S9Y Migration to new Server

[goatload]

Hi, I'm a LONG time user of Serendipity, and have recently decided to switch hosting providers. I've followed every instruction I can find on successfully moving servers, but I'm still experiencing a problem or two on the new server.

I'm able to log into the Admin page, but as soon as I click anything, it bumps me back to the login page. I can't figure out why this is happening, seems like maybe some sort of session issue? The only thing I see in the logs is an error trying to find serendipity/serendipity_admin.css. This file doesn't exist on my old server either.

The file does not exist on that css file is interesting, as no style sheet is being applied. The login page and the page after logging in have NO "style".

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

[garvinhicking]

Hi!

Rebumping login page usually means that the new hoster does not properly utilize PHP sessions. Check out the phpinfo() and session.* related options, make sure they point to a valid and writable directory. Also you might want to delete your cookies related to your blog and restart the browser.

The file does not exist on that css file is interesting, as no style sheet is being applied. The login page and the page after logging in have NO "style".

This might mean that URL Rewriting is not available on your new server and you might need to turn it off int he s9y configuration.

HTH,
Garvin

[goatload]

Hey Garvin, thanks for the reply!! Below is the session section of my phpinfo... Does anything there look wrong?

[Session]
session.save_handler = files
session.use_cookies = 1
session.name = PHPSESSID
session.auto_start = 0
session.cookie_lifetime = 0
session.cookie_path = /
session.cookie_domain =
session.serialize_handler = php
session.gc_probability = 1
session.gc_divisor = 100
session.gc_maxlifetime = 1440
session.bug_compat_42 = 1
session.bug_compat_warn = 1
session.referer_check =
session.entropy_length = 0
session.entropy_file =
session.cache_limiter = nocache
session.cache_expire = 180
session.use_trans_sid = 0
url_rewriter.tags = "a=href,area=href,frame=src,input=src,form=,fieldset="

[garvinhicking]

Hi!

The session.save_path variable is missing! It must point to a server writable path, else PHP cannot store session files. Remember to restart Apache/PHP after you change the php.ini, or you might even need to ask your hoster to change/add that setting.

Regards,
Garvin

[goatload]

Hey Garvin, thanks for your quick reply. I've been trying various things since your reply, but I still can't get my site working. I just tried doing a fresh install in a separate directory with its own DB to see if that'll work. That works, in that I can actually log in, but I'm still having the lack of CSS problem.

I have no idea why a fresh install is working as far as session stuff is concerned, but the migrated version won't. URL rewrite is disabled in the fresh install.

Any other advice/help you (or anyone else) might have to offer?

Thanks!

[judebert]

I'm not sure about the session stuff, I'll let someone else cover that. All I can say about it is that session problems are generally either an incorrect save_path or a permission problem. More rarely, it's a browser/cookie problem. But if we do discover it's a s9y problem, we'll get it fixed quick!

If you've got an installation that's working, perhaps you could export your non-working database, make a few text edits to replace paths, and import the modified database into your working blog?

CSS not working is often the result of a bad path. Less often, it's a problem with the server inserting ads in the CSS file. Both are easy to detect with Firefox and the Firebug plugin. It allows you to profile the page, so you can see what's getting loaded and what's not; it also shows you the content of every element, so you can see what's in your CSS.

I recommend installing Firebug and using it to debug your site.

[goatload]

Hi Garvin and Judebert... again, I really appreciate your replys so far!!

I'm still having issues with this session thing. I've uncommented the session.save_path variable in my php.ini. I've verified that files are getting written into the dir specified by my account. I see some sess_<buncha chars> files in there... yet I still get bumped back to the login page regardless of what I click.

Do I absolutely NEED to edit the config table before trying to log in? It seemed like the settings in there were things I could edit by logging in and changing my settings on the configuration page (which ultimately would write back to that config table).

Appreciate any help!! Thanks so much!!

[goatload]

I noticed that when I log in, TWO sess_ files are created. Is that right? Should two be getting created? Could that be part of the problem?

[garvinhicking]

Hi!

Definitely, only one sess_* should actually be created.

How do your session.* php directives currently look like? Check a phpinfo() output script.

Regards,
Garvin

[goatload]

Below are the session directives... Thanks for your help Garvin!!

Directive Local Value Master Value
session.auto_start Off Off
session.bug_compat_42 On On
session.bug_compat_warn On On
session.cache_expire 180 180
session.cache_limiter nocache nocache
session.cookie_domain no value no value
session.cookie_httponly Off Off
session.cookie_lifetime 0 0
session.cookie_path / /
session.cookie_secure Off Off
session.entropy_file no value no value
session.entropy_length 0 0
session.gc_divisor 100 100
session.gc_maxlifetime 1440 1440
session.gc_probability 1 1
session.hash_bits_per_character 4 4
session.hash_function 0 0
session.name PHPSESSID PHPSESSID
session.referer_check no value no value
session.save_handler files files
session.save_path /tmp /tmp
session.serialize_handler php php
session.use_cookies On On
session.use_only_cookies Off Off
session.use_trans_sid 0 0

[garvinhicking]

Hi!

Hm. That ought to work. What's your URL?

did you try a different browser or maybe purge your cookies?

Regards,
Garvin

[goatload]

The URL is http://74.220.219.65/~goatload/birenand ... _admin.php (This is because I haven't changed DNS yet, since I'm still testing).

Yes, I have tried a few diff browsers...

[garvinhicking]

Hi!

It seems the solution is that you entered your blog's URL wrong. It goes to

http://74.220.219.65/~goatload/birenand ... rendipity/

instead of

http://74.220.219.65/~goatload/birenand ... rendipity/

So this is why cookies do not seem to get stored properly. Make sure your paths match up the proper configuration. You can change the paths by either re-installing s9y (if you got no content yet - be sure to drop all your existing database tables) or by using a tool like phpMyadmin and edit the db table "serendipity_config" where you can see all path settings.

HTH,
Garvin

[goatload]

Hey Garvin!

I updated a couple entries in that table, and now the stylesheets aren't working for the serendipity_admin page, but the main page comes up (again, minus stylesheet).

Also, I still can't log in and do anything. I log in and click anything and it kicks me back to the login page :-/

FYI, I do have content, and therefore the new install option isn't quite the right thing for me... I have tried doing a new install, though, as a test... and I'm able to get that to work... I can log in and click around.

[garvinhicking]

Hi!

You should set those values:

serendipityPath, somethin like "/path/to/goatload/birenandkris/serendipity/serendipity"

serendipityHTTPPath: "~/goatload/birenandkris/serendipity/serendipity/"

baseURL: "http://74.220.219.65/~goatload/birenand ... rendipity/"

HTH,
Garvin