Serendipity Forums

I was making some config changes at http://thehathorlegacy.info about permalink paths. I think something must have rewritten my htaccess stuff in a bad, bad way because not only is that site offline - all my other sites on the same hosting account are offline!

I tried to install the newest version over it, but couldn't, so I reinstalled the version I had. But now I'm getting a 500 error (not right now, because I removed the htaccess codes for S9, but anytime I put the code back in).

I made the same changes on my blog at http://bluemushrooms.com, and everything seemed fine... then suddenly it was doing the same thing. I can't even get into my admin panels.

Bluemushrooms is loading, but without the template.

I think the problem may be in this htaccess code, because if I delete that, at least the other sites work:


# BEGIN s9y
ErrorDocument 404 /index.php
DirectoryIndex /index.php

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^([0-9a-z\.\_!;,\+\-]+\.html) index.php?/$1 [L,QSA]
RewriteRule ^(realname%) index.php?/$1 [L,QSA]
RewriteRule ^([0-9a-z\.\_!;,\+\-]+\.rss) index.php?/$1 [L,QSA]
RewriteRule ^([0-9a-z\.\_!;,\+\-]+) index.php?/$1 [L,QSA]
RewriteRule ^([/A-Za-z0-9]+)\.html index.php?url=///$1.html [L,QSA]
RewriteRule ^([0-9]+)[_\-][0-9a-z_\-]*\.html index.php?url=$1-article.html [L,NC,QSA]
RewriteRule ^feeds/(.*) index.php?url=/feeds/$1 [L,QSA]
RewriteRule ^unsubscribe/(.*)/([0-9]+) index.php?url=/unsubscribe/$1/$2 [L,QSA]
RewriteRule ^approve/(.*)/(.*)/([0-9]+) index.php?url=approve/$1/$2/$3 [L,QSA]
RewriteRule ^delete/(.*)/(.*)/([0-9]+) index.php?url=delete/$1/$2/$3 [L,QSA]
RewriteRule ^(admin|entries)(/.+)? index.php?url=admin/ [L,QSA]
RewriteRule ^$ index.php?url=// [L,QSA]
RewriteRule ^(index|atom[0-9]*|rss|b2rss|b2rdf).(rss|rdf|rss2|xml) rss.php?file=$1&ext=$2
RewriteRule ^(plugin|plugin)/(.*) index.php?url=$1/$2 [L,QSA]
RewriteRule ^search/(.*) index.php?url=/search/$1 [L,QSA]
RewriteRule ^(serendipity\.css|serendipity_admin\.css) index.php?url=/$1 [L,QSA]
RewriteRule ^index\.(html?|php.+) index.php?url=index.html [L,QSA]
RewriteRule ^htmlarea/(.*) htmlarea/$1 [L,QSA]
RewriteRule (.*\.html?) index.php?url=/$1 [L,QSA]

<Files *.tpl>
deny from all
</Files>

<Files *.sql>
deny from all
</Files>

<Files *.inc.php>
deny from all
</Files>

<Files *.db>
deny from all
</Files>

# END s9y

I've got a similar problem on a host that did not support mod_rewrite. The rewrite rules in your .htaccess cause the webserver to reply with an error 500 page.

Just remove the lines that begins with "Rewrite" and the site should work fine again.

You should choose "use Apache Errorhandling" instead "use Apache mod_rewrite" for URL-Rewriting on this host instead.

Marian

That's not it, I'm afraid.

The two blogs have been running just fine on their separate hosts for months now.

Unfortunately, in the config panel, when I was making changes to the permalink structure, I must have made one change too many. I was trying to simplify the permalink structure. The first few changes were fine, then I did a bit more, and suddenly the whole thing went offline on both blogs, on both hosts.

I'm sorry, but I'm deeply frustrated. As limiting as WordPress is in comparison, I just don't have problems like this with it. It doesn't allow a user to make changes that will wreck the whole system. I guess you just need to be a good bit more skilled at programming than I am to use S9.

I can't even figure out if it's safe to do a totally clean install, because I'd have to use 8.0.4 to do it, right? The problem is, I was running a nightly of 9.0.4, and I'm afraid that means the database will be tweaked and re-tweaked if I start with 8 then upgrade to 4, and I might lose goodness knows what in the meantime.

I'm also concerned that the problem might be something S9 saved to my database. It saves some odd things in there. If it's messed up my whole database, I am SO screwed.

