Server Transition

[James Desalus]

So I posted this on vBulletin.com and failed to receive a solution to my problem. I figured I'd broaden my horizons and post the issue here. Hopefully we can all combine forces and put an end to my misery. Here's what has been happening:

I've looked all over the forums and I can't seem to find a solution for my problem. The threads I've read have fixed their issue (which was the same as mine), but none of those seem to work for me.

I am planning to migrate my forums to a dedicated server from shared hosting. So, to test it out before I actually did it, I dumped my database to a file and SSH'd that into the new server. Database is set up. I copied the forum directory from the old shared host into the new directory on the dedicated server.

I get this error when I try to view the forum path:

But I know I set it right. I uploaded a file that tells me that the path is "/home/admin/injectedgamers/briareborn/".

So I set that in the config, and I still get the same error. Here is my config file

<?php
/*======================================================================*\
|| #################################################################### ||
|| # vBulletin 3.8.1
|| # ---------------------------------------------------------------- # ||
|| # All PHP code in this file is ?2000-2009 Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd. # ||
|| # This file may not be redistributed in whole or significant part. # ||
|| # ---------------- VBULLETIN IS NOT FREE SOFTWARE ---------------- # ||
|| # http://www.vbulletin.com | http://www.vbulletin.com/license.html # ||
|| #################################################################### ||
\*======================================================================*/

/*-------------------------------------------------------*\
| ****** NOTE REGARDING THE VARIABLES IN THIS FILE ****** |
+---------------------------------------------------------+
| If you get any errors while attempting to connect to    |
| MySQL, you will need to email your webhost because we   |
| cannot tell you the correct values for the variables    |
| in this file.                                           |
\*-------------------------------------------------------*/

    //    ****** DATABASE TYPE ******
    //    This is the type of the database server on which your vBulletin database will be located.
    //    Valid options are mysql and mysqli, for slave support add _slave.  Try to use mysqli if you are using PHP 5 and MySQL 4.1+
    // for slave options just append _slave to your preferred database type.
$config['Database']['dbtype'] = 'mysql';

    //    ****** DATABASE NAME ******
    //    This is the name of the database where your vBulletin will be located.
    //    This must be created by your webhost.
$config['Database']['dbname'] = 'REMOVED';

    //    ****** TABLE PREFIX ******
    //    Prefix that your vBulletin tables have in the database.
$config['Database']['tableprefix'] = '';

    //    ****** TECHNICAL EMAIL ADDRESS ******
    //    If any database errors occur, they will be emailed to the address specified here.
    //    Leave this blank to not send any emails when there is a database error.
$config['Database']['technicalemail'] = 'REMOVED';

    //    ****** FORCE EMPTY SQL MODE ******
    // New versions of MySQL (4.1+) have introduced some behaviors that are
    // incompatible with vBulletin. Setting this value to "true" disables those
    // behaviors. You only need to modify this value if vBulletin recommends it.
$config['Database']['force_sql_mode'] = false;



    //    ****** MASTER DATABASE SERVER NAME AND PORT ******
    //    This is the hostname or IP address and port of the database server.
    //    If you are unsure of what to put here, leave the default values.
$config['MasterServer']['servername'] = 'localhost';
$config['MasterServer']['port'] = 3306;

    //    ****** MASTER DATABASE USERNAME & PASSWORD ******
    //    This is the username and password you use to access MySQL.
    //    These must be obtained through your webhost.
$config['MasterServer']['username'] = 'REMOVED';
$config['MasterServer']['password'] = 'REMOVED';

    //    ****** MASTER DATABASE PERSISTENT CONNECTIONS ******
    //    This option allows you to turn persistent connections to MySQL on or off.
    //    The difference in performance is negligible for all but the largest boards.
    //    If you are unsure what this should be, leave it off. (0 = off; 1 = on)
$config['MasterServer']['usepconnect'] = 1;



    //    ****** SLAVE DATABASE CONFIGURATION ******
    //    If you have multiple database backends, this is the information for your slave
    //    server. If you are not 100% sure you need to fill in this information,
    //    do not change any of the values here.
$config['SlaveServer']['servername'] = '';
$config['SlaveServer']['port'] = 3306;
$config['SlaveServer']['username'] = '';
$config['SlaveServer']['password'] = '';
$config['SlaveServer']['usepconnect'] = 0;



