V9 permissions error after upgrading from V8

[Nick C]

After upgrading from V8 to V9, my permissions are all screwed up on the site leaving the site unable to fnction. My news/blog isn't functioning and nor is the forum I was working on. All this happened after I tried to upload the files in test mode to make sure everything was functioning correctly after V9 copied everything over from V8 during install.

Now V8 no longer works and neither V8 or V9 will purge the site without errors or run a network settings test successfully.

From what I can tell no alteration to permissions has been made by Donhost who own the server. Also, again from what I can tell, the permissions on the shop and cgi-bin are correct.

Edit (17/09/09): It appears this may be something to do with the version of Perl that's running on the server. This morning may bring fresh info.

[pinbrook]

let us know how you get on and if its an incompatible cgi release....

this sounds more likely than it being actinic that messed up as blog etc are completely outside the remit of actinic

[grantglendinnin]

Which version of Perl is the server running?

You can view more advanced details through phpinfo than standard control panel software.

[Nick C]

The server is currently running version 5.8.8, Actinic support asked for it to be updated to 9.10.0. Donhost stated the following.

The version of perl is 5.8.8 which is the latest in the Ubuntu hardy software repositories. To install version 5.10 from source could potentially break some of the functioning of the server, and hence we are not able to offer this to you.

Provided that you have root access, you could attempt this yourself though this would be your responsibility to do so.

Obviously the theh2.co.uk who 'rent' this server are hesitant to do this in case it adversely affects other websites that are hosted on the server.

I've decided to buy a hosting package from Actinic, for a start it'll make a support a damn site easier.

What worries me is that uploading Version 9 in test mode overwrote some of the essential files that were part of the live shop. To my mind, that's not an ideal situation when you are 'testing' a site. As it also broke my blog and forum, it's doubly worrying.

[itc]

I didn't think 5.10 was currently supported by actinic.

[Nick C]

According to technical, version 9 needs 5.10. Maybe just the latest version of 9?

[itc]

According to technical, version 9 needs 5.10. Maybe just the latest version of 9?

Perhaps, but I did have some problems a month or so ago when I was setting up a server with xampp and it wouldn't work because it had 5.10, this was with actinic 9.04. I had to go back to an earlier version of xampp with 5.8 - I know it was this becuase it was a pain in the bum. I'm now running 9.05 on the same server without problems.

edit: the system specs on the site also still say its not supported although 5.10.1 is out, perhaps this one is supported?

[Nick C]

I'd certainly agree with the PITB description. Everything was working fine with version 8, I uploaded V9 and the shop broke, our blog broke and the forum broke. Actinic have set us up with emergency hosting as as we can't alter the version of Perl on our existing server. We're waiting for a new sub domain to propagate at the moment and then once the shop is up and running, I have to fix the blog and forum. I've also signed up for a permanent hosting package with Actinic, having to deal with two seperate support teams (Actinic & existing server) has been very trying, waiting for telephone calls to be returned has driven me to despair!

Actinic support told me on Friday that it's the server companies fault for not running the correct version of Perl, but I was unaware of Perl before upgrading and certainly wasn't instructed to check the version before upgrading Actinic from V8 to V9 when I called for upgrade advice (this was the first time I've upgraded). If I had been, perhaps I could have avoided this mess.

[itc]

I'd certainly agree with the PITB description. Everything was working fine with version 8, I uploaded V9 and the shop broke, our blog broke and the forum broke. Actinic have set us up with emergency hosting as as we can't alter the version of Perl on our existing server. We're waiting for a new sub domain to propagate at the moment and then once the shop is up and running, I have to fix the blog and forum. I've also signed up for a permanent hosting package with Actinic, having to deal with two seperate support teams (Actinic & existing server) has been very trying, waiting for telephone calls to be returned has driven me to despair!

Actinic support told me on Friday that it's the server companies fault for not running the correct version of Perl, but I was unaware of Perl before upgrading and certainly wasn't instructed to check the version before upgrading Actinic from V8 to V9 when I called for upgrade advice (this was the first time I've upgraded). If I had been, perhaps I could have avoided this mess.

