WordPress MU

Thanks to James Farmer I've had a chance to use a cpanel controlled site.

It looks like cpanel puts an empty .htaccess file into the public_html, and when you attempt to delete the file through the cpanel file manager it only empties it leaving a zero byte file.
Unfortunately, the emptied ".htaccess" belongs to your user, *NOT* the webserver, so the install script can't write to it.
Even renaming the file doesn't work. Cpanel creates an empty .htaccess again! Stupid eh?

So, what to do? You have two choices:

• In your Cpanel filemanager change the permissions of the .htaccess file so that it's world-writeable. Click ".htaccess" -> "Change Permissions" and tick the World::Write checkbox. The Permission fields should read 6 4 6.
• Ftp into your account and delete the empty .htaccess file.

Now install WPMU and it should work.

Cpanel? Give me a shell any day. *grumble*

Thankyou sooo much!

Hmm. I installed WPMU on a cPanel site and didn't have any trouble. (My web host is AffordableHOST.)

Here's some other relevant stuff / issues:

1. Unless you have "a dns wildcard alias and an apache wildcard virtual host" and you choose to have myblog.yourdomain.com then it won't work. BUT if you have the above then it will... beautifully :o)

2. There's a file in wp-content/ called just 'blogs' it doesn't have a file extension though so I renamed it blogs.php and that might have helped.

3. You can send people to wp-inst/wp-newblog to set up their new blog no worries :o)

4. The 'set number of invites' thing appears to have gone in the 28-7 version I just installed... so I can't send any invites... am wondering if it isn't just better to let people invite as many people as they want anyway? It's not Orkut...

5. There's a problem with comment notification that was common to earlier versions too: in Options>Discussion while 'E-mail me whenever:Anyone posts a comment" is ticked, "Email me whenever: A comment is held for moderation" isn't and as all initial comments are held for moderation... nobody gets any emails.

I'd really like the default to be:

Email me whenever:

Anyone posts a comment - on
A comment is held for moderation - on

Before a comment appears:

An administrator must approve the comment (regardless of any matches below) - Off
Comment author must fill out name and e-mail - On
Comment author must have a previously approved comment -On

And a great default plugin would be subscribe to comments: http://txfx.net/code/wordpress/subscribe-to-comments/

Phew, that's all for the moment!

Apart from to say thanks to Donncha for your tireless work on getting this sorted out of late, make sure you stay clear of those buses you're snapping mate ;o)

Cheers, James

Thanks James - that blog file should really be blog, and not blog.php
There should be a .htaccess file in there which appears to have disappeared somehow. I'll replace it later.
Thanks for your pointers about the options too. We're doing work on that area now so I'll be able to change them today.

How did you setup the dns wildcard and apache wildcard in cpanel? do you have shell access?

I use wordpress on http://www.valvehosting.com account and no problem...

I use wordpress on http://www.valvehosting.com account and no problem...

Hiya, I asked my hosting providers to do it... and they did... http://psek.com are worth a look.

Check your cPanel icons -- if you're lucky, there's one that reads Shell/SSH, if you're very lucky, it will even grant you shell access.

No harm in asking for shell access either. Depending on your host, you might get it.

valvehosting gives jailed ssh access

ok, i got ssh access. what I have to do now? thanks for the help.

Not sure if this thread is the right place...

But if my host does not grant me Shell/SSH access, should I look for another one?