Troubles when upgrading from 1.1.21 to 2.0.10

[rebus]

Hello, my forum is at forum.davematthewsband.it

I need to upgrade to 2.X since the server just upgraded to PHP 5.5 and just doesn't work anymore.

I uploaded the large upgrade files, set the permissions, everything ok. But after step 2 I was being asked for my admin login again and could not advance. After a few tries I disabled the security check and it did go on for a while, but after a few seconds I got a blank page. Now when I try to open the homepage I still get blank page, and the same if I try to open the upgrade.php again.

The error log has not noted anything.

Any suggestions?

Thanks Luigi

[margarett]

You need to check you PHP error log, it should tell you what is going on.

Does the white page show up immediately or does it take some time to show?

[rebus]

The error log shows nothing new, not since the upgrade attempt.

The White page took some time only the first time: it began running some tasks (after step 2) and after a few seconds the blank page appeared. From that moment I Always get White pages immediately, when I try to open any page.

Thanks for trying to help!

[Illori]

do you have a backup you can restore and try the upgrade again and see if the same issue happens?

[margarett]

Do you have php logs enabled? It find it very strange that you get a white page without any error...

[rebus]

Update: trying from work, I don't get White pages but an HTTP 500 error page.

Yes I do have a backup but it takes hours to restore and unfortunately I will not have time for it until next week 

[margarett]

Internal server error hey?

Didn't you accidentally set any file/folder permissions to 777? Some server will throw that error in such circumstances.
Your server logs should tell you why (although you don't usually have access to those unless you own the server)

[rebus]

OK I got it, I was probably looking at the wrong place. The error I am getting from the error_log_php file is:

Code Select Expand

PHP Parse error:  syntax error, unexpected '$cachedir' (T_VARIABLE) in /home/****/public_html/Settings.php on line 64

No permissions set to 777

[margarett]

Ah ok. So there might be something wrong with Settings.php. Can you please add its content here between code tags? Remember to remove sensitive information!

[Illori]

or just include a few lines above and below line 64

[rebus]

Yep. The lines around #64 are:

Code Select Expand

$boardurl = 'http://forum.davematthewsband.it';
@ini_set('session.cookie_domain', '.davematthewsband.it')
$cachedir = '/home/****/public_html/cache';
?>

[Illori]

can you remove that @ini_set line or move it below $cachedir ?

[margarett]

I'm not sure that SMF put that line there?

Anyway that line misses a semicolon at the end and that is causing your parse error. But just remove it as Illori said, it doesn't belong there...

[Illori]

I'm not sure that SMF put that line there?

i dont think it does... but i think enabling sub-domain independant cookies would do the same job.

[rebus]

Alright! That worked for the White page problem, thanks a lot!

Now I'm back to the former problem: in step 1 I put in my admin infos, in step 2 i check the options I want, but then it goes back to step 1 

[margarett]

Now that is something I've never seen before... I would assume something breaks the upgrade process (mod_security?)

Can you dump your database and try the upgrade in a different machine? (don't forget you need to fix the paths with repair_settings before running upgrade in another machine)

[rebus]

I have another hosting, but not sure if it has resources enough to support the forum. I may try next week

[margarett]

Maybe you just install a local XAMPP in your machine?

[rebus]

Thanks for the tip, I did not know about XAMPP. I tried and lose one evening importing the database which is huge (I am beginning to guess that the one I restored from a backup on the server did not upload completely), but something must still be wrong, because when I launch upgrade.php I get a page full of errors (see attached image)

[Illori]

since you moved your install you need to run What is repair_settings.php? first to fix your paths and point to your new local database.