Can't load site or Txp admin after update to 4.8.8

6sigma · 2022-02-02 13:48:14

gaekwad wrote #332594:

Active plugins:...

Yep, some of these are old, and if they’re modified that tells me there was some kludging to get them working past their intended lifespan. Judging by the errors on the Wayback Machine snapshot, I suspect your server was updated to PHP 7.4 last year sometime and these plugins are too out-of-date.

You could try checking on your hosting control panel to see if an older version of PHP is offered. If it’s pre-7.4 then it won’t be supported by Team PHP any longer, but it would at least give you a chance to get your site up and running in the immediate term. From there, see if each plugin has a newer version – heck this forum for each plugin name, and you’ll typically find a thread for each one (though I haven’t checked each in full). Depending on how you use these, there are a bunch you can just write out since the functionality has been baked-in and they’re surplus.

Stef (Bloke) is your ideal point of contact for a conversation about a site update, he knows what he’s doing, he and I have worked on a bunch of projects and he’s a safe pair of hands…plus it’ll save you heaps of time learning stuff, too.

Wow…this is encouraging! (I’ve been at this since 1:30a.m.) Quick background. I didn’t design the site. It has been idle for so long, I’m not concerned about a few days of down time. I’ll check all those plug-ins, but I’m reasonably sure I remember that several (all?) may have been modified by the original designer. I’m inclined to move forward rather than backward with an older version of PHP. I’ll talk with Stef off line and see what I’m up against to get the site in better shape. Lastly, I wouldn’t be surprised if I wind up deleting 2/3 of my old articles/content. I’m simply trying not to lose all of it with my fumbling around. Again, many thanks for the guidance. I’m off to look at plugins!

6sigma · 2022-02-02 13:59:50

6sigma wrote #332595:

Wow…this is encouraging! (I’ve been at this since 1:30a.m.) … I’m off to look at plugins!

Hmmm….using the plugins page to look for these, I went 0 for 10. I also find some encouragement in that as well. Perhaps much of the functionality those plugins provided is now either a) not wanted/needed or b) provided natively in Txp.

gaekwad · 2022-02-02 14:22:49

Something to consider if a site redesign is not on the cards immediately – use the included theme to style your site as ‘new’, but with your existing articles. It’s responsive, performant, and is an excellent place to start building from.

And don’t put too much value in the (beta) plugins site as yet, we’re still building that out! Try here: textpattern.org in the first instance.

Out of interest, does a blank .htaccess cause the site to explode?

6sigma · 2022-02-02 14:38:09

gaekwad wrote #332597:

Something to consider if a site redesign is not on the cards immediately – use the included theme to style your site as ‘new’, but with your existing articles. It’s responsive, performant, and is an excellent place to start building from.
p.

I like this idea. How would I go about making that happen?

And don’t put too much value in the (beta) plugins site as yet, we’re still building that out! Try here: textpattern.org in the first instance.

Out of interest, does a blank .htaccess cause the site to explode?

A blank .htaccess file is now in place. (See how long it takes me to do things you guys view as quick & easy? :-) ) I don’t think anything changed with that file in place, but I’m not sure how to be sure.

gaekwad · 2022-02-02 15:15:46

6sigma wrote #332598:

I like this idea. How would I go about making that happen?

Let’s start by seeing if the default four-point-eight theme is installed…if you go to Presentation -> Themes on the admin-side, do you have a line item for four-point-eight?

A blank .htaccess file is now in place. (See how long it takes me to do things you guys view as quick & easy? :-) ) I don’t think anything changed with that file in place, but I’m not sure how to be sure.

Doesn’t matter how long it takes, what matters is progress. If you have a blank file and it’s not choking, that’s a good start. This is the current known-good .htaccess for Textpattern, please try opening the blank file and pasting the contents of this link into it, then saving:

raw.githubusercontent.com/textpattern/textpattern/dev/.htaccess

Does the action of saving the file cause the site to trip up?

6sigma · 2022-02-02 15:31:15

gaekwad wrote #332599:

Let’s start by seeing if the default four-point-eight theme is installed…if you go to Presentation -> Themes on the admin-side, do you have a line item for four-point-eight?

Doesn’t matter how long it takes, what matters is progress. If you have a blank file and it’s not choking, that’s a good start. This is the current known-good .htaccess for Textpattern, please try opening the blank file and pasting the contents of this link into it, then saving:

raw.githubusercontent.com/textpattern/textpattern/dev/.htaccess

Does the action of saving the file cause the site to trip up?

