MediaTemple GridSystem, possible to run MODX Revolution on it?

Hello everybody!

I've recently discovered this CMS and I'm yet to start developing for it (yep, I'm a web developer). I previously run different CMS (I started a decade ago with phpNuke, passing through Joomla!, recently trying AnchorCMS and now using IonizeCMS due to its native multilingual approach).

One of my friends suggested me this AWESOME hosting (it's an euphemism of course). The first byte sent is class F, the page loading is crap (my little home-server Intel Atom runs faster!), it has serious problems with its MySQL server (they even let me try a GridContainer which sucked too). SSH connection sucks, too (so slow!). I think I spent 200$ for nothing after all. Blame who advised me about this hosting.

When I asked support on why there were so many DB issues (IonizeCMS continues reporting DB issues in the backend) they replied it's my own fault and that they don't support 3rd-party CMS. Understandable, I must admit, but this makes this hosting unusable for my needs.

And so here it comes MODX. I was already searching for an alternative to IonizeCMS (which is really awesome, but it has some serious problems, first of all documentation and support being a very small project developed by a little french team). I found out MODX and followed all the first hour of video training. I liked the approach and decided to try it out. On MediaTemple -.-"

The installation went fine without any issue, I can login, but when I try to edit a resource or to create a new one, only the side and top menues appear. The error log reports nothing (but the missing of the favicon). Only "new chunk" seems to work (at least it loads the view to put data into).

Any clue but to blame MediaTemple and their (useless) support? Did you have any similar problem? What can I tell MediaTemple about this error? What may cause this issue?

Thank you very much! [ed. note: elegos last edited this post 12 years, 5 months ago.]

If you copied the MODX files individually with FTP, you may have a missing or corrupted file. It's fairly common with that method.


FYI: http://bobsguides.com/modx-friendly-hosts.html

Thanks Bob for the link. Btw no, I've unzipped the files once on the server via SSH...

BTW _now_ it seems to work. What a crappy service runs one hour not and another maybe? I'm seriously considering buying a server + bandwidth just to be sure to have the environment under total control -.-"

Hi, welcome at the forum.

That's a downer, but I'm sure we will be able to sort this out.

If your using chrome and this happens again, right-click somewhere on the screen and click "inspect page". Do you see a red warning sign? If yes, click at the sign and the console should open. Cut and paste what you find there and post it here.

If you need a reliable hoster with awesome service, try skytoaster.com. Basic hosting is ridiculously cheap. If you need more power, they have this covered too.

For development try modxcloud.com. At the moment they offer a 21days no-frills test cloud (https://twitter.com/modx/status/459553283942916096). Developing on modxcloud comes with some awesome benefits. Give it a try.

Cheers,

pepebe

P.S. I'm not affiliated to either one of the companies mentioned above. Just a fanboy

Hello,

Let me start off by confirming it is possible to run MODX on a MediaTemple server. I've done it in the past (and surrendered much hair to the process). The question you should be asking - is it worth it? Personally, I would recommend the process as you'll likely go crazy before it's all said and done.

That being said you should check into how PHP is being run on the server, I believe it's CGI by default, and you want FCGI at the very least. There are performance (and security) issues otherwise. In regards to the actual issues as pepebe noted above, check the browser console for some hints and/or the network tab. It's possible you are missing resources.

I would also second his recommendation to try another hosting provider. I know SkyToaster is MODX friendly (it powers their site), granted I'm also slightly bias...

Well TBH I opted for a shared hosting because I wanted the 99% SLA - for personal purposes I already have a linux box at home with a static IP - and I already run a web server (alongside an email one). It's superfast, not only locally obviously, but it's not reliable if I'm not at home when anything happens (blackout, HDD/PSU failure, whatever). I've spent 200$/yr hoping to not reside on a super-cheap hosting (like 10 times cheaper) and relying on positive feedback found on the net (how is people don't curse MT so much? They mustn't be IT guys).

BTW according to this article I can enable FastCGI in despite of mod_rewrite (which I wanted to use for meaningful URLs... btw does MODX allows "permalinks" natively?). Do you know about an alternative to mod_rewrite for 'better' URLs instead of GET variables? I personally run nginx whenever possible, but it's not this the case.

Thanks a lot!

