General Support: Failure to import when using Arvixe hosting (HTTP error 500)

Hello siggib,

I'll try to answer a few of your questions and try to address some of the concerns that your webhost has brought up.

Posted By: siggibIt recognizes there are pictures in the upload directory and generates thumbs for all of them. Then I select a destination and click the import button at the bottom of the screen I get a blank screen with a HTTP response code of 500.

I am not quite sure what is going on with this, but I can't (for the life of me) seem to find a previous post where you brought up this question. As far as I can tell, this is your first post to the Plogger forums ... or did you post previously under a different username?

Anyway, to get to the problem at hand, I am guessing that the script is either running into a fatal error somewhere that is being suppressed (which does happen in the beta3 version and we have fixed MOST if not all of these in the current codebase) or that you are trying to import a large amount of images that runs the script longer that your server environment allows (and timeout / memory limit issues are particularly hard to code for when you are dealing with a large amount of different server configurations out there and different ways users use the script). We are continuing to try to address the bugs, coding issues, and error messages that need help within Plogger, but it is still in a Beta phase as well, so some bugs are still inherent in the code. I'm sorry you did not get help before, but this is the first I've heard of your specific instance and the response to leave a web host.

Posted By: siggibAnd you mention that this was brought up on their forum and the solution was to leave the host?

Ummm ... where was this response located? I can't find a similar response for this issue when doing a search on the site (bear with me since I've only been a part of the dev team for about a year now). If you could point me in the direction of that post, I would be happy to counteract the response since this should definitely be a fixable issue.

Posted By: siggibIn the past we've gone through the code line by line, dissected it and proven to the developers its an issue with their code. In this case, when there is no developer at the other side to care, I don't know who we'd be proving anything to anyone so the issue is resolved.

I, personally, have not had or known of any contact with Arvixe as a developer, so I cannot respond to this question.

Posted By: siggibWhat is quite obvious in all this is that the code is improperly written. In fact, it goes through and it sets 777 permission on folders... That's absolutely improper coding when the code assumes a certain server environment.

I totally agree with Arvand on this point and have updated the current SVN code to reflect this. All folders are now set with a 0755 permission and all files are set with a 0644 permission (even on safe_mode enabled servers) unless the user overrides these permissions themselves. This has been a large undertaking and I have tested it on many server environments, so hopefully it will work for most, if not all, web hosts out there.

Posted By: siggibYou give us an error or anything as to what the server will need to support this software and we'll make sure its achieved.

I think we can make sure to figure out what the error is. If you could do some testing on your end, this would be good. If you wanted to give me temporary access to your server, I am confident I can run tests myself and make sure to get it working (and will make sure the current code gets updated to reflect that) or at the very least determine what the issue is so you can contact your host with something more than "a blank white screen" (which I agree that we need to make sure does not happen in the future). If you would like to go the route of me testing your site, please contact me at sidtheduck SPLAT gmail DOT com or if you want to try to run the tests yourself, just respond to this forum thread and I will go into more detail.

Posted By: siggibIf you wish to cancel your account, we will be able to provide a full refund. I'm sorry.

I really do not think that cancelling your account is at all necessary. I would like to help you work through this, but it would be nice to have a bit more information from your end and /or a link to your previous issue post since I cannot seem to find it.

Again, I am sorry you are having issues with the script and we will try to get you up and running soon. If you would like to try the newest code, you can download it here and follow the instructions in the readme file (or just ask on the forums). :D Hopefully we can help you get it working!

Okay, first off, do you mind trying the current SVN code to see if that solves your problems right away? To do so, I would recommend:
1. Make a backup of your Plogger installation.
2. Create an SQL dump of your Plogger database.
3. Download the new code from here.
4. Upload the new files from the "trunk" folder into the same folder as your Plogger install (some files will be overwritten).
5. Run http://www.yoursite.com/plogger-install-path/plog-admin/_upgrade.php (inserting the correct URL for your site).
6. Try the import again.

The first 2 steps are just in case something happens that you have a backup of your previous install to reinstate if you are having issues. If you don't want to attempt an upgrade yet, you can create a new database and install a fresh version of the SVN code to a different folder on your site and run the _install.php file to create a separate installation of the new code for testing. Then try the import.

If you are not comfortable doing any of that, please email me the temporary information and I'll check it out for you.

Good news the new version you gave me seems to work fine.