New installation 0.9.6.3: Error 500 - [SOLVED]

I made a new installation of MODx 0.9.6.3 and I was able to login into manager BUT when I tried to preview my work, I was receiving a ’Server error 500’ on Internet Explorer and just a blank page on Mozzila & Chrome.

After a lot of reading, I found the problem... my customer server hasn’t enabled the php_mbstring module in the php.ini...

Seems that this is required for function mb_strlen(), called by assets/snippets/ajaxSearch/classes/ajaxSearch.class.inc.php on line 359

Solution: change mb_strlen() to strlen()

I hope this help other people!

A better option would be to set have your customer / or web host enable php_mbstring that way you can easily upgrade MODx in the future without having to worry about any changes you have made to the core.

Another alternative is to upgrade to the latest version of AjaxSearch if you haven’t done so already. This has an option to turn off reliance on the php_mbstring. No editing of source code required.

Paul

Aaron / Paul... thanks for your comments

My intention here is to offer a quick fix to a headache... I agree with both of you that a better way to fix this is enabling the module and/or upgrading the AjaxSearch to 1.8.2b (MODx 0.9.6.3 comes with the 1.8.1)

Regards