ADMIN page wont load at all! (Windows Bug in PHP 5.2.4)

I just installed zencart on IIS6. The page will load fine (Regualr site) but the admin page wont load at all. It seems like it is stuck in an endless loop as IE will act as the page is loading, but it will just sit there. Blank white screen... I tried reconfiguring it 3 times, reinstalling, changing out config files, etc... but nothign seems to be working. Can someone please help? I am out of ideas! :censored:

Blank screens are typically a result of a PHP syntax error, often caused by incomplete files or incorrect coding changes.

If you just installed, then perhaps your FTP upload didn't handle all files completely/correctly. This is the cause of about 80% of website problems.

Its not a blank screen as the page never finishes loading...the page continues to load and load and load (IE shows it as loading in the loading bar)... I will try and download the entire package again and see of that helps. Part of me feels it is a configuration error... thoughts?

Thanks for the help!

I don't normally see that happen.

The server's error log may help diagnose things.

Are you using IIS just as a simple test on a local computer, or is that your primary hosting platform for live sites?

Greetings and salutations...I'm having this EXACT same error on the admin page. Installed ZenCart tonight. The storefront itself works like a charm, but the admin page just hangs and hangs. This is on a live box that I'm trying to get up and running.

Interestingly it runs just fine on my dev box.

I was thinking of a config issue as well?

rwuhrman:

Interestingly it runs just fine on my dev box.

I was thinking of a config issue as well?

Yes, it's most likely a config issue causing the session not to start properly. What are the PHP configuration differences between the two servers?
If you've got SSL enabled, try disabling it. Perhaps the domain name isn't getting set into the cookie properly because of a bad SSL setup.
Also check cookie restrictions, esp for session cookies.

Also, when you installed on the live server, did you install fresh, or was it a copy of what you'd been using on your dev server? Fresh installs are always better.

Thanks. I'm really trying to uncover this issue, but can't find it. Here are some more details. No SSL is running on the site right now. I did not choose the SSL options during install. Also, when going to http://www.domainname.com/admin/index.php it basically seems to hang for awhile while loading index.php then it actually finishes hanging and stops on login.php with a browser error saying the page Problem Loading Page.

Some more detail...
-The zenAdminID cookie looks like it's being set when browsing to the admin area (my tells me so)
-I am able to login and register just fine in the storefront itself, then browse around just fine
-I've gone and just to make sure enabled write access for the iuser account

What could the difference be between the storefront and the admin area that would cause this?

I'm used to web programming in the microsoft world, and before that perl many years ago, but this is my first foray into dealing with setting up a php-based solution so I''ll admit upfront I'm not a whiz at all the configuration details. That said, I love this concept, just hoping I can get it to work as well as it's working on my dev system. Is there some way to trace the execution of the scripts in PHP or some other ways to understand where it might be hanging up?

I have PHP 5.1, mySQL 5.1, and ZenCart 1.3.7. This is a Windows 2003 box.

ONE FUNDAMENTAL DIFFERENCE BETWEEN DEV and LIVE:
I have dev running PHP as an ISAPI, and live is running PHP through cgi. I read it's better to run PHP on Windows through CGI though to get better error handling. Correct? Could this be the problem though?

Thanks.

rwuhrman:

I have PHP 5.1, mySQL 5.1, and ZenCart 1.3.7. This is a Windows 2003 box.

ONE FUNDAMENTAL DIFFERENCE BETWEEN DEV and LIVE:
I have dev running PHP as an ISAPI, and live is running PHP through cgi. I read it's better to run PHP on Windows through CGI though to get better error handling. Correct? Could this be the problem though?

I didn't think you could run PHP as ISAPI under Windows.
If you can change it, you'll likely find differences. Running PHP as CGI has often caused grief for many folks.

Additionally, your PHP 5.1 version is quite old. 5.2.x is out, and contains numerous bugfixes and is much more stable than 5.1 was.