Only the default template for 4.7.3 is showing under Presentation.

The contents you suggested for the .htaccess file have been added. I think something changed, though. I can no longer see the site or the admin page.

Let me ask a question that might be at the root of all of this. When I am in Filezilla and want to edit a file, Linux loads LibreOffice & the file I want to edit. I paste the contents into the file & save it. I’m then told that the file is being transferred to the (host) server. Are there any problems with that workflow?

gaekwad · 2022-02-02 15:58:21

6sigma wrote #332600:

When I am in Filezilla and want to edit a file, Linux loads LibreOffice & the file I want to edit. I paste the contents into the file & save it. I’m then told that the file is being transferred to the (host) server. Are there any problems with that workflow?

Bingo. That’s very likely it. LibreOffice is potentially adding extra formatting which breaks the .htaccess stuff. The contents of .htaccess control the web server and its behaviour…how it handles URLs, for example. It has to be plain text, it has to be formatted in a certain way, and if the web server has any hurdles in the file itself, it often just throws a 500 error…meaning: there was an internal server error.

So, let’s fix that. Remove the version of .htaccess that LibreOffice messed with, that’ll get your site at least partially up and running again. Save this link to your laptop (note: don’t view it, right click and ‘save as’):

raw.githubusercontent.com/textpattern/textpattern/dev/.htaccess

[EDIT: fixed link, Bloke]

That should save as htaccess.txt. Note: no leading ‘dot’ and there is a ‘dot txt’ at the end. Upload this file as htaccess.txt to the root of your site. When it’s uploaded, rename it to .htaccess (note: leading ‘dot’ and no ‘dot txt’ at the end. No LibreOffice mess, and that will fix your URL rewrites, that sort of thing.

Last edited by Bloke (2022-02-02 16:40:02)

6sigma · 2022-02-02 16:18:26

gaekwad wrote #332601:

Bingo. That’s very likely it. LibreOffice is potentially adding extra formatting which breaks the .htaccess stuff. The contents of .htaccess control the web server and its behaviour…how it handles URLs, for example. It has to be plain text, it has to be formatted in a certain way, and if the web server has any hurdles in the file itself, it often just throws a 500 error…meaning: there was an internal server error.

So, let’s fix that. Remove the version of .htaccess that LibreOffice messed with, that’ll get your site at least partially up and running again. Save this link to your laptop (note: don’t view it, right click and ‘save as’):

raw.githubusercontent.com/textpattern/textpattern/dev/.htaccess

That should save as htaccess.txt. Note: no leading ‘dot’ and there is a ‘dot txt’ at the end. Upload this file as htaccess.txt to the root of your site. When it’s uploaded, rename it to .htaccess (note: leading ‘dot’ and no ‘dot txt’ at the end. No LibreOffice mess, and that will fix your URL rewrites, that sort of thing.

I’ve made multiple attempts at this. I’m on a Chromebook that also runs Linux. The ChromeOS file manager would not let me save that file. So…I went into Linux, set up Firefox and downloaded the file. However, it wanted to save it as an html file. I changed it to htaccess.txt, moved it to the server & renamed it .htaccess with no extension. However, I can no longer access the site or the admin page.

I’m going to try to figure out why I’m having such trouble with saving that link properly. Back after some more troubleshooting.

colak · 2022-02-02 16:28:21

Did you try pointing your browser directly to https://rodentregatta.com/?event=diag or http://rodentregatta.com/?event=diag? It may load, and if it does, it will give you a hint.

6sigma · 2022-02-02 16:36:52

colak wrote #332603:

Did you try pointing your browser directly to https://rodentregatta.com/?event=diag or http://rodentregatta.com/?event=diag? It may load and if it does, it will give you a hint.

I get “this site can’t be reached” with the first and “internal server error” with the second.

I imagine this is now some combo of problems with my Chromebook, the version of Linux on it, my use of Filezilla and some kind of settings that are forcing the wrong apps to open when I simply want a text editor.

My next step will be a trip somewhere to by a proper Windows PC, but that probably cannot happen today. This latest attempt to begin updating Textpattern & my old weblog is now more than 24 hours of time. It doesn’t look as though this 68 year old should be trying to qualify for the Olympics :-)

Bloke · 2022-02-02 16:43:31

The link Pete posted was unfortunately not the file itself, which may have complicated matters. The forum got in the way and thought the file was destined for this domain. It’s a Textile thing!

