Installed without errors. Immediate 500 server error followed.

After following http://rtfm.modx.com/display/revolution20/Basic+Installation as best I could (there are screens in the install that are missing from the docs - on those screens I kept the defaults) everything seemed to go fine. Green ticks everywhere. I hit install and after a few seconds I was redirected to /setup/index.php?action=complete that showed a large 500 Server Error. I've gone through the docs again, the directories it mentions by name have the correct permissions, the php config changes were made. If I go to the root I get a 500 error.

I read through this forum before posting and some others who had this problem were told to run the installation again so I tried that but after hitting next twice I get to this page: /setup/index.php?action=options and 500 Internal Server Error.

Nothing in the apache access/error logs. Does the modx installer keep a log anywhere?

Was/is there an existing .htaccess file in the folder, or in one above the MODX install folder? If so, rename that file and try again. Run setup with a NEW copy of MODX but make sure to upload the zip file to the server, and unpack it ON the server itself, then copy & overwrite the unpacked files into the install directory (no FTP, it can lose or gork files unpacked on your machine).

More information about your server environment is needed. Is this on localhost? Is MODX installed in the root, or a subfolder? Have you configured php.ini yet?

I cleared it all out and started fresh. Same error after a perfect install. Here's what happened:

Installation Summary
Pre-installation tests were successful. Click Install below to continue.
Checking PHP version: OK! Running: 5.3.10-1ubuntu3.4
Checking PHP for zlib dependency: OK!
Checking for SimpleXML: OK!
Checking if memory limit is set to at least 24M: OK! Set to 128M
Checking if sessions are properly configured: OK!
Checking if /var/www/www.test.com/htdocs/core/cache directory exists: OK!
Checking if /var/www/www.test.com/htdocs/core/cache directory is writable: OK!
Checking if /var/www/www.test.com/htdocs/core/export directory exists: OK!
Checking if /var/www/www.test.com/htdocs/core/export directory is writable: OK!
Checking if /var/www/www.test.com/htdocs/core/packages directory exists: OK!
Checking if /var/www/www.test.com/htdocs/core/packages directory is writable: OK!
Checking if /var/www/www.test.com/htdocs/core/config/config.inc.php exists and is writable: OK!
Creating connection to the database: OK!
Checking to make sure safe_mode is off: OK!
Checking for suhosin issues:OK!


********** click Install


Installation Summary
Core installation was successful. Click next to complete the installation process.
(scroll to bottom)
Toggle Success Messages | Toggle Warnings
Config file successfully written.
Config file permissions successfully updated.


********** click Next


500 Error
Site temporarily unavailable.


This is on Ubuntu 12.04.1 LTS (GNU/Linux 3.2.0-31-generic x86_64)
apache2 2.2.22-1ubuntu1
php 5.3.10-1ubuntu3.4
mysql 5.5.24-0ubuntu0.12.04.1

Completely empty install directory:

cd /var/www/www.test.com/htdocs/
wget http://modx.com/download/direct/modx-2.2.5-pl.zip
unzip modx-2.2.5-pl.zip
mv modx-2.2.5-pl.zip/* .
rmdir modx-2.2.5-pl
cd ..
chown -Rv www-data:www-data .

Then checked permissions - all looked ok so I then launched www.test.com/setup, ran through the installer and 500 Error.

Try going to the www.yoursite.com/manager in a different browser.

Same?

Yes, browser makes no difference.

• Check your log files in the core/cache/logs directory and print the errors here.
• Set the permissions of your core/config directory to 777.
• Make sure your your max_execution_time is set to at least 120 secs
• flush all manager sessions and manually empty your core/cache directory.
• rename your old config.core.php to config.core.php.bak and upload the fresh one
• Do the same with your index.php file
• Clear your browser cache
• rerun the install

Believe it or not, I had a similar issue just a few hours ago and changing the permission of the core/config directory did the trick for me. Not sure why.

Hope it helps

Clear your browser cookies as well.

See if anything here helps: http://bobsguides.com/modx-installation-faq.html

Do you have an .htaccess file in the MODX root directory (there should be an ht.access file, but not .htaccess). If there is an .htaccess file, try renaming it to something else, but don't remove it.


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PLEASE, PLEASE specify the version of MODX you are using.
MODX info for everyone: http://bobsguides.com/modx.html

Fixed it. Everything was configured fine aside from the privileges in mysql itself. I had fat-fingered the username when granting database privileges in the mysql shell. I only noticed it when I went to clear out the database to start again - it was empty!

I know it was my mistake but I'm very surprised the installer didn't throw an error or even a warning when it was unable to write to the database. Seems like that should be installer behavior 101. When it was doing the initial checks after entering the mysql database/user information it reported everything was fine too. Maybe during that step the installer should see if it can actually write to the database rather than just connect to the instance?

In any case it's working now, Thanks for the assistance - I'll learn to type one of these days!