Admin Login - Loop Of Death II

[OrangeCrush]

Thank you to whomever might be able to help.

I am a first-time installer. I'm looking for a simple shopping cart to replace the buttons I've been using that were provided by PayPal. I had hoped to install Zencart to evaluate it. I'm not having much luck.

I’m running (or trying to run) Zen Cart version 1.5.8a
The first problem: the https://www.dans.com/zencart/ page and the https://www.dans.com/zencart/zcadmin page both gave me a 500 error. I bumped php down from version 8.2.12 down to 8.0.30, and then they started working (or so I thought).

The admin page login doesn’t work. Like I found on "Royal Dave's" ticket, it’s in the “loop of death”. I attempt to login, and it appears as though the login page is just refreshing, and I’m prompted to log in again.

Royal Dave's similarly titled ticket that described what I had hoped was the same problem:
https://www.zen-cart.com/showthread....doesn%27t+work I followed along, and checked my php.ini, and I’ve got session.use_cookies set to 1. I must have a different issue.

Then I found this good article in the Zen cart documentation:
https://docs.zen-cart.com/user/troub...ng/cant_login/

I made certain that I was using www. I temporarily re-named the htaccess file to something else, with no success. I cleared my browser cache and all cookies. I’m not seeing any errors in a server log (although as a newbie, I am not certain that I am in the correct log, or where that might even be). I’ve tried three different browsers.

I did find that I needed to update lines 17 and 22 of zencart/includes/configure.php and lines 16,32,33 and 38 of zencart/zcadmin/includes/configure.php to call out SSL, but these updates still didn’t fix the issue.

Side note, those configure.php files have lines that look like this:

define('HTTP_SERVER', 'http://dans.com');
define('HTTPS_SERVER', 'https://dans.com');

Maybe I need the www in them?

I went to phpMyAdmin and looked in the admin table. Admin is there, listed as a user, last_login_ip is blank, failed_logins os 0 and last_failed_ip is blank, so I don’t think there’s a problem there.

I’m grateful to anyone who can offer a suggestion.

[swguy]

Use https everywhere in both configure files. Yes, use www there too.

> I’m not seeing any errors in a server log ...

Look in the folder "logs" (at the same level as "zcadmin"). There will be something there.

[mc12345678]

The file includes/configure.php (not the one in the admin folder) is at to read only and needs to be made writable before the explained changes can be saved.
Expected current permissions: 444, making 644 should make writable.

[OrangeCrush]

Use https everywhere in both configure files. Yes, use www there too.

> I’m not seeing any errors in a server log ...

Look in the folder "logs" (at the same level as "zcadmin"). There will be something there.

Thank you for your help, SWguy.

Now I have https, and www everywhere in both of those configure files.

I HAD found those log files, as I remember seeing them. Thank you for helping me to remember that detail. The most recent log entry however, is dated 11/10/23, the day that I installed Zen Cart on the server. There's nothing new there from the two login attempts that I just made (after I updated the configure files again). I don't really understand what the most recent log entry is telling us, though, so I'll share it here, in the hopes that it may make something clear to you.

[10-Nov-2023 23:06:41 America/New_York] PHP Fatal error: Uncaught IntlException: datefmt_create: invalid locale: U_ILLEGAL_ARGUMENT_ERROR in /var/www/vhosts/dans.com/httpdocs/zencart/includes/classes/zcDate.php:90
Stack trace:
#0 /var/www/vhosts/dans.com/httpdocs/zencart/includes/classes/zcDate.php(90): IntlDateFormatter->__construct()
#1 /var/www/vhosts/dans.com/httpdocs/zencart/includes/classes/zcDate.php(39): zcDate->initializeConversionArrays()
#2 /var/www/vhosts/dans.com/httpdocs/zencart/includes/autoload_func.php(47): zcDate->__construct()
#3 /var/www/vhosts/dans.com/httpdocs/zencart/includes/application_top.php(237): require('...')
#4 /var/www/vhosts/dans.com/httpdocs/zencart/index.php(25): require('...')
#5 {main}
thrown in /var/www/vhosts/dans.com/httpdocs/zencart/includes/classes/zcDate.php on line 90

[10-Nov-2023 23:06:41 America/New_York] Request URI: /zencart/, IP address: (my IP address...)
--> PHP Fatal error: Uncaught IntlException: datefmt_create: invalid locale: U_ILLEGAL_ARGUMENT_ERROR in /var/www/vhosts/dans.com/httpdocs/zencart/includes/classes/zcDate.php:90
Stack trace:
#0 /var/www/vhosts/dans.com/httpdocs/zencart/includes/classes/zcDate.php(90): IntlDateFormatter->__construct()
#1 /var/www/vhosts/dans.com/httpdocs/zencart/includes/classes/zcDate.php(39): zcDate->initializeConversionArrays()
#2 /var/www/vhosts/dans.com/httpdocs/zencart/includes/autoload_func.php(47): zcDate->__construct()
#3 /var/www/vhosts/dans.com/httpdocs/zencart/includes/application_top.php(237): require('...')
#4 /var/www/vhosts/dans.com/httpdocs/zencart/index.php(25): require('...')
#5 {main}
thrown in /var/www/vhosts/dans.com/httpdocs/zencart/includes/classes/zcDate.php on line 90.

[OrangeCrush]

Thank you mc12345678. I did update the file permissions so that I could upload the revised configure.php files, and then I restored them to 444. It would seem that was not part of the problem.

[carlwhat]

i would look here:

https://github.com/zencart/zencart/pull/6038

it is a known bug.

[lat9]

See this related/duplicate thread: https://www.zen-cart.com/showthread....04#post1397704

... or what @carlwhat said.

[OrangeCrush]

This is a good thought, Carlwhat - thank you for suggesting it. It brings something else to light. When I first installed Zen cart, I was running php 8.2.12. I got 500s on the zen cart pages. They went away when I bumped php down to 8.0.30. I just brought it back up to 8.2.12, and tried to hit the https://www.dans.com/zencart/ and the https://www.dans.com/zencart/zcadmin pages. I got the 500s again. Then I put php back to 8.0.30, and checked the log. I see a new entry for that invalid locale error that I don't understand again. So I think that's a php version issue - or something that needs to be fixed if I want to use 8.2.12 (and I do...). If I were to guess, I'd dare say this is a different problem, not the one causing the causing the loop of death.

[OrangeCrush]

See this related/duplicate thread: https://www.zen-cart.com/showthread....04#post1397704

... or what @carlwhat said.

Could this be a different rabbit hole - the 500 error, and not the lopp of death problem?

[swguy]

It is a different problem but if you follow the advice provided, you will be in the clear.