Migrating to new host using SuPhp - admin login wont work!

[photoseller]

I cant get the login page of my admin area to work - and while 90 percent of the catelog pages are good - clicking on CHECK OUT gets me the same INTERNAL ERROR 500.

One factor to note is that my admin pages are redirected to SSL. And of course the checkout does the same thing - goto SSL.

So I dont know if this is strictly a SSL issue or a PHP issue or both.

I have tried to work this out with my current new hosting support. Unfortunately, they are clueless. and I cant afford the propagation down time to move again. So I have to figure this out on my own and see what I can do via CPanel etc.

My new home runs SuPHP and I dont beleive my old home did. I do know the old spot said it ran PHP5 engine.

So does anyone out there recognize this behavior of moving working zen install from server A to server B and then zen cart SSL pages stop with Internal server error 500?

thanks
Photoseller

[Website Rob]

We have a lot of missing information such as:
- how were the files uploaded to the new Host
- when did you change Nameservers
- how was your previous SSL Cert installed / transferred to the new Hoster
- was PHP running as CGI on the old Server

You can solve the riddle of whether it's an SSL or PHP problem by changing the SSL setting in your two 'configure.php' files to false.

Also, why would you experience any downtime? You should have had a Dedicated IP address for your Hosting account with both Hosters, for use with your SSL Cert. With the new Hosting account you use your IP address within the Zen Cart 'configure.php' files to make sure everything is OK. When it is, you then put the old Hosting account into Maintenance Mode, change Nameservers, change the new 'configure.php' files from your IP address to your Domain name and you're away. Perhaps though, that is good information for next time?

[photoseller]

We have a lot of missing information such as:
- how were the files uploaded to the new Host
- when did you change Nameservers
- how was your previous SSL Cert installed / transferred to the new Hoster
- was PHP running as CGI on the old Server

You can solve the riddle of whether it's an SSL or PHP problem by changing the SSL setting in your two 'configure.php' files to false.

Also, why would you experience any downtime? You should have had a Dedicated IP address for your Hosting account with both Hosters, for use with your SSL Cert. With the new Hosting account you use your IP address within the Zen Cart 'configure.php' files to make sure everything is OK. When it is, you then put the old Hosting account into Maintenance Mode, change Nameservers, change the new 'configure.php' files from your IP address to your Domain name and you're away. Perhaps though, that is good information for next time?

First, a bit of ranting........
I would experiencee down time because I HAVE NO SUPPORT. because I AM the one troubleshooting it. because I AM THE GUY who has to investigate how to transfer an SSL cert. Because no one there is working to make the migration successful. No one there seems to understand things like work ethic, testing, checking, tweeking, troubleshooting. ie the basics of IT ??

They did a full migration for me cpanel to cpanel - I have them the old accounts password so they could handle it all.

How good of a job did they do? WWW wasnt in their DNS so if you type in www.mydomain.com - no page. They gave me a cpanel url THAT WAS NOT HTTPS. I had to ask them for one. They made it - cert warnings on connect and 50% of the time login doesnt work. Thats just the most obvious of errors.

And that is why I have no answers for you on how XYZ was done or why did they do ABC. because it will take them 12 -24 hours to reply back they dont know or reply back "ok we looked at the door and saw no problems so this means your flat tire is ok after all"

Rant off.

On the bright side - I thank you for the tip on turning off SSL.

And its the DNS propagation that is the downtime I mean. I already got screwed out of 5 days of commerce this holiday week. I'm back in DNS good graces now so I'll do my best to make this new disaster a home I can live in for at least a while.

Photoseller

[Website Rob]

Bad support from a Hoster is not something they like discussed on this Forum so we won't go any further into that.

As to the PHP situation and since we provide cPanel as well, I can tell you now that when a transfer is done through WHM it will not deal correctly with permission settings. It copies files using the same permissions as already there. That is fine if PHP as CGI is how it was on the old Server. If it was not though, the transferred files and dir's. will probably not have the proper permissions. You might be able to overcome that by manually uploading your files using your FTP program. An FTP program, by default, uses the default permission & ownership Rules as determined by the Server; so you as the Client do not have to worry about such things.

[photoseller]

We have a lot of missing information such as:
- how were the files uploaded to the new Host
- when did you change Nameservers
- how was your previous SSL Cert installed / transferred to the new Hoster
- was PHP running as CGI on the old Server

more info now available

SSL cert WAS an issue however I do not know if it was THE issue. as far as I am able to tell at the moment that is resolved.

Currently - due to my following advice to change permissons - I now have lost my stores home page as well. that aside, heres more info:

The old host support gave me this info about how PHP is run

"By default, PHP on our servers runs through mod_suphp. It can be run as as FastCGI instead. FastCGI for PHP makes all your PHP applications run through mod_fastcgi instead. This eliminates the overhead of loading the PHP interpreter on every hit. Since it is always in memory ready for the next hit, the responses will be generated faster. All php scripts are run with the uid and guid as the cPanel user of the account. This can be set in the PHP Config icon of cPanel."

The new host support tells me this is how PHP is run there:

"At the moment your server running PHP as SuPHP. Let me know if you need any further information"

Oh and its completely telltale and not at all misleading representation that the old host wrote a nice succinct explaination for me while the new host - where once you removed the boiler plate last sentence - gave me a nine word reply. And a bit ambigious at that. "At the moment" ? mmmmmeaning what? I can change it if I wish? they will change it without notice?

once I find out how to put back my permissions as they were I will be able to continue on with either ecommerce or further PHP debugging.

I am hoping this new info might help those apache PHP savvy folks tell me what to do so the new host plays nicely with my zencart.

[Merlinpa1969]

Using suphp

here goes
1 make sure you have NO php directives in the htaccess folder

2 make sure that ALL folders are set to 755
3 make sure ALL files are set to 644 ( Exception is the /includes/configure.php file at 444 )

that should take care of it,
your Host should be able to drop in and make these changes for you in a coupla seconds,

[Merlinpa1969]

If you have shell access you can run the following

find /home/YOUR USER NAME/public_html/ -type d -perm 0777 -exec chmod 755 {} \;


find /home/YOUR USER NAME/public_html/ -type f -perm 0777 -exec chmod 644 {} \;

this will change all filders that have 777 permissions to 755 and same with files them selves ( well to 644 )

[photoseller]

I could kiss you - but not in a ###### way! I'm back on the air......

Tell you what - as soon as this smoke clears from the host to host move I'm gonna write up that check list of what has to happen for the next guy who has to travel down this rabbit hole!

photoseller
wow did you know 'g- a -y' was a censored word?