School Website Migration Fail. PHP help!

[dnavekar]

We recently moved over to a new ISP who have been quite good with levels of support. We are now stuck between a rock and a hard place as our Website migration did not go through as smoothly as planned. We are now without a site as there seems to be a problem with index.php file. I've had look at the index.php file and made changes to test variables but still no success.

 

Everything else was migrated and tested, such as MySQL and all FTP content to a new server address. Any help or a nudge in the right direction would be much appreciated. Please let me know if you require any further details.

[Steve21]

Think you'll have to explain what the actual problem is What's wrong with the index.php? Is it not loading? Not showing correctly? Scripts not working? Kind of hard to tell what's wrong with "a problem"

 

Steve

[dnavekar]

Thanks for the speedy reply Steve. The school site address is "www.kibprimary.leics.sch.uk." Our new ISP who handled the host transfer have stated that there is something that needs changing with regards to the script in the index.php, specifically the installation/index.php. I can make very little sense of .php and everything is pointing to where it should.

 

A page does load but as the Apache 2 Test PAge

[Steve21]

Seems to me like you don't have the index.php in the right folder. (Either that or you have html as a higher priority over the php files).

 

Do you have a direct link to the index.php page?

 

Also if you check inside your config fileL

 

/etc/httpd/conf.d/welcome.conf

 

You should have a line such as:

 

ErrorDocument 403 /error/noindex.html

 

That is the page it'll be loading as it can't find your homepage (aka the apache test page)

 

Steve

Edited November 2, 2012 by Steve21

[FragglePete]

Is this a Joomla installation for your website? If you've moved host then the mySQL Details will be different which is in the configuration.php file. (ie. Host, Username & Password for the mySQL server)

 

HTH

 

Pete

[dnavekar]

Hi Steve, I'm new to .php so please excuse my lack of knowledge here. I have checked the priority with .php and .html and it appears I need a htaccess file where the index.php is located. I did this and it didn't help.

 

I'm not sure with what you mean with having a direct link to the index.php. I can't see "/etc/httpd/conf.d/welcome.conf" or the "ErrorDocument 403 /error/noindex.html" within the config file.

[siuko]

What is your actual structure of your website files?

 

Do you access them via ftp?

 

The apache page loading looks like the default install one and it looks like it isnt reading your specific website files so we need to know how everything is structured etc

 

Possibly go as far as uploading a text.html and test.php with a bit of text in each to confirm they show into the relevant directory and test to see if you can access them from http://www.kibprimary.leics.sch.uk/test.html or http://www.kibprimary.leics.sch.uk/test.php

Edited November 2, 2012 by siuko

[dnavekar]

Hi Pete, Yes, we are using version of Joomla which seems to be invented before the internet. We have changed the Username & Password for the mySQL on the configuration.php file. The Host is still listed as "localhost" in all lines of code relating to host.

[siuko]

In your test.php put this line and nothing else

 

<?php phpinfo(); ?>

 

If php is working correctly it will show up lots of useful info about your server setup and prove that this are running ok.

[dnavekar]

Hi Siuko, our files are accessed through ftp and http://www.kibprimary.leics.sch.uk/test.html does appear when adding the file to the relevant directory. This is the top level of httpdocs.

 

The structure of the ftp is quite long winded and a not very well organised to be honest. The remote site address "/htdocs/httpdocs/images/stories" is used to post School News.

[siuko]

Yeah I had noticed that you had got test.html on there and running so it proves that you are in the right directory and its loading html ok.

 

Now just to check that the server can run php correctly

[Achandler]

dnavekar

 

I would suppose that the website works entirely, and the issue is merely where the host is being pointed to as your route directory.

 

Within your ftp part, where you have uploaded the test.html, what other folders and files are there?

 

Edit: I'm currently looking at my Joomla install on a CentOS webserver

Edited November 2, 2012 by Achandler

[dnavekar]

Hi Siuko, I tried as you advised with the test.php and get a "Not Found" page. This page is in the same place as the test.html.

[Edu-IT]

I'd say get in touch with Fasthosts, since they appear to be your host, as it looks like something isn't set correctly on your account to allow PHP.

[siuko]

Yeah looks like php isnt enabled on that site

[dnavekar]

Hi Achandler, The structure of the ftp contains "/htdocs/httpdocs/test.html.

 

[philwaud]

Not sure if this helps, but

http://www.kibprimary.leics.sch.uk/httpdocs/images/stories/

 

Shows a blank page, rather than an error message. I suspect that you have two issues here:

1/ you have transfered the whole site to the wrong directory. Delete everything in your FTP folder and create a simple HTML page. FTP the simple page and get it to display. Try something like:

Test page

This will confirm where the page should be displayed and doesnt rely on mysql or php.

 

Once you have that working, edit the page to read:

<?php

phpinfo();

?>

When you refresh the page you should see the php info page. This will confirm that php is working.

 

2/ Now that you know where to transfer your page to and that php is all ok, transfer the whole site to that directory and try again. There are a number of things that could go wrong:

* mysql data base not set up correctly - depending on the page code, it may give you some clues as to what is wrong

* a config file somewhere hasnt got the correct settings - again, very much specific to how the site is written.

 

Sorry I cant help further, the issue is that you are trying to transfer a complex and advanced setup but (and with the greatest of respect), you are running before you can walk! My advice is to battle it through, grab some strong coffee and slide up the steep learning curve! Its fun and very rewarding when you get there!

Phil

[Achandler]

Looking at the folder structure, the correct folders exist, as int eh correct ones for a Joomla install and in the right place.

 

There could be multiple issues, as phil has highlighted above. Firstly you need to get php working, then once that is definitely working, you need to check other things step by step. If phpworks and you still have no site then:

 

I would suspect your config file is wrong and pointing to the wrong place, usually when you move hosts, they will give you all the SQL details, you need to make sure these are right or Joomla will display nothing (an error if your lucky) because it can't read any info from the database.

If your config file is definitely correct, then try "reinstalling" the website, just replace all your files directly. Though deleting and re-adding is a better way of doing it.

[dnavekar]

Hey Siuko, I've just been in touch with our ISP who confirm that they do use Fasthosts have said php 5 is enabled on the site.

[Achandler]

Your config file is likely wrong then, have you updated the locations and username/ passwords in it

[Steve21]

I may be missing the obvious, but aren't the permissions on those files wrong anyway? 604 wouldn't let public execute the php would it? (I may be missing something, as I don't do chmod much tbh, just looks odd)

 

Wondering if it's just got default permissions from FTP client etc... Or I'm going crazy..

 

Steve

[Achandler]

Well spotted Steve, they should be 644 most likely.

[dnavekar]

Hi Phil, many thanks for this. We can try this but backing up our ftp will kill our bandwidth during the school day. We'll have to initiate that at the end of the day. We'll try this on Monday morning.

 

The mySQL export and import went reasonably well, although the file was over 6MB which had to split into manageable sub 2MB chunks and then imported in mySQL. This was tested and executed successfully. Do you think there may be an issue here?

 

The configuration.php has been amended accordingly to new mySQL log in details.

[Devontechie]

Hi Pete, Yes, we are using version of Joomla which seems to be invented before the internet. We have changed the Username & Password for the mySQL on the configuration.php file. The Host is still listed as "localhost" in all lines of code relating to host.

 

If your host is Fasthosts, then the var $host should be an ip address and not localhost

[dnavekar]

Thanks Steve, Achandler, I'll give this a go!