admin page doesn't work...everything else does????

admin page doesn't work...everything else does????

by Mike Craddock -
Number of replies: 10

during installation i got an internal server error right before the creation of the admin account...the error occurs as that page is loading.

that being the only error in the installation...i went ahead and accessed the application.

i made an account and rigged it to be the admin by editing the tables (since there was no admin account created in installation).

i can make courses...add more users...everything..BUT

i get an internal server error whenever i click on admin or when it tries to redirect to the moodle/admin/index.php page

any ideas what is going on?

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In reply to Mike Craddock

Re: admin page doesn't work...everything else does????

by Timothy Takemoto -
That's strange. The guy that wrote in in French gets a "internal server error," despite the fact that there has been few of them before recently.
http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=15954
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In reply to Timothy Takemoto

Re: admin page doesn't work...everything else does????

by Mike Craddock -

Don't speak French unfortunately...it's so bizarre that every other aspect of Moodle works...except the /admin/index.php page, which returns Internal Server Error.

I tried to replace the file with no success...any other ideas out there?

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In reply to Mike Craddock

Re: admin page doesn't work...everything else does????

by art ingram -
what does the error look like use your browser with show page source helps

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In reply to art ingram

Re: admin page doesn't work...everything else does????

by Mike Craddock -

good ol fashion 500 internal server error...nothing fancy

something is up with admin/index.php that is the ONLY page i get this error

moodle is fully functional..i believe...except for that one page...ughh..

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In reply to Mike Craddock

Re: admin page doesn't work...everything else does????

by Mike Craddock -
i filed a support request with the web hosting company to see if they give me more info on the error.
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In reply to Mike Craddock

Re: admin page doesn't work...everything else does????

by Mike Craddock -

ok...here's what they say...

Dear Valued Customer,

It could seomthingto do with your files within the moddledata folder. As you can see, it is in 777 mode, since we do not allow that type of mode, we suggest doing a chmod of that files to 755.

Also, please try to check our server configurations at
http://malta.globat.com/phpinfo and see if the program that you have installed conforms with our server's config.

hmmm...tried chmod to 755...didn't work.  i thought i read somewhere that it had to be 777, could be wrong though.

the link they gave me doesn't help me...just a bunch of gibberish.

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In reply to Mike Craddock

Re: admin page doesn't work...everything else does????

by Andrew McMillan -
The directory doesn't have to be mode 777, and there are several more secure possibilities.

What the directory does need, is to be writable by the webserver, and this will depend on (a) what user the webserver runs as and (b) who else needs to access the files.

If the files only need to be accessed by the webserver then mode 700 would be OK, but you would need to ensure that it is owned by the user that the webserver runs as (this will vary from installation to installation).

If the files need to be accessed by another user, or group of users, then you will need mode 755 (or possibly 750, if you can make those users members of the same group that the webserver runs as) but you will still need to make the directory owned by the user that the webserver runs as.

One other file mode I have used before on webservers for directories that the webserver needs to write to is 1777.  This mode is usually used for temporary storage locations like /tmp and /var/tmp and means that anyone can write files there, but only the creator will be able to modify their directory entries (the writer will control permissions to the actual file).

If you write a small PHP script that creates a file in /tmp you will be able to find out what user and group the webserver operates as.  Something like the following should do the trick:

<?php
touch("/tmp/testfile.xxx");
?>

Then (assuming you have some shell access) you should be able to "ls -l /tmp/testfile.xxx" that file and see what user / group owns it.

Regards,
Andrew McMillan

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In reply to Andrew McMillan

Re: admin page doesn't work...everything else does????

by Mike Craddock -

Thanks for the info Andrew.   I've played with various permission settings and none of them resolve the issue, unfortunately.

 I've been combing the forums looking for similar issues...found something about checking the config.php for extra spaces...did that and it looked OK.

so i'm pretty much stuck now...there's something to the index.php in the admin folder that is not getting along well with my server...

any other suggestions?  (besides get a new host)

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In reply to Mike Craddock

Re: admin page doesn't work...everything else does????

by David Wilkinson -
Hi Mike,

My first guess is that the directory named admin is probably a reserved name by your isp.  Sometimes the ISP does not allow this directory name.  On some ISP's I have had to change that directory name to something else, say 'moodleadmin', update the config.php to reflect the new directory and see if that changes anything.

Regards,
David
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In reply to David Wilkinson

Re: admin page doesn't work...everything else does????

by Matt Edminster -

Mike,

I'm also using Globat and have had the same problem you are having with the admin/index.php file. I have not been able to resolve it either having tried most of what you have found here.

Have you since resolved this issue with your installation? If so, how?

Matt

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