P.S.
No errors in console, it was the first thing I checked

This is sorta off topic but Media Temple, shared hosting, all of these "hosts" all boil down to what the incomming pipe is that they are using. You can host with GNAX in Atlanta. and its THE PIPE. there are 3 or 4 major lines coming into GNAX, i think 1 is verizon, 1 is comcast, 1 is etc etc. they supply the internet to atlanta from that building basically, all the hospitals use it etc.

http://gnax.net/

you can goto gnax and rent a shared hosting server on a box somehwere inside it, and its essentially the same pipe as if media temple went to gnax and rented rack space. my point being is that you should research where the lines come into the city and you'd be surprised to see that most of the stuff is all the same lines. just different servers running on it, companies, branding, etc.

you can rent your own server at gnax, run your own centos or linux or whatever you want, have full root access and you get something like 10 TB of transfers a month, and since you can host your own server there, you can do whatever you want with it. run a game server, run multiple VM's, run a cloud, run whatever!..

Awww cute, red errors!

I'm getting these three errors:
Uncaught TypeError: undefined is not a function ext-all.js:21
Uncaught TypeError: undefined is not a function ext-all.js:21
Uncaught TypeError: undefined is not a function ext-all.js:21

Do you have any idea?

I wasn't aware they offered an SLA with their GridService, and for $200/year it should be at least 99.9% or better. A 99% SLA allows for ~7 hours of downtime a month or around 87 hours a year, compared with around 43 minutes a month and around 8 hours a year. That's excluding scheduled maintenance that normally falls outside of the SLA window.

Zuriel is correct, datacenters are all about location and connectivity. There are definitely hubs such as Atlanta, Dallas, Seattle, Miami, etc that offer better connectivity compared with "off" locations. Generally speaking any decent datacenter will have exceptionally robust connectivity.

GNAX has some nice connectivity, however it's nothing special. If they were located in a carrier hotel on the other hand, now that would be a better deal. In regards to shared hosting, you would need to find a provider using their datacenter, as they don't offer it directly. They do offer virtual machines starting at $28/mo excluding management.

Anyways, getting back to the topic at hand!

You will need mod_rewrite support in order to use friendly urls (vs index.php?id=15), however I don't know if path_info is required off hand. You might give it a try and see what happens on that front.

In regards to the console errors, those sound very much like missing/corrupt files. Could you check if the compress_css and compress_js settings are disabled? You can read more about disabling those here: http://rtfm.modx.com/revolution/2.x/getting-started/installation/troubleshooting-installation#TroubleshootingInstallation-Managerpartsaremissing%2Cundefinedlanguagestrings%2CorthereareJavaScript500ErrorsintheManager

Let us know if that helps some.

Hello AMDbuilder, thanks for the reply. I'd like to underline I really appreciate all the efforts you all are doing to help me.

Yes I thought it was something about corruption, but being the error random (it seems to depend on the server load as in some hours it works, in some other it won't without considering the first byte sent timing) I suppose it's some misconfiguration server-side, and unfortunately the host support is laconic and evasive. They asked me what are the pre-requisites of the CMS I'm trying to run. I don't think they're asking for these info, as they're "normal" requirements, more or less. I'll try anyway. What discourages me is that my local server with just an Intel Atom CPU and a little SSD (they claim to work on a SSD cloud) burns 100 times the speeds of their service (not only with IonizeCMS/MODX, but in general). Even with normal MySQL usage.



BTW just to talk a little bit about hosting...
I know OVH, a french hosting company, by a while. They've recently created a new VPS solution for... well, cheaper than cheap hostings. VPS (traditional) and VPS (cloud). The first approach is a VPS on a server in a webfarm and it starts from ~2.5€ a month (yeah, THAT cheap), the cloud one starts from ~11€. Just because I don't drink coffee (and thus I have some more spare euros to throw away), I opted to try for one month of the cheapest solution and, surprise surprise, it's working FASTER than MT, for less than 1/5 of the price! First byte sent is flashing fast even testing connections from the other side of the world.

I don't REALLY know how it will perform at heavy load (it's 1 virtual CPU, 1 GB of RAM and 10 TB/month at 100 Mbit), but hey, it's scalable and you can always go to the next plan whenever you want! OBVIOUSLY MODX runs smoothly. The only downside (not for me) is that you have to configure the web services!