The MU forums have moved to WordPress.org

Endless Redirect And/Or Empty Database Tables RESOLVED! (13 posts)

  1. muhlwebdev
    Member
    Posted 14 years ago #

    I had both of these errors and they were both resolved on a Linux machine.

    SUMMARY:
    =========
    Endless Redirect: DO NOT MANUALLY CONFIG THE wp-config.php file.
    Empty Database tables: Create an EMPTY .htaccess file, and give full
    write permissions.

    DETAILS:
    =========

    Re-install wordpress as follows:
    1. Drop the database (to simplify the task of removing ALL tables).
    2. Create the database. If using MySQL, assuming:
    database name: wpdb
    database user: wpdbadmin
    database password: wpdbadmin_pwd791
    host: localhost

    Login to MySQL and run the following commands:

    CREATE DATABASE wpdb;
       GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON wpdb.* TO "wpdbadmin"@"localhost"
       IDENTIFIED BY "wpdbadmin_pwd791";
       FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
       EXIT

    3. Go to your install directory, and delete the wp-config.php file.

    4. Make sure an .htaccess file exists. (It can be empty, or just copy
    htaccess.dist to .htaccess).

    5. Modify the permissions to the .htaccess file as follows:
    chmod 777 .htaccess

    6. Change the owner of the .htaccess file to the same owner running the
    web server. (Assuming the owner is "apache"):
    chown apache .htaccess

    7. Make sure the install directory, and the wp-content directory have
    the same permission settings as .htaccess (see steps 5 & 6 above)

    8. Re-run the install script from the web browser:
    Subdirectory: http://www.yourdomain.edu/wordpress/index.php
    Subdomain: wordpress.yourdomain.edu/index.php

    I hope this helps!

  2. muhlwebdev
    Member
    Posted 14 years ago #

    After your success, DO NOT FORGET change the permissions back (no write access) for the install directory, .htaccess, and the wp-content directory.

  3. andrea_r
    Moderator
    Posted 14 years ago #

    "SUMMARY:
    =========
    Endless Redirect: DO NOT MANUALLY CONFIG THE wp-config.php file."

    You mean follow the instructions in that same config file that say NOT to edit it??? Right there at the top, in big sparkly bits.

  4. muhlwebdev
    Member
    Posted 14 years ago #

    Thanks for emphasizing that point, andrea_r! LOL

    It is tempting to edit the wp-config.php, despite the instructions in the file "at the top in the sparkly bits" :) particularly when:

    1) you are seemingly at a loss
    2) the non-Multiuser version of wordpress allows it
    3) even wordpress may roll out a bug

    Alas, the approach above not only auto-generates the wp-config.php file, but also the .htaccess file WITHOUT A SINGLE FILE EDIT... (even without the edit of the .htaccess file's "RewriteBASE BASE" line... ) Hopefully this will help someone :)

  5. andrea_r
    Moderator
    Posted 14 years ago #

    Well, #1 can usually be cured by reading the instructions.

  6. muhlwebdev
    Member
    Posted 14 years ago #

    ...

  7. veightar1
    Member
    Posted 14 years ago #

    Thanks. It really works

  8. rachelreveley
    Member
    Posted 14 years ago #

    How do you do step 6. chown apache .htaccess if you have Cpanel?

  9. andrea_r
    Moderator
    Posted 14 years ago #

    You can't. But you may not need to.

    Exit cpanel. Log right out of it.
    Now log in to your FTP account. Make sure your FTP program is set to show hidden files.

    find the .htaccess file and DELETE IT.

    you can't do this through cpanel as it just puts back a blank one.

    Go to step 8.

  10. markpea
    Member
    Posted 14 years ago #

    Chaps,
    I followed muhlwebdev's instructions with the latest 2.9.2 download to the letter. The installer told me "Sorry, the file .htaccess already exists. Please delete it and reload this page." so I did this. It did not recreate the .htaccess file, neither did it create any database tables. If I manually copy the htaccess.dist and remove the 'BASE' text (to get ReWriteBase /) and reload, the installer comes up with a page asking for database details. I enter all the correct details but then I get an error message in the browser "FATAL error. Database tables missing" (which they are). The Apache log just indicates attempted access to non existent tables. The wp-config.php file is created so evidently WP-MU can write to the directory.
    I have already successfully installed 2.9.1 in a different directory. I have root access to my server and I'm pretty confident I know what I'm doing here. I think that this is a bugette

  11. markpea
    Member
    Posted 14 years ago #

    OK. So started again with svn and downloaded the latest one with svn co http://core.svn.wordpress.org/tags/2.9.2 . Following muhlwebdev's instructions above this now works. Interestingly though the install screens were different to the 2.0 zip version (eg Information about blog title and email address was on a separate page).
    So I now have it sussed but it's still a worry that the version from the Download link can give install issues.
    M

  12. ejeaglesct
    Member
    Posted 14 years ago #

    I'm stilling having problems even after following the instructions above. I've dropped and recreated the database a number of times without any luck.

    The installation goes through all the way to the login where it has the red box that says I must relogin, when the password provided is entered with admin as the user it still goes to the redirect error screen.

  13. timfur
    Member
    Posted 13 years ago #

    On trying to login as the admin user, I renamed the .htaccess to something that it wouldn't recognise, it then redirected successfully to the admin screen.

    Having done this successfully the first time, rename the .htaccess file back to the original name. It then seems to work fine from that point on.

About this Topic

  • Started 14 years ago by muhlwebdev
  • Latest reply from timfur