Possible Solution to MODx 2.3 Manager Not Working on GoDaddy Server

Ultimate Hosting with 2.3.0 install has manager that randomly goes to a white screen.

My server had no active .htaccess file because I had turned off the friendly URLs by changing .htaccess to ht.access as well as changing the system settings for fURLs prior to my update.

After days of trying to figure out why my manager was going wacky, simply changing ht.access back to .htaccess seems to have solved the problem. Manager is working great now.

GoDaddy was supposedy going to be whitelisting my IP, suggesting that MODx was making too many requests, possibly causing me to get temporarily blocked — usually less than a minute. At this writing, I don't think that has occurred, so I can't confirm for sure which was the solution, but my money is on the .htaccess.

Was this the /manager/.htaccess, or the one in the site root?

Quote from: mmcgee at Jul 29, 2014, 06:47 AM

Ultimate Hosting with 2.3.0 install has manager that randomly goes to a white screen.

My server had no active .htaccess file because I had turned off the friendly URLs by changing .htaccess to ht.access as well as changing the system settings for fURLs prior to my update.

After days of trying to figure out why my manager was going wacky, simply changing ht.access back to .htaccess seems to have solved the problem. Manager is working great now.

GoDaddy was supposedy going to be whitelisting my IP, suggesting that MODx was making too many requests, possibly causing me to get temporarily blocked — usually less than a minute. At this writing, I don't think that has occurred, so I can't confirm for sure which was the solution, but my money is on the .htaccess.

The one in the root. Sorry, I should have clarified. I probably overwrite the original one on the server when I switch to friendly URLs. Having disabled them to do an update... I forgot that they are needed.

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /

All in all two changes were made on my end:
1. turned ON allow_fopen_urls (had no affect on improving / solving the manager problems)
2. changed ht.access to .htaccess (immediately solved all of the issues I was experiencing.)

Possible solution:
goDaddy whitelisting my IP address (I think only a ticket had been created, and no actual change made at the point I enabled the .htaccess)

That depends on what's in the .htaccess file. Some hosts have information there on which PHP engine the web server should invoke, and other internally necessary information.

I'm guessing that the original perhaps only had:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /

My original install and subsequent enabling of friendly URLs would have meant that I would have overwritten any existing .htaccess — assuming there was one.

I recall having issues with the manager not displaying at all some of my very first MODx install on shared hosting (not always at goDaddy), where changing ht.access to .htaccess fixed the problem. Is it possible that some shared hosting environments on linux might not have any htaccess files initially, yet MODx at a minimum requires an htaccess with RewriteEngine On RewriteBase / ?

No. MODX does not require URL rewrites at all. And, in fact, you don't want them for the Manager. The /manager has its own that turns off the rewrite engine if it needs to.

Of course, if you have Friendly URLs turned on in the system settings without server rewrites, it may have some odd results besides links and menus not working.

I had turned off friendly URLs in system settings, and deleted whatever .htaccess existed in the root. Partly just because I was doing an update from 2.2.6 to 2.3, but also because I was dealing with that core services hack.

Quote from: mmcgee at Jul 29, 2014, 04:08 PM

I had turned off friendly URLs in system settings, and deleted whatever .htaccess existed in the root. Partly just because I was doing an update from 2.2.6 to 2.3, but also because I was dealing with that core services hack.

I just said goodbye to a long term relationship with Godaddy due to their inability to solidly run MODX. Maybe time for you to do the same?
http://forums.modx.com/thread/92290/modx-2-3-website-breaks-after-resource-save?page=3#dis-post-505069

Current plan expires next month, so migration is definitely on the agenda.

Excellent points in your post. This forum is by far the best!