Loading...
 
Architecture / Installation

Architecture / Installation


WinXP install oddity

posts: 7 United States

(warning: long post...)
Hi all....as a newbie to all things tikiwiki, i'm still groping my way toward the light. but this cms system is great and i totally appreciate all your work so far. here's what i've discovered so far.

Tuesday
installed using easyphp 1.7 and tikiwiki 1.7.5 on a winXP/Dell laptop per the instructions on this site. everything went very smoothly. logged in np and changed admin password and even got some modules up and running. went home that night, came back next day and had some kind of templating errors appearing across the top of the page. thought i might have mucked it up during my ignorant romp through the module/features configuration screens, and didn't have anything vital on it...so just reinstalled (since it was so easy!).

Wednesday
spent more time playing around and getting familiar with modules, setting groups and assigning permissions. all good. created a couple of users in addition to "admin" such as "test" and "eric" (me). started investing time/energy in shaping UI into what I want (deleting modules) etc. went home happy with my start.

Thursday/Today
came back today and couldn't log into tikiwiki. all of the users i had setup (admin, test, eric) all failed with a "invalid username password" response in the url. checked the capslock and other dummy stuff....nothing. apache, mysql and php all seem fine as i can see other pages (apache), create/edit/browse db (mysql), and testing php brings up all green lights. tikiwiki just didn't want my to get back in.

now having invested some time, i didn't want to reinstall — plus, that trick won't work after a while. ;-) so i started poking around the troubleshooting pages and this forum looking for answers. sounds like we have a shortage of windows platform folks/admins/users and none of the posts/articles i read seemed to describe my problem.

after a bunch of mucking about on this site, i decided to see if the tiki-install.php process might help me get started again. so deleted the "done" suffix in the /www folder, pointed the browser at it and brought it back up. it detected an existing "admin" account and password and asked me to enter the password, which i did. accepted this and kicked me to the "create new db" or "upgrade via script" or "do nothing and enter tikiwiki" page. not wanting to upgrade ('cause i can't), nor blow away work in db....i chose to "do nothing" and enter tikiwiki. brought me back to the same old login screen. BUT, this time it accepted the Admin/Password combo and put me to my super-cool, nicely modified page i had worked so hard on.

so that's a long way of saying, what's up with that? anyone have any idea as to why it took the tiki-install.php page to get me recognized and on track again? any suggestions on how to avoid this problem going forward?

seeing as i'm getting started and am "doing windows", i'd be happy to chronicle my failures/successes if this is useful. now i just need to figure out how to do my own wiki page on this site.... ;-)

e.

posts: 2881 United Kingdom

Hi

Move the installation into a subfolder so you access it by http://localhost/tiki where tiki is the subfolder. there is a problem in the login code with a / that should be changed to be a \ if on a windows host.

Its fixed in CVS ready for 1.7.6. and the 1.8 CVS and 1.9 CVS have it patched too.

Damian


posts: 7 United States

Hi Damian,

Thanks for your response. I'll try your suggestion once I get to work today and let you know how it goes.

I think I saw you had posted a similar response/solution to someone previously, but wasn't sure if I was having the same problem since he was on win2k and I'm on XP.

Maybe i'll try this on my home machine which is also win2k. that way i can find out if the solution works on both editions of windows.

cheers,

e.


posts: 1001 Canada

Hi eric,
glad you saved your Tiki, I know at least 2 people (first being me) that also had a similar problem. Thank you for reporting your problem. I'd ask you to check this against
http://sourceforge.net/forum/message.php?msg_id=2264120
This doesn't talk about same error msg so there are good chances I'm making you lose your time, but it's pretty strange how the solution both of you found is the same.
Concretely I'm asking you to try logging in again after closing your browser (and probably deleting cookies?).

I'll ask damian more about the fix he's talking about.


posts: 1001 Canada

damian was talking about what was called LoginBug.
I'm pretty sure this is not what you're talking about, but if you can test then it could be good to have a confirmation.


posts: 7 United States

Hi Phillipe,

I looked at the sourceforge thread you referenced. It looks like the problems were similar — being unable to login after having gone throught the install/setup process and then closing your browser window. The workaround's were slightly different however. Russell's workaround was to add code to the tiki-index.php file:
http://sourceforge.net/forum/message.php?msg_id=2264334
And apparently that worked for him and others:
http://sourceforge.net/forum/message.php?msg_id=2278653

I tried to reproduce this problem on my home machine which is win2k — with success. I was seeing the same problem on win2k as I saw on winXP. I didn't try Russell's workaround. I tried Damian's instead, and I have had no problems for the last 1.5 days. That includes logging off, shutting down browser, shutting down apache/mysql — restarting all and trying to get in as the same and/or different user. All works fine. Only issue is that you have your web root now at /www/tiki instead of at /www.

Doesn't matter much to me so long as its secure. My questions is, since I don't know much about php, is Russell's workaround secure? That is, if I wanted to move my web root back to /www, am I at risk because of the new code he suggests adding?

I'll try to test Damian's & Russell's workarounds on winXP later this weekend. That way, at least we'll have 2 valid ways of dealing with this going forward on 2 windows platforms.

Thanks for your feedback,

e.

posts: 2881 United Kingdom


Hi Eric,

I've fixed this in 1.7.6 which is currently under development in CVS at the moment. I'll create a patch file and make it available on uk.tikiwiki.org along with a latest CVS code tarball for you.

