CMS Made Simple Forums

We've moved our CMSMS site from one web host to another. Everything works beautifully, but only if we don't use pretty URLs. Which has me thinking there's a issue either with mod_rewrite on the host, config.php, or the .htaccess file.

1. Issue with mod_rewrite
I don't believe it is this as we have another customer site running on the same server (built using SilverStripe), where the URL rewriting works perfectly.

2. Issue with config.php
There's a few gotchas I'm aware of with this especially since we're currently hosting the site on an IP address (I want to get it all working on the IP before I repoint the DNS). However, I have set root_url to be the IP address + /~websitename. When I mouse over a link, this appears to have worked great; the paths and hierarchy are fine, just when you click you get a 404.

3. Issue with .htaccess
I've used the one from the wiki (here), which worked fine previously.

The Apache logs, however tell me something a bit more interesting:

[Wed Jan 14 14:18:19 2009] [error] [client 213.208.100.91] File does not exist: /var/www/html/home, referer: http://myserverip/~websitename/
[Wed Jan 14 14:18:19 2009] [error] [client 213.208.100.91] File does not exist: /var/www/html/404.shtml, referer: http://myserverip/~websitename/

The path it's talking about (/var/www/html/) is from the old server, not the new one. Is this info set somewhere in CMSMS? I can't see it in config.php. Is this even the problem?

Thanks a lot for your help!

Environment:
CMSMS version 1.4
PHP 5.2.x
Apache 2.x
CentOS

The paths come from the config.php file - make sure they reflect the new setup. If you're not sure, you could do a fresh install to a subdirectory on the new server, using a different db prefix, to see what path settings are determined by the setup program.

Nullig

Hi Nullig, thanks for the tip but I don't think what you describe is the issue. I've searched config.php for the old server path of "/var/www/html" and there's nothing, no mention of it at all.

All of the server paths appear correct:

$config['root_path'] = '/home/colony101/public_html';
$config['previews_path'] = '/home/colony101/public_html/tmp/cache';
$config['uploads_path'] = '/home/colony101/public_html/uploads';
$config['image_uploads_path'] = '/home/colony101/public_html/uploads/images';

Where on earth could that path be coming from?!

So you did a fresh install in a subfolder and it says the same paths as the config in the problem site?...

Hi Mark,

Okay, I admit I hadn't done that. I think I smelt victory and went for a short cut! Lesson learned.

However, I now have done as Nullig and yourself have suggested. There was indeed a small difference in the server paths:

My actual config.php's paths are:
/home/colony101/public_html

This new test install has paths saying:
/home/colony101/domains//public_html/

So, I took the newly made config.php and used it for my actual site on the new server, making appropriate changes. (I amended the server paths, just ditching the sub-directory I installed to; I also changed the database configuration appropriately and set assume_mod_rewrite to true and use_hierarchy to true).

I still get 404s when I click on any links.

Apache's error log says:

[Fri Jan 16 11:12:58 2009] [error] [client myip] File does not exist: /var/www/html/home, referer: http://ourserveripaddress/~colony101/
[Fri Jan 16 11:12:58 2009] [error] [client myip] File does not exist: /var/www/html/404.shtml, referer: http://ourserveripaddress/~colony101/

Where the heck is it getting those old server paths from?! Argh!

However, this may be of interest...

In the brand new test site, I enabled mod_rewrite and hierarchical URLs. It also throws 404s...

Apache says:

[Fri Jan 16 11:22:28 2009] [error] [client myip] File does not exist: /var/www/html/home, referer: http://ourserveripaddress/~colony101/websitetest/
[Fri Jan 16 11:22:28 2009] [error] [client myip] File does not exist: /var/www/html/404.shtml, referer: http://ourserveripaddress/~colony101/websitetest/

I am now wondering if my host has screwed up my httpd.conf or something? In trying to get this thing to work as per the old server, I emailed them the old server's httpd.conf and said "here's the modules etc as per the old environment". I can't believe they would have copy/pasted paths from another server...

Am I even thinking in the right direction?

So I guess this fresh test install of CMSMS on the server officially rules out two of my initial suggestions?

2. Issue with config.php
Since we have a brand new config.php made from the new install.

3. Issue with .htaccess
Has only standard content from CMSMS wiki:

Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine on

# 301 Redirect all requests that don't contain a dot or trailing slash to
# include a trailing slash
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !/$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !\.
RewriteRule ^(.*) %{REQUEST_URI}/ [R=301,L]

# Rewrites urls in the form of /parent/child/
# but only rewrites if the requested URL is not a file or directory
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.+)$ index.php?page=$1 [QSA]

A little update, in case anyone's still reading.

I've posted the Apache error log, but here, in addition, is the error the browser shows:

Not Found

The requested URL /home/colony101/public_html/index.php was not found on this server.

Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.

Which is interesting as the first part would appear to be a separate problem from the 404.

I'm getting a little bit desperate with this one since it's costing me money to keep my old server running. Argh!

I'm now fairly convinced this is a CMSMS configuration issue unrelated to my site or a server issue specific to CMSMS.

1. A fresh/empty CMSMS install to a sub-directory has all the same problems.

2. Installing SilverStripe to sub-directory and creating some pages to test mod_rewrite and SEO friendly URLs works fine.

I think I've hit the wall with this one.

Thank goodness; this is finally solved!

Here's a breakdown of the issue.

We moved the website to a new server, running it off of the IP address whilst we double-checked the configuration (before re-pointing our DNS to the new server). So we were running off of an IP like thus:

http://ournewserveripaddress/~websitename

The issue was the .htaccess, which had:

RewriteBase /

Except, of course, and it's obvious now, it shouldn't rewrite the URL all the way back to the base of the IP in this instance, since the ~/ pointed to a folder where CMSMS lived. Amending the .htaccess as below fixed it:

RewriteBase /~websitename/

So I think we're good to flick RewriteBase back to the / and repoint the DNS, then kill the old server.

Yes if you are using .htaccess mod_rewrite rules and it is in a sub folder of root you need to put the RewriteBase /name of folder in...

Hi Deak.
I had exactly the same problem, I spent hours on it searching the board, testing and... you solved it !
I've just registered here to say : THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU !


Cheers !

trucmuche wrote: Hi Deak.
I had exactly the same problem, I spent hours on it searching the board, testing and... you solved it !
I've just registered here to say : THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU !


Cheers !

Wow, first time I ever solved anything. I usually just create problems.