:no: I have the same problem I'm useing latest ver. of PHP, latest ver. mysql, lastest ver. zen cart it will not load the admin page. It just sits there and loads and loads and loads. I when threw every step in correcting php till I got all green checks on the install except cgi - php but it said to agnore if using iis. I uninstalled and reinstalled everything, rebooted, etc. I own the web server so I have all the controll as far as a web host. What ever you need to see I will post. "This is :censored: killing me." I have hours apon hours trying to fix this. The only reason I have not droped this an moved on to a new product is it looks so cool. PLEASE HELP ME !!!!

shanescy:

:no: I have the same problem I'm useing latest ver. of PHP, latest ver. mysql, lastest ver. zen cart it will not load the admin page. It just sits there and loads and loads and loads. I when threw every step in correcting php till I got all green checks on the install except cgi - php but it said to agnore if using iis. I uninstalled and reinstalled everything, rebooted, etc. I own the web server so I have all the controll as far as a web host. What ever you need to see I will post. "This is :censored: killing me." I have hours apon hours trying to fix this. The only reason I have not droped this an moved on to a new product is it looks so cool. PLEASE HELP ME !!!!

I've never been an IIS fan ... but some swear by it ... :huh:

Anyway, what operating system are you running?
Is this server running in your home? or from a datacenter?
I know you said you're running "the latest ver" of lotsa things ... can you please list those specific versions? ... PHP, MySQL, IIS, etc?
Can you share a URL to the site?

shanescy:

:no: I have the same problem I'm useing latest ver. of PHP, latest ver. mysql, lastest ver. zen cart it will not load the admin page. It just sits there and loads and loads and loads. I when threw every step in correcting php till I got all green checks on the install except cgi - php but it said to agnore if using iis. I uninstalled and reinstalled everything, rebooted, etc. I own the web server so I have all the controll as far as a web host. What ever you need to see I will post. "This is :censored: killing me." I have hours apon hours trying to fix this. The only reason I have not droped this an moved on to a new product is it looks so cool. PLEASE HELP ME !!!!

Exactly the same problem here too. We own the webserver so have full control of it.

We tried with PHP 5.2.1, 5.2.3 and 5.2.4. Zencart is version 1.3.7 and MySQL 5.045. When trying to go to the admin page, IE7 just hangs on trying to load the page and stays blank.

Firefox 2 on the other hand, after a few seconds, prints an error message basically saying that it has detected an infinite loop in page redirect and stops trying.

We really tried everything, modified both the configure.php, the physical paths, reinstalled, upgraded, disabled the version check update (in both ways described in the FAQ), downloaded PEAR packages, Register-Globals On/Off, erased the browsers cache and forced to accept cookies from the website, gave full control to almost every directory in the zencart directory... nada... nothing seems to work.
We are on a Win2003 with IIS 6.0 and PHP Fast-CGI... and running out of ideas. :shocking:

ARGH....

Server 2003 enterprize, PHP 5.2.4, MYSQL 5.0.45, ZC 1.3.7, IIS 6, not sure of the vertion number but the newest vertion of fast CGI. I'm a die hard IIS fan because I know 0 about linux. I've tryed over and over but I can seem to work it. But I have only tryed Fadora and kanppoix. Anyway I have look all over this site and I found a user with the same problem and the contacted there ISP and they added some kind of CGI support and boom it worked for them. That was the reason for the latest fast CGI upgrade. The temporary link to my site is ecom.itwv.net. Here is a few question I should add what mode should my MYSQL be in? I know nothing about that I would much rather use MSSQL but I can't seem to get that to work with this thing. In zen cart should I be running cache mode? If so what should it be set to database or file. If you what to know how this is making me feel look at this smile :frusty: :censored: :frusty: - Thank you for helping.

I don't have a solution for your Win2003 server situation.
Instead, I offer the following information which may help you assess your situation further:

The admin login works like this:

1. check to see if currently logged in
2. if logged in, just go to the page requested
3. if not logged in, it redirects to the admin login.php
4. to log in requires that valid credentials are supplied, so checks supplied info
5. if invalid, displays error message
6. if valid, sets PHP session variables so we know we're logged in
7. to set and use any session variables, a session cookie needs to be set, and must match the domain name associated with the admin area.