Dreadful. I honestly can't believe that people have been upgrading perl to run the latest version. 5.10.1 has only been out since last month - and it would be mad to rely on such new release.

[Nick C]

I was given a link for the V9 download and didn't see the page that mentioned the following:

# Perl 5.004 or later (MD5 Perl module recommended; Perl 5.10.0 is not supported)

1. Our server has 5.08 installed, which I presume is later than 5.004?
2. I was instructed to ask the server company to install 5.10, but doesn't the statement above state the opposite?

Am I missing something obvious here, or are the above specifications for a different Actinic product?

[itc]

I was given a link for the V9 download and didn't see the page that mentioned the following:



1. Our server has 5.08 installed, which I presume is later than 5.004?
2. I was instructed to ask the server company to install 5.10, but doesn't the statement above state the opposite?

Am I missing something obvious here, or are the above specifications for a different Actinic product?

1. I think you may find the server had 5.8.8 or 5.8.9 installed so that should be fine
2. I don't understand why they would ask for 5.10, it sounds like clutching at straws (which we all do from time time but hey ho).

I don't think you are missing anything, other than the perl version 5.10.0 upwards may not only be a red herring but actually be creating another issue (in that it won't work with 5.10.0)


edit: Searching the forum I came across this in regard to 5.10.0, I came across the exact same problem, I solved it rather differently - and it was on linux rather than windows platform - my solution was just find an older build of xampp with 5.8.9 perl instead of 5.10.0 - that worked fine. (edit don't be confused or put off by the mentions of xampp - its just a easy package that many use to save installing all the server packages by hand, including perl in this case which is the important one)


I think we need someone from actinic to clarify this, anyone care to offer something?

[Nick C]

Well we finally have the shop working on the new server. After the DNS was directed to the new IP, I couldn't work out why it was pointing to a temporary page and not pointing to the shops new index page, which as far as I could tell was in the correct place.

I contacted Actinic support for advice and was informed that the page it was pointing to had nothing to do with them.

Shortly after this telephone conversation, we thought we recognised a name on the top left of this holding page 'Plesk', it's the same name as used on the Actinic hosting control panel, which suggested that in fact the DNS was pointing to the Actinic server!

Further digging into the control panel revealed the shops old URL, correcting this instantly gave me positive results from the Actinic network test and the site could be uploaded.

So all is well, but...

While the Actinic support team is for the most part very knowledgeable and I'm sure found it difficult dealing with me, a mere novice when it comes to shop building, I found it extremely frustrating waiting for call backs that never came...almost every day for 4 days.

I still don't understand why uploading the V9 files in test mode broke the existing shop, the blog and the forum. I understand it was to do with permissions, but I still don't find this acceptable, especially in test mode!

I don't understand why I was advised, nay instructed to upgrade Perl, to a version that the Actinic website states isn't supported?

[Hendrik]

So is that a definite that Actinic 9.0.5 will not run properly with Perl 5.10?

While I am live with version 8.5.2 on a shared server, which is working fine, I am trying to get 9.0.5 to run on a dedicated server (with Easynet) which has Perl 5.10 on it, and I am having problems. Not sure if it is the version of Perl though.

Hendrik

[Hendrik]

The support desk have confirmed to me that there is a 'bug' in Perl 5.10 which means that it does not run properly with Actinic. Latest version of this is 5.10.1 but they thought this would still have the same problem.

Suggested 5.8.8-10.el5_2.3 however the site I looked at - http://cpan.perl.org/src/README.html - sems to suggest that 5.8.9 is the current release.

Went back to the support desk who thought that 5.8.9 might be ok.

However the ISP (Easynet) who are putting together the dedicated server for me now think that they will need to roll back quite a few of the software packages on the (Linux) server, if we go back to Perl 5.8.9, which may take quite some time to do.

It is all pretty frustrating, to say the least.

Hendrik