Fatal error, admin setup, during installation

In the last step of the installation, creating the admin account, I get this error after clicking ok.

An unrecoverable error has occurred and has been logged. Contact the site administrator with the following information: Exception #1357221371.

 

I have tried 3 times, with the same results. Deleting the entire ftp folder each time and uploading it again and starting over.

  • (it was same process as above, on my other already running elgg, at the same shared web host)

  • i'm gonna have to say it's probably your shared hosting then, maybe your provider is reaching it's peak hours? you should try contacting a live REP to see why and what errors are you getting. i'm pretty sure shared hosting accounts have cPanel installed. there should be an error log icon in your cPanel. i'm not too sure where it is, i haven't used cPanel in years

  • I tried to begin the install process again without resetting the settings etc. and it gave me this error which is new:

    Database installation

    • DatabaseException:WrongCredentials

    There was an error creating the Elgg database and installation cannot continue. Review the message above and correct any problems. If you need more help, visit the Install troubleshooting link below or post to the Elgg community forums.

     

     

  • This is interesting.

    Remade settings.php from example settings.

    I start installation over, and now I keep getting this error at step 3:

     

    1. Welcome (yup)
    2. Requirements check (yup)
    3. Database installation (...fail)
    4. Configure site
    5. Create admin account
    6. Finished

    Database installation

    • DatabaseException:WrongCredentials

    There was an error creating the Elgg database and installation cannot continue. Review the message above and correct any problems. If you need more help, visit the Install troubleshooting link below or post to the Elgg community forums.

  • When you reach the step of the database installation Elgg tries to connect with the database using the given database credentials. If successful the database gets initiated. In the next installation step the admin account is created.

    If your installation failed at creating the admin account properly and you repeat the installation with the same database, the installation will fail because the database has already been intiated before.

    If you want to repeat the installation because it has not properly finished, you should delete the database and create a new empty database. If you create the database with the same credentials as the old one you don't need to delete settings.php (nor re-copy the Elgg files, create the data dir, create a .htaccess file  etc.). You only need to create a new database with the same name, same database user name etc. Then the installation will pick up on the admin account creation step if you re-start it.

    If you need to change something in Elgg's .htaccess for the installation to work properly, it's quite likely that your server is missing some necessary requirement. I would advice trying to solve that instead of circumventing the problem for the installation only. You never know if you might get problems due to this unresolved issue later on - when you already have users, content etc. - and it's no longer as easy as now to start your site freshly.

    Ask your hosting provider if there might be some required packet missing or if the Apache config on the shared server might not suit the requirements of Elgg. I don't know what Options +FollowSymLinks is necessary for exactly but it wouldn't be included in .htaccess if it wouldn't be necessary.

  • I found this on another forum: http://pleasantonwebdesignblog.com/2007/07/elgg-social-networking-on-shared-hosting.html

     

    Elgg is a little more difficult to install than other open source applications out there. That is, if you are installing it on a shared hosting account. There are two obstacles you will need to overcome. First of all .htaccess is probably not enabled for your account, and when the Elgg .htaccess starts trying to do things, your server will choke with a 500 Server Error. So you need to have your hosting support person enable .htaccess for the directories you will install Elgg in.

    That’s not all though. My host (hostmysite.com) didn’t like the following in the Elgg .htaccess file:

    Options +FollowSymLinks
    RewriteEngine on

    These are mod_rewrite directives. They had me comment them out and added the statements to their own special configuration file. My current .htaccess just has the Rewrite rules listed.

    I found a lot of posts from people looking for installation support for this issue, and what a lot of the well intentioned developers trying to help didn’t understand (or didn’t communicate) is that these seemingly simple settings can become complex on shared hosts. For security, processes can be disabled, or configuration can be more complex than if you own your own box.

    Hopefully this helps anyone having 500 server errors when installing Elgg on a shared host.

    Check out my Elgg installation at Fan Club Helper

     
  • If those are legitimate problems then that is a very bad hosting package.  You can get a dirt cheap shared hosting package from most places (I've used micfo and hostgator for this) that has everything available out of the box.

    For the record, installing Elgg is an almost identical process as installing many other OSS apps - eg. Drupal

  • Were you installing elgg inside a subfolder? Certain hosts can cause trouble with that.
    Forexample: www.yourdoman.com/subfolder < this can cause problem sometimes.

  • Ok thanks Matt Beckett.

    thouseef19: Elgg recommends that the data folder be located outside the Elgg installation folder. If I install Elgg in the root of the domain, then what do I do with the data folder?