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Originally Posted by omegatron Tom
Sorry for your troubles installing but your issue comes down to cookies I beleive. If you email me a url and admin login I can take a look for you. Your cookie prefix is found in your vb3 config file.
The cookie prefix and vb license number are very important in the vb3 login as seen when setting the password cookie here
$dbpassword = md5(md5($password) . $User['salt']);
$cookiepass = md5($dbpassword . $Globals['vblicense']);
setcookie( "{$Globals['cookieprefix']}password", $cookiepass, time()+2592000,"{$Globals['cookie_path']}", $Globals['domain_path'] );
I will pass along your comments to the developer whom wrote the installation instructions. In his defense though minus ftp upload time I can install the program in like two minutes.
I would welcome constructive criticism on how to better explain a step that is confusing to you on install so please do tell. The majority of users most of whom are not IT inclined like you have no issues installing the program other than normal user error entering the wrong license number or not entering the cookie prefix so I would be personally interested exactly where you get lost on the instructions. |
Okay, Omegatron... Now let ME begin by offering my OWN apology. As I pointed out in my earlier email, I was very tired and ticked-off last night. As a result, I guess I came off like a jerk and there's no point in that. The truth is Your install instructions worked fine until I got to where I needed to change things around a bit in order to handle the quirks of my current configuration.
The issue I faced was that my install isn't quite your "normal" one in that I'm working on a new version of this client's site which is currently still running from an IP address and not from the ultimate domain name. I knew that going into the install and realized that meant I'd probably need to override several of the install script's default parameters to make it work right. I do intend to move the domain name any day now but I need to make this new site WORK first and get all these apps working properly together. The old domain / site presently works fine and I don't want run the risk of breaking it while I'm still doing setup on the new one. So I've chosen to leave the domain where it is until I'm done with my setup and testing. Therein lies my original dilemma and need to override the default installation parameters.
Now, as to the issues I had with the install script, I've already outlined several of those. So I won't belabor those points here. The problems were mostly with incomplete or unclear explanations and the fact that I probably know TOO much for my own good and was trying to set it up differently than what would be your 'normal' way of doing things. Obvoiusly the lack of a tip on where to find the
vB cookie thing proved to cause me major problems. Someone should clear that up on your next revision of the install instructions and the script.
Also, I think it would be VERY helpful for the install instructions to include a brief field-by-field discussion of each of your setup parameters and at least a short explanation of the purpose and use each field as well as the impact of what happens if you get it wrong. The way we use word in our language is rather slippery and the nuances between the choices of words like "the forums" versus "your forums" can lead to much confusion. It would be vastly clearer to say "the pp-classifieds forums directory" and "your vBulletin forums" instead.
On the first install, I also overlooked one of the instructions on setting individual file attributes (*.css and & *.tmpl) in linux simply because it was buried in a text paragraph rather than provided in a nice simple list as the directory attributes are. My suggestion is that you take the attribute settings discussed in that paragraph and break it up into a bulleted list (like the directory attributes are) rather than a long block of text. It'll be more obvious what needs to be done and easier for users to get it right that way.
Also, once my installation was broken and things did not work properly, I found I was completely on my own when it came to how to remove the install and start over. The install instructions provided no guidance there at all and I had installed the darned thing into existing my mySQL forums database. Of course, I had made a backup beforehand as suggested, but really didn't WANT to have to shut down everything else in order to drop the database and restore it. Also, I did a full save and there are other sites using that same mySQL install. So to shut things down and do a db restore would have required taking every other site on the server down at the same time. Clearly that was NOT a desireable solution.
In the end, because you provide no "uninstall" script, I ended up logging in through telnet and using rm -rf in the pp-classifieds directory to eliminate everything that had been uploaded and then subsequently modified by the install script. Then I used FTP to reupload everything. While that ran, I also went into mySQL as the database administrator and individually dropped each table that your script had created. Doing that worked fine... but how many of your users would know HOW to do that? Also, I discovered during the first reinstall that your product fails to name the zipData table with the standard prefix that all the other tables have. So when even though I had indivdually dropped all 22 of your other tables, when I reran the script I still got SQL errors because the zipData table already existed.
Not knowing the impact that having that table present might have had on the install script, that forced me to completely delete everything a SECOND time and reinstall again. Needless to say, if you had provided a delete_tables SQL script for users who experience installation problems and need to reinstall, that would have made this entire process MUCH easier. Indeed, having an "uninstall" script available would have been an absolute godsend!
Okay. At this point, I've taken the time to offer my constructive suggestions here. Hopefully that is appropriate penance for having sounded off so loudly last night. I do hope the developer who wrote the script will find these suggestions helpful.
I'm off to install for the 5th time now. Hopefully, armed with more knowledge, things will go much better this time.
Thanks again for your help and patient support, Omegatron. I really DO appreciate that. I know your job is very often a thankless one. Please extend my apologies to the developer and tell him he can stop looking for truck driving jobs in Botswana too.
I really
don't hate him. And all-in-all I think he did a decent job in doing what is (as I well know) a very hard thing to do. I sincerely hope he finds my suggestions at least helpful.
Best Professional Regards,
Tom Platt
Web Witchcraft Publishing