Fresh Install 0.9.1 - Error 500

[whitehousej]

Hi,

After downloading version 0.9.1 of serendipity and running the installation all I seem to get afterward is:

Internal Server Error
The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.

I've checked the permissions of the key files and directories and they seem to be ok. Nothing was flagged as red during the installation, I have added below what I saw during the install.

Operating System: Linux 2.4.21-32.0.1.ELsmp, i686
Weserver SAPI: apache
PHP version >= 4.1.2: Yes, 4.4.1
Database extensions: MySQL, PostgreSQL
Session extension: Yes
PCRE extension: Yes
GDlib extension: Yes
OpenSSL extension: Yes
mbstring extension: Yes
iconv extension: Yes
zlib extension: Yes
Imagemagick binary: Not found

safe_mode: OFF
register_globals: ON
magic_quotes_gpc: ON
magic_quotes_runtime: OFF
session.use_trans_sid: OFF
allow_url_fopen: ON
file_uploads: ON
post_max_size: 8M
upload_max_filesize: 4M

/home/fhlinux206/e/*****/user/htdocs/blog/: writable
/home/fhlinux206/e/*****/user/htdocs/templates_c: writable
/home/fhlinux206/e/*****/user/htdocs/uploads/: writable
Execute Imagemagick binary: Not found

NB: ***** denotes the masked domain name

I have completed the installation three times, each time starting fresh and checking everything bit by bit, but no luck so far. Each time the process is completed is displays a page saying installation completed successfully, click here to go to your new blog. Which then gives me an error 500.

Any help would be most appreciated as this is the best blog I have seen so far and was really looking forward to using it.

Regards,

Jim

[garvinhicking]

It seems that your ".htaccess" file is causing the trouble. Maybe your webserver does not allow any changes within .htaccess, that Serendipity requires for some things like "pretty URLs".

The file is non-critical, so temporarily rename it and see if it works then. You might want to remove each line of the .htaccess file until you see which directive is causing the trouble and report back here?

Best regards,
Garvin

[whitehousej]

Well that seemed to definitely do the trick. Firstly I renamed the .htaccess file to something else and then I could see my blog for the first time

As for trying to work out which directive was causing the problem I couldn't narrow it down. I commented out every line of the file and then uncommented each line one by one and in various combinations. However, only by having all lines commented out could I see any pages without an error 500.

Are there any side effects of not having this .htaccess file for serendipity other than the pretty URL's?

Many thanks for your help, solution and quick reply.

Jim

[garvinhicking]

Great you got it basically working.

It seems then that your provider generally disables .htaccess filenames. You can still use Serendipity without any problems, but you won't be able to use any URL rewriting. So you need to switch it to "Off" in your Serendipity configuration.

Best regards,
Gargvin

[whitehousej]

My german is a bit rusty but here goes...

vielen dank für ihre ganze hilfe

Keep up the great work.

Jim