Issues when creating a Develoment installation of VB 5.2.3

[wdwms]

Greetings!

We wanted to have a development site, which I know w/the license you can do. We went ahead and created a separate database, separate url (test.sitename.com), separate directory structure and proceeded to install vb. All seemed to be ok, but despite completely different URLs, databases, etc; the main site kept redirecting to the new test URLs and the titles of the pages started using the test name! Keep in mind no config files were mixed, each site was in its own directory and each config file pointed to a different database.

The database of the main site was NOT touched, the only way to get us back was to perform another install and set the urls to the main site as well as the title of the - then everything worked again on the main site.

My question is, during an install is there something that is sent to VB servers for licensing purposes that would otherwise cause this issue? are there special instructions we should follow for creating a development install? Thanks

-t

[Wayne Luke]

Is your subdomain a folder under the main? i.e. public_html/test/ and you have your main site installed in /public_html/

If so, you will need to edit the .htaccess in your /test/ directory and set the appropriate Rewrite Base. There are instructions in the file.

Our servers wouldn't cause routing problems on your site.

[wdwms]

Yes public_html/test and
public_html

We did adjust the .htaccess files in each directory, still had issues.

[wdwms]

Just did another install as a test, and all of the base refs on the main site are now changed to /test
.htaccess is set properly
Files on the main site were not modified.

[wdwms]

Think we figured it out. DNS routing may have been the cause. test.server.. removed it and all works.. so we won't use a vanity name, we'll just use /test

[Mark.B]

Glad you got it sorted, and thanks for posting what fixed it for you.

[wdwms]

Well not so fast.. I THOUGHT that fixed it.. but here is some more info. as it is still broken..

1. Main site is www.site.com and is working fine. Base url is set to / in all config files, configured to connect to database A
2. Test site is www.site.com/test, base url is /test in all config files, configure to connect to database B
3. Run VB Install on test site, tell VB install to wipe database B, tell vb install the url is site.com/test and core is site.com/test/core
4. Immediately during the install, the base refs on the MAIN site (if you view the HTML of the code) turn to /test and entire site fails to work, including admincp
5. Remember they are different database and different install directories, the install on the TEST site to database B does NOT touch database A.
6. Reinstall on test site, tell VB install to wipe database B, tell vb install the url of the site is site.com and core is site.com/core
7. Main site works again, now test site has all base refs (as viewed in the HTML code from the browser) set as /
8. Test site now will fail to work, main site will work. Repeat vicious cycle from step 1!

Please advise, this is driving us crazy. How can two distinct installs, which use completely different databases be getting tied together?!

[glennrocksvb]

Do you have Memcached installed by any chance?

[wdwms]

Nope, no memcache installed. I do have xcache, but that wouldn't make any sense to have that change the URLs.. i've used it for years w/vb and no issue.

[glennrocksvb]

I think you need to set a different datastore prefix for the test site, otherwise, the test and live sites share the same cache variable. I think that's what's happening to you.

For example:

$config['Datastore']['prefix'] = 'test_'; 

That line is commented out by default in the core config file, so you just have to uncomment it and set a different value.

[wdwms]

When I say different database, its a different username and password so the prefix should not matter. The above is only if your tables have a prefix; that is if you can't make multiple DBs for the two sites.

[glennrocksvb]

When I say different database, its a different username and password so the prefix should not matter. The above is only if your tables have a prefix; that is if you can't make multiple DBs for the two sites.

That's not a database table prefix. That's a datastore prefix for the XCache.

From the comment in the core config file:

    // ******** [COLOR=#FF0000]DATASTORE[/COLOR] PREFIX ******
    // If you are using a PHP Caching system (APC, [COLOR=#FF0000][B]XCache[/B][/COLOR], eAccelerator, WinCache) with more
    // than one set of forums installed on your host, you *may* need to use a prefix
    // so that they do not try to use the same variable within the cache.
    // This works in a similar manner to the database table prefix.
[COLOR=#FF0000][B]// $config['Datastore']['prefix'] = '';[/B][/COLOR]

You are running 2 separate databases, that's fine no need to set table prefix. But if you don't set a different XCache prefix for the test site, then the 2 sites share the same XCache variables. One of the cached data might be the base URL. And that may explain why the base URL switches when you install the other site.