0.9.6.3 Install dies after clicking "install" on "pre-install validation" page

I’m trying to install 0.9.6.3 - I get all the way through to the end, but when I click install I get a page that just says:

Install results

ad then nothing. No errors in error_log, last page listed in access_log is:

"POST /install/index.php?action=install HTTP/1.1" 200 1615

I check the database and it has nothing in it - no tables, nothing.

Help!!!

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Pre-install validation
Setup has carried out a number of checks to see if everything’s ready to start the setup.
Checking PHP version: OK!
Checking if Register_Globals is off: OK!
Checking if sessions are properly configured: OK!
Checking if assets/cache directory exists: OK!
Checking if assets/cache directory is writable: OK!
Checking if assets/cache/siteCache.idx.php file is writable: OK!
Checking if assets/cache/sitePublishing.idx.php file is writable: OK!
Checking if assets/images directory exists: OK!
Checking if assets/images directory is writable: OK!
Checking if assets/export directory exists: OK!
Checking if assets/export directory is writable: OK!
Checking if manager/includes/config.inc.php exists and is writable: OK!
Creating connection to the database: OK!
Checking table prefix `modx_`: OK!
Checking MySQL version: OK! Your MySQL version is: 4.1.20
Checking MySQL for strict sql_mode: OK

OK, it was me all along - me, and the fact that error reporting is limited to fatal errors and not just notices.

I made a change to all files that called session_start(); My site is on a server (a DV server at Media Temple) that is running PHP 5 as suexec

That means that I can’t set the session file save path in .htaccess or vhost.conf - well I can, but they don’t do anything. The way to give this site it’s own session save path is to use the PHP function session_save_path(); which you place just before session_start();

So, within the installation files there are just three references to session_start(). For each of these files I added:

session_save_path(str_replace(’/httpdocs’,’’,$_SERVER[’DOCUMENT_ROOT’]).’/tmp’);

This puts the session files on a folder level that is peer to the HTTP document root, out of the hands of public access. However, one of the files I edited contained a string block that was destined to be copied into a .php file as part of the install and that’s where my edit tripped me up.

My server was dieing (dying?) on an unexpected T_CONSTANT_ENCAPSED_STRING - but I wasn’t seeing the error in the logs because error_reporting was set to E_ALL & ~E-NOTICE which according to php.net:

In PHP 4 and PHP 5 the default value is E_ALL  & ~E_NOTICE. This setting does not show E_NOTICE level errors. You may want to show them during development.

Once I switched on all errors including notices -- error_reporting(E_ALL); -- I was able to find my mistake and correct it.

When errors occur in "included" files using the include() as opposed to require(), syntax errors are not reported and the included file will not be processed if they’re there. Perhaps a change to the design of the installation program is in order - but since MODx is under a major revision already this will be handled automagically in the future?

Anyhow, my MODx site is now online! Yay!

Glad you got it sorted. Thanks for documenting the problem and solution for others.