Upgrade to 2.1.3 fails looking for nonexistent folder path

[Tonya Marie]

Upgrading a forum from 2.0.17 to 2.1.3 on a Dreamhost shared server using MySQL. Before starting, I made sure to CHMOD the entire site to 777 and confirmed the FTP and SQL admin username and password were correct.

The upgrade never gets past the first step. It fails with the message that the following folder must be writable:

    /home/.boochie/[owner]/[site]/forum/avatars/Personal

([owner] is the owner's username on Dreamhost and identifies their shared server space; [site] is the specific folder for this site in their shared server.)

The current instance of the site is installed to the path "/home/[xxx]/[site]/". It does not use a "forum" subfolder.


First, neither I nor the Dreamhost support team can determine what the ".boochie" folder path is. It is not a hidden or service folder of any kind that they know of, and regardless is outside of this site owner's shared space. Everything for this user has to be within "/home/[owner]/". I did a text search and did not find "boochie" anywhere in the files for the upgrade installer.

Second, there is no subfolder "Personal" in the avatars folder. I tried creating it and that did not help. I also tried temporarily moving the entire installation down into "/home/[owner]/[site]/forum/" subfolder, and that did not help either.

As a test, I installed a fresh instance of 2.1.3 to "/home/[owner]/[site]/forum/" with a new database prefix, and got a functioning install. I confirmed that there is no path "/forum/avatars/Personal" in that install.

I also tried to do an upgrade to 2.0.19 first in case that might make a difference, but that installer just seems to hang and never do anything.

Can anyone help? The client needs to get upgraded, both to stay current and so that Dreamhost can update their PHP version (the latest PHP is not supported by SMF 2.0.17).

Thank you!

[Aleksi "Lex" Kilpinen]

Download repair_settings, check all paths configured, find the offending ones, fix them, profit.
In short, someone at some point has configured something wrong in the existing install.
What is repair_settings.php?

[Tonya Marie]

Well, I have no idea what file it is in, but that revealed the ".boochie" so I could remove it. Trying the upgrade now, will report back.

Thanks for the quick reply!

[Aleksi "Lex" Kilpinen]

Many of the path and url settings are actually in the database, repair_settings is a tool to easily see them all in one place without having to manually poke around blind

[Tonya Marie]

Ah, good to know.

At any rate, that did the trick. Whatever that ".boochie" was, I was able to strip it out and remove the extra "forum" in the path, and then the upgrade ran quick and smooth.

Thanks again!

[Aleksi "Lex" Kilpinen]

Good to hear!