The most common cause of admin logins failing is sessions not starting properly. Common causes of sessions not starting include invalid domain names in session cookies, as well as PHP versions not supporting sessions properly (but then the storefront would be a problem too).

Common causes of session cookies not getting set include:

• mismatched domain names between what the cookie gets vs the admin URL
• popup/cookie blockers in browser and/or firewall
• using homegrown webservers instead of commercial servers (sorry, this isn't meant to be a "dig" ... it's just true)

I even encounter the problem occasionally when using XAMPP locally on Windows XP. Usually it's resolved by turning off my firewall software's "block referrer" and "block session cookies" settings for "localhost" since that's the domain/URL in that case.

That said, I can say that (even though I seldom use it) my very basic Win2003 server setup (IIS6, PHP 5.2.0, MySQL 5.x) doesn't encounter what you're describing.

Well darn i guess I will have to try some thing else. I have not ever seen a login except to try to setup a store account but it says something about email not setup right. Anyhow I'm beond :frusty: so I will keep checking back to see if anyone can figure this out because I'm lost. I've tryed every thing older vertions of sql, php, ZC so I guess there's nothing else to try but set here and see if anyone else can get it. But I just don't know what that is. Thank for trying. :dontgetit:lamo:

I'd just like to chime in that I'm experiencing the same issue with:

• Windows Server 2003
• IIS6
• MySQL 5.0.45
• PHP 5.2.4
• fastCGI (I also tried regular CGI)
• Zen Cart 1.3.7

PHP sessions and cookies seem to be working fine with the following test script:

// Session test
session_start();
$_SESSION['test'] = "Session ID:";
echo $_SESSION['test'] . ":" . session_id();

// Cookie test
if (isset($_COOKIE["user"])) {
  echo "Welcome " . $_COOKIE["user"] . "!<br />";
  setcookie("user", "", time()-3600);
} else {
  setcookie("user", "Jim Brown", time()+3600);
}

I have no problem with digging into the code a bit where zen grabs its zen ID to try to get this fixed if someone could point me in the right direction.

Linux and Apache are my platforms of choice. However, this organization uses Windows on its servers, so I'd like to get this running if possible.

Can you PM me with FTP access information so I can run some tests ?

DrByte:

Can you PM me with FTP access information so I can run some tests ?

You have mail.

shanescy:

Server 2003 enterprize, PHP 5.2.4, MYSQL 5.0.45, ZC 1.3.7, IIS 6, not sure of the vertion number but the newest vertion of fast CGI. I'm a die hard IIS fan because I know 0 about linux. I've tryed over and over but I can seem to work it. But I have only tryed Fadora and kanppoix. Anyway I have look all over this site and I found a user with the same problem and the contacted there ISP and they added some kind of CGI support and boom it worked for them. That was the reason for the latest fast CGI upgrade. The temporary link to my site is ecom.itwv.net.I'm puzzled about why your server is returning "/admin/login.php/admin/login.php" for the PHP_SELF value instead of just the normal "/admin/login.php". The doubling-up is puzzling, and is exactly what's causing the problem.

Your server has a space in its docroot. I'm not sure if that's a contributor or not.

DrByte:

I'm puzzled about why your server is returning "/admin/login.php/admin/login.php" for the PHP_SELF value instead of just the normal "/admin/login.php". The doubling-up is puzzling, and is exactly what's causing the problem.

Your server has a space in its docroot. I'm not sure if that's a contributor or not.

I checked PHP_SELF in a simple test script on my laptop which is also exhibiting the same symptoms (IIS7 on Vista w/ PHP 5.2.4 running Zen Cart 1.3.7), and it does the same thing:

/test.php/test.php

Note that there is no space in the my docroot though (c:\inetpub\wwwroot).

**After digging, this is a PHP 5.2.4 Windows bug with a patch available in CVS:
http://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=42523
**