    //    ****** PATH TO ADMIN & MODERATOR CONTROL PANELS ******
    //    This setting allows you to change the name of the folders that the admin and
    //    moderator control panels reside in. You may wish to do this for security purposes.
    //    Please note that if you change the name of the directory here, you will still need
    //    to manually change the name of the directory on the server.
$config['Misc']['admincpdir'] = 'REMOVED';
$config['Misc']['modcpdir'] = 'REMOVED';

    //    Prefix that all vBulletin cookies will have
    //    Keep this short and only use numbers and letters, i.e. 1-9 and a-Z
$config['Misc']['cookieprefix'] = 'brb';

    //    ******** FULL PATH TO FORUMS DIRECTORY ******
    //    On a few systems it may be necessary to input the full path to your forums directory
    //    for vBulletin to function normally. You can ignore this setting unless vBulletin
    //    tells you to fill this in. Do not include a trailing slash!
    //    Example Unix:
    //      $config['Misc']['forumpath'] = '/home/users/public_html/forums';
    //    Example Win32:
    //      $config['Misc']['forumpath'] = 'c:\program files\apache group\apache\htdocs\vb3';
$config['Misc']['forumpath'] = '/home/admin/injectedgamers/briareborn/';



    //    ****** USERS WITH ADMIN LOG VIEWING PERMISSIONS ******
    //    The users specified here will be allowed to view the admin log in the control panel.
    //    Users must be specified by *ID number* here. To obtain a user's ID number,
    //    view their profile via the control panel. If this is a new installation, leave
    //    the first user created will have a user ID of 1. Seperate each userid with a comma.
$config['SpecialUsers']['canviewadminlog'] = '1';

    //    ****** USERS WITH ADMIN LOG PRUNING PERMISSIONS ******
    //    The users specified here will be allowed to remove ("prune") entries from the admin
    //    log. See the above entry for more information on the format.
$config['SpecialUsers']['canpruneadminlog'] = '1';

    //    ****** USERS WITH QUERY RUNNING PERMISSIONS ******
    //    The users specified here will be allowed to run queries from the control panel.
    //    See the above entries for more information on the format.
    //    Please note that the ability to run queries is quite powerful. You may wish
    //    to remove all user IDs from this list for security reasons.
$config['SpecialUsers']['canrunqueries'] = '1';

    //    ****** UNDELETABLE / UNALTERABLE USERS ******
    //    The users specified here will not be deletable or alterable from the control panel by any users.
    //    To specify more than one user, separate userids with commas.
$config['SpecialUsers']['undeletableusers'] = '';

    //    ****** SUPER ADMINISTRATORS ******
    //    The users specified below will have permission to access the administrator permissions
    //    page, which controls the permissions of other administrators
$config['SpecialUsers']['superadministrators'] = '1';

    // ****** DATASTORE CACHE CONFIGURATION *****
    // Here you can configure different methods for caching datastore items.
    // vB_Datastore_Filecache  - to use includes/datastore/datastore_cache.php
    // vB_Datastore_APC - to use APC
    // vB_Datastore_XCache - to use XCache
    // vB_Datastore_Memcached - to use a Memcache server, more configuration below
// $config['Datastore']['class'] = 'vB_Datastore_Filecache';

    // ******** DATASTORE PREFIX ******
    // If you are using a PHP Caching system (APC, XCache, eAccelerator) with more
    // than one set of forums installed on your host, you *may* need to use a prefix
    // so that they do not try to use the same variable within the cache.
    // This works in a similar manner to the database table prefix.
// $config['Datastore']['prefix'] = '';

    // It is also necessary to specify the hostname or IP address and the port the server is listening on
/*
$config['Datastore']['class'] = 'vB_Datastore_Memcached';
$i = 0;
// First Server
$i++;
$config['Misc']['memcacheserver'][$i]        = '127.0.0.1';
$config['Misc']['memcacheport'][$i]            = 11211;
$config['Misc']['memcachepersistent'][$i]    = true;
$config['Misc']['memcacheweight'][$i]        = 1;
$config['Misc']['memcachetimeout'][$i]        = 1;
$config['Misc']['memcacheretry_interval'][$i] = 15;
*/

// ****** The following options are only needed in special cases ******

    //    ****** MySQLI OPTIONS *****
    // When using MySQL 4.1+, MySQLi should be used to connect to the database.
    // If you need to set the default connection charset because your database
    // is using a charset other than latin1, you can set the charset here.
    // If you don't set the charset to be the same as your database, you
    // may receive collation errors.  Ignore this setting unless you
    // are sure you need to use it.
// $config['Mysqli']['charset'] = 'utf8';

