We don't think [PATH] is an absolute path for your data directory AND Your data directory [PATH] does not exist.

Hey guys,

the notifications from above are always displayed even tho I tried everything I can imagine. But I am not very gifted in technical stuff so maybe you can help me.

Situation

elgg is unzipped on http://sub.domain.com/. This domain leads to "/sub/elgg/" on the server. Everything in the installation worked fines until step 3. The database setup was no problem but the installation assistent neither wants my path to exist or to do its stuff.

I created 2 folders: one in "/sub/data/" and one in "/sub/elgg/data/". The first one you can reach by "http://domain.com/sub/data/" and the second one obviously by "http://sub.domain.com/data/".

Problem

Whatever I fill in the form "Data Directory" it doesn't work. I tried the following inserts (always imagine for both folders):

HELP

May you guys can help me with this struggle. Thanks a lot!

  • In first, you should use one data folder only.

    Let's say is /sub/data. In this case, your data folder is:

     /sub/data/

    On Windows:

    C://sub/data/

    Sometimes using localhost on windows I've filled this path:

    c:\sub\data\

    And this works.

    Try the clean installation (remove DB, all folders) again and get us results here.

    Also, read the docs

  • You need to provide an "absolute path". Absolute path means a complete path from the root foider of the filesystem on the server to the folder you want to use as data directory. "Path on filesystem" also means that you do NOT get asked to provide an URL you would enter in the browser to reach a certain webpage.

    Now /sub/data or any other path starting with /sub is very likely NOT a complete, absolute path but rather just a RELATIVE path (relative to the so called "document root folder" which the webserver takes as starting point of serving content of your domain). Most likely the sub folder within the document root folder is mapped to the "sub" subdomain.

    What you should NOT do is to create the folder to be used as data directory within the document root folder or within any subfolder within. So, it should NOT be created within the sub folder. That's for security reasons. What you should do is creating the folder to be used as data directory outside the document root folder in the home directory (webspace folder of your account) on the server. The path to your home folder is depending on the webhoster and therefore we can't tell you what exactly this path is. You might be able to figure it out by yourself by what is shown in the "Elgg Install Directory" input field during the installation. The path could be something like /home/account_name/public_html/sub/. You would then create the data directory in /home/account_name and it's then outside the document root folder (often named public_html or www or htdocs).

    If you can't figure out what the absolute path to your webspace folder is on your server, you need to ask the support of your webhoster as we don't know how they configure their servers. If your webhoster does not allow the creation of folders outside the document root folder (for example if you are using a free hosting plan) this hosting plan is not really suitable for Elgg anyway.

  • I suppose that topic starter is trying to install Elgg on PC but not on the hosting

  • Without further info we can't say for sure. Though I rather think it's an install attempt on webhosting.