vB 5.4.5 installation difficulties: Not yet getting past install.php

[Wayne Luke]

Permissions can be a pain when they are set incorrectly. You should discuss the issue with your host so the default is set to 0644 on files. Otherwise, you could have the same issues on upgrades.

Thanks for the update on getting it resolved.

[dxw]

I am into the Control Panel … yay, finally.

[dxw]

changing index.php to 644 seems to have stepped around that. moving on towards my next "500' error.

[dxw]

Installer seemed to run its course. I 'confirmed' that error message. Now it returns the same error message - the 500 one above about - when trying to access ~forum/core/install/upgrade, and then when trying to access ~/forum/core/admincp/
Frustrating process :-(

[dxw]

0644 for the install.php file, and 0755 for the series of directories containing it … worked. Well it has worked to the point of 6% complete so far, notwithstanding an error message about a file I could not find anywhere. Fingers crossed.

[Wayne Luke]

Tried http://www.my-domain_name.org/forum/install/install.php via a browser, and got some error messages;
Searched and found install.php at ~/forum/core/install/install.php, one level deeper than explained in the unstallation guide.

If your mod_rewrite and .htaccess is configured properly, then /forum/install/install.php will automatically redirect to /forum/core/install/install.php. The installation instructions assume that users have a properly configured server.

The error that it throws is ...
[time-date stuff][:error][pid / tid stuff][client stuff] SoftException in Application.cpp:267: File "/home/username/public_html/forum/code/install/install.php" is writeable by group
I have checked directory and file permissions:
home/username/ = 0711
~/public_html/ = 0750
~/forum/ = 0775
~/core/ = 0775
~/install/ = 0775
~/install.php = 0664
I tried changing the permissions on install.php, including to 0644, with no effect.

I'll lookup more on those server errors later today and see if I can find anything useful. Everything I have searched out so far points towards permissions and, except for the install.php 0664, mine all seem to fit with what is suggested.

You will need to contact your hosting provider about permission issues. These permissions work on 99% of all servers provided by web hosting companies.

[dxw]

Thanks.

The error that it throws is ...

[time-date stuff][:error][pid / tid stuff][client stuff] SoftException in Application.cpp:267: File "/home/username/public_html/forum/code/install/install.php" is writeable by group

I have checked directory and file permissions:

home/username/ = 0711
~/public_html/ = 0750
~/forum/ = 0775
~/core/ = 0775
~/install/ = 0775
~/install.php = 0664

I tried changing the permissions on install.php, including to 0644, with no effect.

I'll lookup more on those server errors later today and see if I can find anything useful. Everything I have searched out so far points towards permissions and, except for the install.php 0664, mine all seem to fit with what is suggested.

[Trevor Hannant]

Check your server's error logs - a 500 error is server related so there should be a note of the issue in those logs

[dxw]

I am not trained or particularly experienced with coding, PHP, HTML, and the likes but I have tried to follow the setup and install instructions very carefully, and my hosting site appears to meet the specs. Alas, at the moment I am failing at the install.php step, as outlined below.

I am working with vB 5.4.5.

My site runs:

PHP 5.6.38;

MySQL 5.7.24; &

I don't know how to check for the mod_rewrite and cURL status mentioned in the system requirements pages.

I've been using a simple text-editor (Notepad++) for most of my PHP file work ... although a few I did in Dreamweaver also. I used WinSCP for FTPing the installation bundle to the website although, again, I also did a few subsequent changes using Dreamweaver for the FTP.

My install effort to-date has been basically as follows:

Download the bundle from the vBulletin website;
Decompress the bundle and copy the upload folder over to my local-drive public_html directory and rename it "forum";
Setup a MySQL database;
Inserted the database details into the upload/core/includes/config.php file
I edited:

dbtype to mysqli - it was built with MariaDB;
dbname to userprefix_vBulletin - the name of the database I had built;
tableprefix to 'vb_';
technicalemail to [email protected];
username to userprefix_DatabaseAdmin - the login master username for the database;
password to PasswordForThatUsername;
modcpdir to 'mod_cp';
and left everything else untouched.

Renamed htaccess.txt file to .htaccess;
Renamed the /-directory file from config.php.bkp to config.php;
FTPd the entire 'forum' (renamed upload directory) directory into the html_public directory on the web-server;
Tried http://www.my-domain_name.org/forum/install/install.php via a browser, and got some error messages;
Searched and found install.php at ~/forum/core/install/install.php, one level deeper than explained in the unstallation guide.
Used my browser to access the install.php file. The browser returned the following response

Internal Server Error
The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.
Please contact the server administrator at [email protected] to inform them of the time this error occurred, and the actions you performed just before this error.
More information about this error may be available in the server error log.

Additionally, a 500 Internal Server Error error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.

I set config.php to debug positive and loaded the site in Chrome with developer tools active. I'm not sure of what I am looking at but the only entry with a error code reads as follows:

Request URL: http://www.website-name.org/forum/co...ll/install.php
Request Method: GET
Status Code: 500 Internal Server Error
Remote Address: 139.99.189.115:80
Referrer Policy: no-referrer-when-downgrade

Where to now? Is there some obvious error I can search out and correct? Should I start afresh? Is it a potential problem that my install.php file is located in a different place to that specified in the setup manual and documents?