    //    Optionally, PHP can be instructed to set connection parameters by reading from the
    //    file named in 'ini_file'. Please use a full path to the file.
    //    Example:
    //    $config['Mysqli']['ini_file'] = 'c:\program files\MySQL\MySQL Server 4.1\my.ini';
$config['Mysqli']['ini_file'] = '';

// Image Processing Options
    // Images that exceed either dimension below will not be resized by vBulletin. If you need to resize larger images, alter these settings.
$config['Misc']['maxwidth'] = 2592;
$config['Misc']['maxheight'] = 1944;

/*======================================================================*\
|| ####################################################################
|| # Downloaded: 16:41, Sun Mar 1st 2009
|| # CVS: $RCSfile$ - $Revision: 28757 $
|| ####################################################################
\*======================================================================*/

Any ideas?

I am running vBulletin 3.8.1 w/ vBadvanced on Centos 5 (with Apache 2.2.3, mySQL 5 and PHP 5 w/ eaccelerator).

Here are the replies I got:

Quote:
Originally Posted by WEBDosser
do you use vbadvance??

Yes, I use the latest version of vBadvanced. I didn't have to specify the forum path with the last webhost; I figured I didn't need to on my new server.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Steve Machol
It is very rare that you need to set a forum path. Try commenting out that line.

Commenting it out does nothing, I'm afraid. Still the same $filepath error.

Steve Machol has been very helpful, but we have been unable to solve the issue.

Originally Posted by Steve Machol

Honestly I don't see how you can get that error with that line commented out. And with it not commented out, then only way you can get that error is if the path is wrong. There really is the only explanation.

Lastly, I replied:

Originally Posted by James Desalus

Here.. take a look at this.

Everything is configured EXACTLY correct.

http://www.injectedgamers.com/test.jpg

So, what I ask of you, fellow vBulletin.org members.. is how we can solve this?

I will elaborate more on the server setup. It is running CentOs 5 with the latest Apache, PHP and SQL w/ lxadmin as the control panel. Would I be better off just wiping the OS and going with ubuntu and no control panel? I'm getting really irked here.

[Dismounted]

Find this line:

PHP Code:

$config['Misc']['forumpath'] = '/home/admin/injectedgamers/briareborn/'; 


And change it to:

PHP Code:

// $config['Misc']['forumpath'] = '/home/admin/injectedgamers/briareborn/'; 


It's not clear, but I think you may have tried that already?

[James Desalus]

Originally Posted by Dismounted

Find this line:

PHP Code:

$config['Misc']['forumpath'] = '/home/admin/injectedgamers/briareborn/'; 


And change it to:

PHP Code:

// $config['Misc']['forumpath'] = '/home/admin/injectedgamers/briareborn/'; 


It's not clear, but I think you may have tried that already?

Yeah, I had that commented out on my original shared host.

It doesn't seem to want to work on my new server. I guess it must be an issue with the box itself. Something must be configured incorrectly w/ Apache or another service.. Steve Machol suggested it might have something to do with symlinks.

That's way over my head.. as it's an unmanaged server (I don't usually need the kind of assistance a managed provider gives), it would be my problem to fix. If anyone could provide some insight on this issue.. you'd save me from my headache. ;\

[Dismounted]

Login to your box via SSH - and go into the path that you entered. Does it contain the expected contents?

[snakes1100]

Seeing as your running vbadvanced, did you edit the index.php file and correct the forumpath in that file?

public_html - index.php <-- this one ie.. cmps_index.php
forums - index.php or forums.php <-- not this one

[James Desalus]

Originally Posted by snakes1100

Seeing as your running vbadvanced, did you edit the index.php file and correct the forumpath in that file?

public_html - index.php <-- this one ie.. cmps_index.php
forums - index.php or forums.php <-- not this one

I can't believe that I overlooked that.

ARRGHHH!

If you looked up embarassment in the dictionary, my picture would be right next to the definition. Thank you snakes, THANK YOU!

Problem Solved!


EDIT:
Also, is there a way to change the cookie domain from the database? 'cause I can't login to the forums because it doesn't save the cookie.

[snakes1100]

YW.

Upload tools.php from the do_not_upload folder to your admincp folder and run the script in the browser, reset your cookie domain.