulletin support.

Action Required
The server returned no response. This is probably due to a timeout setting. Please contact vBulletin Support for assistance

Script: 500a28
Step: 6

I believe this script is doing something with Private messages, but further than that I have no idea what's wrong.

[Trevor Hannant]

This is a bug. The error is coming because of PMs from deleted users still in the database. Refresh the upgrade every time the error pops up and it'll skip on for the next bunch of PMs. If it finds another orphaned record it'll stop again but refreshing picks it back up. You might get the same error at the Visitor Message stage - just refresh again as with this step.

Bug Report: http://tracker.vbulletin.com/browse/VBV-15994

[antiekeradio]

OK it worked! just reloaded the process a few more times and went right through the 4th or 5th attempt.

BTW could I do something via the control panel to prevent this from happening before I start the upgrade?
for instance, prune orphaned PMs??

[Trevor Hannant]

Possibly, haven't tried it as haven't had an affected database available to test against.

[antiekeradio]

Aaaand stuck again :-)

upgrade process finished without further errors. However, the front page does not work correctly (no css,etc) and almost nothing else works at all.
It seems there is a mismatch between the actual URL and places where the script is pointing at..

My test environment is on my hosting space in the public_html folder under the subfolder /f2. The live forum is in the same folder under the subfolder /forum
if I go to f2/core/admincp/ I am presented with a login prompt. If i input my credentials I get a 404 error; cannot find URL f2/login.php?do=login
Also, the login prompt has a hyperlinked 'forum name' at the top that points to [mysite]/f2/forum which directory doesn't exist.

I have checked the relevant /core/config.php settings and these should be correct.

[Trevor Hannant]

Make sure you have the .htaccess file in your forum root. If you don't, rename htaccess.txt to .htaccess

[antiekeradio]

Great, that did indeed do the trick. Now everything seems to work as intended :-) very happy with the result, thanks for your support.

[antiekeradio]

One more question about this bug:

This is a bug. The error is coming because of PMs from deleted users still in the database. Refresh the upgrade every time the error pops up and it'll skip on for the next bunch of PMs. If it finds another orphaned record it'll stop again but refreshing picks it back up. You might get the same error at the Visitor Message stage - just refresh again as with this step.

Bug Report: http://tracker.vbulletin.com/browse/VBV-15994

I have checked but it seems there is no automated method of pruning orphaned PMs from the database, like the available scripts for pruning orphaned threads and posts. Can you give me a query I could run to find an/or delete these PMs??