Hathor wrote:As limiting as WordPress is in comparison, I just don't have problems like this with it. It doesn't allow a user to make changes that will wreck the whole system.

I just had the same experience just with WordPress. The customer just set up the URL-Rewrite option in the Admin Panel and told me there is an error 500 all over the site.

I could re-activate the site by deleting the .htaccess. So I just suspect it may be the same problem with s9y

Marian

I didn't change the URL rewrite option from what it's been for months, which has been working fine. I only changed the permalink structure. (Which I did at the same time in my WordPress blogs, with no issues whatsoever.)

Garvin, if you're reading this, please concentrate your efforts on helping me repair http://bluemushrooms.com. I think for the other blog, I'm just going to change over to WordPress - the database has just had a lot of issues on this site, and I don't know why. It may be the first host I used, who had some screwy settings. It may be I'm just too novice a user to use Serendipity properly.

I do want to keep it on BlueMushrooms, though, so I hope you can help me fix it.

Hathor, first off I'm sorry for your deep trouble. I can understand you are angry and confused. But configuring/adjisting permalinks is a thing that you should only do, if you know what you'Re doing.

Every system can wreck easily if you change paths a wrong way. It's technically just not feasible to check your things before writing, because .htaccess takes effect immediately and then no process can write anymore.

Every system including WP will react so.

Having said this, your .htaccess should be easy to fix. I immediately spotted permalinks with only "%", but all permalink options require %author% and so on with two Ampersands.

You should be able to fix this by removing your .htaccess file, login to your Serendipity installation (.htaccess is not required) and change the permalinks back again. If that does not work whatsoever, use phpMyAdmin to browse to your serendipity_config table. Delete all entries that have a "permalink" prefix. Then s9y will reset those to the default.

We are trying very hard all the time to get rid of issues our users face. We can only get better if those problems are reported and issues are improved, and we really rely on such feedback. I'd personally be very frustrated if you change systems just because of this, since you did contribute a lot to our QA process in the past.

Best regards,
Garvin

Thank you, Garvin!

I'm not angry - just frustrated. I'm sorry if I sounded upset with you - I know you guys work hard on this program.

I'm only switching on the one blog - I'm definitely keeping Serendipity on the BlueMushrooms. And it wasn't just because of this on Hathor - I think the original host's weird settings permanently made the database funky, because I've had a lot of connection errors, even now that it's on Site5 (which hasn't happened with my other S9 blog). I think to keep S9, I still would have had to rebuild the database from scratch on it, so I just decided to go with WP this time for a few reasons.

So, what I had wanted for the permalink structure was:

http://bluemushrooms.com/post-name.html

But instead, I guess it needs to be like:

http://bluemushrooms.com/[b]article[/b]/post-name.html

With that extra virtual directory in there. Is that what the problem was? It would be nice to be able to leave that virtual directory out entirely, for SEO purposes. That's what I had hoped for with my changes. You could also stick in a bit of documentation warning people NOT to take that out.

I WAS able to remove my virtual directories completely in WordPress, except on categories. There, it had a built-in default to prevent me from doing that. If you can set S9 up so that the admin panel doesn't allow less technical users to make a change they can't fix (because they can't get to the admin panel, and I was lucky I even knew to look in htaccess for the problem, LOL), that would be a big help.

I did eventually find out how to recode a WP file to remove the category default altogether. It seemed fine, until I went to test the comment posting - didn't work. For some reason it needs the category virtual directory for that to function. But it didn't crash the whole system at any point.

I think S9 is just a little bit advanced for some of us novice users. I've learned a lot, and I will definitely keep using it on BlueMushrooms, and if I do any future blogs, it's a distinct possibility there. But I find WP a lot easier to troubleshoot. I think it's a little more idiot-proof, and unfortunately, I'm still an idiot.

About the permalink structure, yes - it is not advised to leave out any directory, and I would've never expected that people would try so. I'll think about a wording to include on the config screen. We could be able to make that directory obsolete, but that would take some extra work which I currently can't dedicate and others might not find a need for that as well. I agree of course that this would be a nice thing, now that I know people like you do want that.

At least we suggest people to keep the defaults...

Very sorry to hear that you're more "at home" with WP. But we'll try to keep making s9y a home for more people like you. A bigger community would help as well, of course. And that's a part I have very little influence on. I don't know what kept the WP guys having a larger community - it's definitely not the technical side of the application, we're up to par (and in many area superior). But more people contribute more to the Usability and foolproofness, of course.

Best regards,
Garvin