Cannot Log Into Admin Account After Install

[jeccker]

I just installed Zen Cart, but I can't log into the Admin account. It just refreshes back to the login screen each time. I looked the FAQs, the Forum, and tried all the things here (except for looking at the server logs - I don't know where they are and it's not documented anywhere, so I submitted the question to support):

https://www.zen-cart.com/content.php...lling-zen-cart

I deleted the user entry from the database (with login info I manually entered during install), and inserted the Admin/admin username/password provided in another thread. I tried in both Chrome (v54.0.2840.99 m) and IE (v11.0.9600.18376). I tried the function renaming tip here:

https://www.zen-cart.com/showthread....log-into-admin

When that didn't work, I did a global renaming of all functions called "animate" in any of the files to "waiting_spinner." Still no go.

Here's where my situation may vary from others, although I can't figure out how it might come into play.

My (well, my friend's - I'm helping him with web development) main domain is for his remodeling business. I'll call it paintingremodeling.com. He also has a product he invented for scuba diving, and his site for that business is in a subdomain we'll call divingequipment.com. The files are located in the subdirectory paintingremodeling.com/diving. So although the install path for Zen Cart was divingequipment.com/zencart, the physical path was something like d:/users/paintingremodeling/diving/zencart/. But this messed things up. When installation was done and I tried to open the admin pages at divingequipment.com/zencart/admin/ (with "admin" renamed during install), it kept trying to refresh to pages in divingequipment.com/diving/zencart/. (the customer pages seemed to work fine - only the admin pages gave me errors) As you can see, it was putting the /diving/ directory in there with the subdomain, which is incorrect.

I troubleshooted through the various files to see where and why this was being done, and it seems somewhere the /diving/ directory was being extracted from the path (or perhaps the url "paintingremodeling.com/diving/" - which was never used anywhere), then rebuilding a url with /diving/ appended to divingequipment.com. In a couple configure.php files (admin/includes/configure.php and includes/configure.php), I saw this:

* Note about DIR_WS_ADMIN
* The DIR_WS_ADMIN value is now auto-detected.
* In the rare case where it cannot be detected properly, you can add your own DIR_WS_ADMIN definition below.

So in each of these files, I added the line:

define('DIR_WS_ADMIN', '/zencart/admin/');

(with "admin" changed to the directory renamed by the system during install)

This seemed to fix it - I was now able to get the login page. But it would never accept the correct username and password - and it would not send the password reset email if I clicked on the "forgot password" link. I click the Submit button, the spinny thing shows briefly, then it goes back to the same login page.

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- Zen Cart version 1.5.5b, New install - not upgrade
- No payment modules installed yet
- Manual install by uploading files and running install from there - one-click install from hosting company wasn't possible because I was installing to a subdomain of the main account, and their control center didn't give me the option to do that.
- PHP Version 5.4.9
- MySQL Version 5.0.10 - 20111026
- Logs: there are no entries in the logs during the days/times when I was having this problem.
- Server Type: ASP/ASP.NET 2008 Value

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Cheers!
John

[mc12345678]

Sounds mostly like issues possibly related with htaccess rewrites which could also be wreaking havoc with the session storage/use. Are you able to log in as a customer on the store side? Are you currently using https: (SSL?)

Having a sub-folder within a sub-domain shouldn't give that much trouble if all is properly setup on the server.

Server logs, best to ask your host about them. They may be in plain site, they may be tucked away somewhere only they can see.

[jeccker]

Thanks!

I deleted the .htaccess files from the admin/ and admin/includes/ directories, but I still have the problem.

The customer login works fine. I created an account in my name, and successfully logged in.

With my own hosting company, I have access to the "root" directory (but I have a dedicated server), and the web site files are in a public_html directory. My logs are in a directory off of the root (and I can also access them via cPanel). But with this hosting company, I can only see the directory with the html files, and from the physical path name it looks like there is no "root" parent directory. The logs might be accessed through some hidden option in the Web Control Center interface - I'll have to wait for their support to get back to me.

[jeccker]

Oh, and yes - I'm using a SSL certificate that is specific to the subdomain. The main domain is not secured by it.

[jeccker]

From the hosting company:

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I apologize, but for this type of hosting account there are no discrete error logs available for you to view. I did check the PHP error logs on the server and did not see anything being thrown for your website.

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*sigh*

[lat9]

Are you trying to log into the admin using the Chrome browser?

If so, there's a patch: https://github.com/zencart/zencart/pull/1321/files

[jeccker]

Thanks! But yes, I've already tried that one with no success.

[mc12345678]

Thanks!

I deleted the .htaccess files from the admin/ and admin/includes/ directories, but I still have the problem.

The customer login works fine. I created an account in my name, and successfully logged in.

With my own hosting company, I have access to the "root" directory (but I have a dedicated server), and the web site files are in a public_html directory. My logs are in a directory off of the root (and I can also access them via cPanel). But with this hosting company, I can only see the directory with the html files, and from the physical path name it looks like there is no "root" parent directory. The logs might be accessed through some hidden option in the Web Control Center interface - I'll have to wait for their support to get back to me.

Oh, and yes - I'm using a SSL certificate that is specific to the subdomain. The main domain is not secured by it.

Most likely, if there is a problem related to an htaccess file in this regards it would be in a path "above" the admin folder of the site that is in a sub-directory of another domain's main folder. See the zc_install system upon accessing is on the same "level" as the admin directory and the directory above that (the catalog itself) does not have an htaccess file. Any "security" related information (redirects, rewrites, etc...) would be provided in a "higher" level htaccess file and because those "rules" cascade downward they would affect sub-directories.

How does the domain for the SSL relate to the current domain of the admin/includes/configure.php is one using www. and the other not?

Might suggest changing to the various SSL enabled options for the admin/includes/configure.php to temporarily not use https: access and see if you are able to remain logged in. Be advised that upon reenabling SSL access/login to the admin that you will have to change your password following the standard password rules of at least not repeating a recently used password.

[jeccker]

Oh, for criminy sake. He's on a WINDOWS server! Sorry everyone - I didn't know (it didn't say anything anywhere in his Web Control Center's account information page).

I'm transferring him over to a Linux server, and I suspect that will solve the problem since PHP plays much better with it than Windows.

Thank you all for your help!