[solved] Installation problems on Fat Cow servers

[clc]

Hi -- I was wondering if anyone had successfully installed CMSMS on Fat Cow's servers?  I've installed on other web hosts without a hitch, but I'm working on a site for someone who wants to use their existing Fat Cow hosting account.  Unfortunately, I'm getting this cryptic error message on the second installation screen (right after submitting the language):

"Session not working, you have problem with some modules and functionality! Ask your provider, exiting!"

Here are the server/software details:

CMSMS: 1.5.2 full version
Debian Linux
Apache v1.3.33
PHP: 5.2.1, safe mode off, server API: CGI
MySQL: 5.0.45
Firefox 3.0.6 (doesn't work in IE7 either)

I'm following the FTP installation instructions because Fat Cow doesn't allow shell access on their shared hosting accounts.  I've tried unzipping the tar.gz file on their server, as well as unpacking locally and uploading the files individually, but I get the same error either way. The file and directory permissions appear to be in order, although I wouldn't say I'm an expert on that. 

Not sure what to try next, as everything appears to conform to the installation requirements as far as I can tell.  Any help would be much appreciated, as I love CMSMS and am really hoping to use it for this site without having to pressure them to change web hosts...

Thanks!
Karena

[clc]

Contacted the host and they checked and found that the session.save_path was not set properly; they set it and now everything is up and running...

[cgg123]

Hi there,

I'm having the same problem with my install as Karena. Can anyone tell me what the session.save_path is and how I might set it properly?

thanks,
cgg

[clc]

Unfortunately they didn't tell me what it was before my chat session was accidentally disconnected.  I would guess that your hosting provider should know though, unless you're running your own server?

[clc]

Okay, I just ran phpinfo() to check the session.save_path, and in my case it is now in cgi-bin\tmp off my public html root.  Not sure if this is typical though.  I think the main thing is that whatever user PHP is running as must be able to write to that directory -- in my case it's my user account.

Here's a link w/ info on getting and/or setting it:
http://us3.php.net/session_save_path

Karena

[cgg123]

I ran phpinfo and the session save path is /tmp.
As this is one of the folders that the cmsms instructs said to chmod to 777, I would think it's set correctly. but the install is still timing out on that second step.

I'll try to get some info from my host, but I'm not sure what they'll know about it.

thanks for the info!

cgg

[clc]

I'm wondering if you might have a different problem, since the "session not working" error message is a bit generic.  Did you try editing the URL in the initial install screen to end in:

install/index.php?debug=1

When I did that, I received more detailed error messages that read:

Warning: Unknown: open(/var/php_sessions/sess_ba2d2048e8734078de0a4b5ad933fb40, O_RDWR) failed: No such file or directory (2) in Unknown on line 0

Warning: Unknown: Failed to write session data (files). Please verify that the current setting of session.save_path is correct (/var/php_sessions) in Unknown on line 0

Which helped me figure out what to ask my web host.  I just realized that I hadn't posted that part since I figured that out after my original post...

Karena