Anyway, I’ve updated the link in the post above so try right-clicking that one and saving it again.

If it saves it as ‘htaccess.txt’ then go through the upload/rename dance that Pete highlighted. Since you’re on a variant of Linux, it may save the file directly as ‘.htaccess’. In which case, just upload it as-is, refresh the site and see how you get on.

EDIT: P.S. Great sleuthing with the LibreOffice snafu, Pete. I remember trying to talk someone through a similar issue once when they were editing a text file on Windows. It was defaulting to Wordpad, which was essentially saving it with all the hidden internal metadata. Penny dropped after a few cycles and I got them to switch to Notepad to save it as raw text. Job done.

Last edited by Bloke (2022-02-02 16:49:37)

6sigma · 2022-02-02 17:11:50

Bloke wrote #332606:

The link Pete posted was unfortunately not the file itself, which may have complicated matters. The forum got in the way and thought the file was destined for this domain. It’s a Textile thing!

Anyway, I’ve updated the link in the post above so try right-clicking that one and saving it again.

If it saves it as ‘htaccess.txt’ then go through the upload/rename dance that Pete highlighted. Since you’re on a variant of Linux, it may save the file directly as ‘.htaccess’. In which case, just upload it as-is, refresh the site and see how you get on.

EDIT: P.S. Great sleuthing with the LibreOffice snafu, Pete. I remember trying to talk someone through a similar issue once when they were editing a text file on Windows. It was defaulting to Wordpad, which was essentially saving it with all the hidden internal metadata. Penny dropped after a few cycles and I got them to switch to Notepad to save it as raw text. Job done.

Perfect. This one saved exactly as expected and both the site & the admin page are visible now! Thank you for your patience. I’m going to figure out how to set a default text editor in Linux. In theory, having Linux on a Chromebook should be the best of “both worlds” for me. I’ve been away from Windows since 2010 and don’t relish a return to that world.

This is great news. Bloke, I’ve sent you an email and am working on the second one. Again, I appreciate the explanations and all the attention to my “ignorance.”

gaekwad · 2022-02-02 20:26:57

Bloke wrote #332606:

The link Pete posted was unfortunately not the file itself, which may have complicated matters.

I had one job! Thanks for sorting it.

6sigma · 2022-02-02 21:17:50

gaekwad wrote #332609:

I had one job! Thanks for sorting it.

You and Bloke have gotten me further down the road than at any point in 10 years. I appreciate the help and the patient way you listened to my questions and confusion. I learned a lot just from the back-and-forth today. Again, many thanks.

Textpattern CMS support forum

#31 2022-02-02 13:48:14

Re: Can't load site or Txp admin after update to 4.8.8

gaekwad wrote #332594:

#32 2022-02-02 13:59:50

Re: Can't load site or Txp admin after update to 4.8.8

6sigma wrote #332595:

#33 2022-02-02 14:22:49

Re: Can't load site or Txp admin after update to 4.8.8

#34 2022-02-02 14:38:09

Re: Can't load site or Txp admin after update to 4.8.8

gaekwad wrote #332597:

#35 2022-02-02 15:15:46

Re: Can't load site or Txp admin after update to 4.8.8

6sigma wrote #332598:

#36 2022-02-02 15:31:15

Re: Can't load site or Txp admin after update to 4.8.8

gaekwad wrote #332599:

#37 2022-02-02 15:58:21

Re: Can't load site or Txp admin after update to 4.8.8

6sigma wrote #332600:

#38 2022-02-02 16:18:26

Re: Can't load site or Txp admin after update to 4.8.8

gaekwad wrote #332601:

#39 2022-02-02 16:28:21

Re: Can't load site or Txp admin after update to 4.8.8

#40 2022-02-02 16:36:52

Re: Can't load site or Txp admin after update to 4.8.8

colak wrote #332603:

#41 2022-02-02 16:43:31

Re: Can't load site or Txp admin after update to 4.8.8

#42 2022-02-02 17:11:50

Re: Can't load site or Txp admin after update to 4.8.8

Bloke wrote #332606:

#43 2022-02-02 20:26:57

Re: Can't load site or Txp admin after update to 4.8.8

Bloke wrote #332606:

#44 2022-02-02 21:17:50

Re: Can't load site or Txp admin after update to 4.8.8

gaekwad wrote #332609:

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