I'll post again once I have that sorted out and available

Damian


> ericlundstedt:
> Hi Phillipe,
>
> I looked at the sourceforge thread you referenced. It looks like the problems were similar — being unable to login after having gone throught the install/setup process and then closing your browser window. The workaround's were slightly different however. Russell's workaround was to add code to the tiki-index.php file:
> http://sourceforge.net/forum/message.php?msg_id=2264334
> And apparently that worked for him and others:
> http://sourceforge.net/forum/message.php?msg_id=2278653
>
> I tried to reproduce this problem on my home machine which is win2k — with success. I was seeing the same problem on win2k as I saw on winXP. I didn't try Russell's workaround. I tried Damian's instead, and I have had no problems for the last 1.5 days. That includes logging off, shutting down browser, shutting down apache/mysql — restarting all and trying to get in as the same and/or different user. All works fine. Only issue is that you have your web root now at /www/tiki instead of at /www.
>
> Doesn't matter much to me so long as its secure. My questions is, since I don't know much about php, is Russell's workaround secure? That is, if I wanted to move my web root back to /www, am I at risk because of the new code he suggests adding?
>
> I'll try to test Damian's & Russell's workarounds on winXP later this weekend. That way, at least we'll have 2 valid ways of dealing with this going forward on 2 windows platforms.
>
> Thanks for your feedback,
>
> e.


posts: 2881 United Kingdom


Hi Eric,

I've fixed this in 1.7.6 which is currently under development in CVS at the moment. I'll create a patch file and make it available on uk.tikiwiki.org along with a latest CVS code tarball for you.

I'll post again once I have that sorted out and available

Damian


> ericlundstedt:
> Hi Phillipe,
>
> I looked at the sourceforge thread you referenced. It looks like the problems were similar — being unable to login after having gone throught the install/setup process and then closing your browser window. The workaround's were slightly different however. Russell's workaround was to add code to the tiki-index.php file:
> http://sourceforge.net/forum/message.php?msg_id=2264334
> And apparently that worked for him and others:
> http://sourceforge.net/forum/message.php?msg_id=2278653
>
> I tried to reproduce this problem on my home machine which is win2k — with success. I was seeing the same problem on win2k as I saw on winXP. I didn't try Russell's workaround. I tried Damian's instead, and I have had no problems for the last 1.5 days. That includes logging off, shutting down browser, shutting down apache/mysql — restarting all and trying to get in as the same and/or different user. All works fine. Only issue is that you have your web root now at /www/tiki instead of at /www.
>
> Doesn't matter much to me so long as its secure. My questions is, since I don't know much about php, is Russell's workaround secure? That is, if I wanted to move my web root back to /www, am I at risk because of the new code he suggests adding?
>
> I'll try to test Damian's & Russell's workarounds on winXP later this weekend. That way, at least we'll have 2 valid ways of dealing with this going forward on 2 windows platforms.
>
> Thanks for your feedback,
>
> e.


posts: 1001 Canada

Sorry Eric, there's something I don't get about your problem.

On your UserPage I read

"after a bunch of mucking about on this site, i decided to see if the tiki-install.php process might help me get started again. so deleted the "done" suffix in the /www folder, pointed the browser at it and brought it back up. it detected an existing "admin" account and password and asked me to enter the password, which i did. accepted this and kicked me to the "create new db" or "upgrade via script" or "do nothing and enter tikiwiki" page. not wanting to upgrade ('cause i can't), nor blow away work in db....i chose to "do nothing" and enter tikiwiki. brought me back to the same old login screen. BUT, this time it accepted the Admin/Password combo and put me to my super-cool, nicely modified page i had worked so hard on. "

and for the day after

"Damien provided me with great info on how to fix my login problem. "

I don't understand. Did damian help you to fix the bug, or did you fix it by yourself??
I'm sorry to be sdo insistant, but me and damian are main support guys here and if he understands, at least I don't. Please clarify this part that confuses me.


posts: 7 United States

Hi Guys,

Sorry I dropped off there for a few days.

Phillipe, my apologies on the confusing chronology on my user page. What happened was that on Thursday, when I couldn't login, I found a way to get back in via the tiki-install.php page. This didn't fix my problem, but it did allow me to continue to use tiki so long as that window was open/session was active. Obviously, that wouldn't work long term though. What Damian provided me was a "workaround" that didn't require me to have to keep the same browser window open all the time. That is, I could close IE, shutdown apache/mysql etc. and still be able to log back into tiki under an new browser/session. That workaround was moving everything from under /www to /www/tiki.

Now it sounds like Damian has fixed this install/sessions issue in version 1.7.6 (thanks Damian!). And I believe he said it was already fixed in 1.8 and beyond.

I hope this clears up any confusion. I didn't "fix" my problem myself — I was initially able to keep going, but in an unacceptable fashion. Damian's workaround "fixed" my problem and I am currently a very happy camper.

Damian, I'll look for your post on availability of the patch/tarball and give you feedback after installing. Thanks again, you guys have been really helpful.

e.


Upcoming Events

1)  18 Apr 2024 14:00 GMT-0000
Tiki Roundtable Meeting
2)  16 May 2024 14:00 GMT-0000
Tiki Roundtable Meeting
3)  20 Jun 2024 14:00 GMT-0000
Tiki Roundtable Meeting
4)  18 Jul 2024 14:00 GMT-0000
Tiki Roundtable Meeting
5)  15 Aug 2024 14:00 GMT-0000
Tiki Roundtable Meeting
6)  19 Sep 2024 14:00 GMT-0000
Tiki Roundtable Meeting
7) 
Tiki birthday
8)  17 Oct 2024 14:00 GMT-0000
Tiki Roundtable Meeting
9)  21 Nov 2024 14:00 GMT-0000
Tiki Roundtable Meeting
10)  19 Dec 2024 14:00 GMT-0000
Tiki Roundtable Meeting