Redeveloping a site in Drupal 8.

Never had issues with previous versions of Drupal on this VPS server but for 2 days I've been trying to load D8 on a Dreamhost server with no luck.

First it failed on the SSD based VPS that runs Nginx so I reverted to the previous VPS that uses Apache and the problem is the same.

In both cases the install is pretty much perfect then when you access the site every page beyond the home page is a 404 error.

http://peacepharm.org/info.php

Site http://peacepharm.org

I've done at least 10+ install attempts and get the same result. What I don't get is if I'm having this issue why is it not written up all over the web?

The only errors on install were opcache and some concern that the install couldn't read the Apache version accurately.

Any clues or wild goose chases you think I should venture into?

Comments

sprite’s picture

What series of steps did you use to install Drupal 8 on the site?

Also, try using PHP 5.6.x instead of PHP 7.x.

spritefully yours
Technical assistance provided to the Drupal community on my own time ...
Thank yous appreciated ...

akayani’s picture

Yeah I tried different versions of PHP. I followed the DH wiki
https://help.dreamhost.com/hc/en-us/articles/216691848-Drupal

Added fileinfo to the phprc file.

Input unclean URLs

Some hacks to the setting file.

Each install I used phpmyadmin to drop all the tables in the DB.

And I've most definitely searched the internet for the issue and found squat which I find surprising.

PHPRC
mbstring.http_input = pass
mbstring.http_output = pass

mbstring.internal_encoding = pass

memory_limit = 200M

extension = fileinfo.so

; {{{ The following lines were automatically added by DreamHost
extension=xcache.so
; }}} That's all from DreamHost

sprite’s picture

The php-info script at your link above says you are running PHP 7.0, which is a known source of problems with Drupal at the moment.

When URLs don't resolve, the problem is always either something in the vhosts configuration or something in the .htaccess file that is causing the problem.

spritefully yours
Technical assistance provided to the Drupal community on my own time ...
Thank yous appreciated ...

akayani’s picture

That's what I thought too. The Nginx documentation talks a lot about not using .htaccess for performance reasons.

I know that I can't edit files in the VPS below /user so I assume vhosts configuration is out of reach.

I can't even see a .htaccess file in the usual places i would expect to find them in D7.

akayani’s picture

Warning: xcache_isset(): XCache var cache was not initialized properly. Check php log for actual reason in /home/[user]/peacepharm.8/vendor/symfony/class-loader/XcacheClassLoader.php on line 126

left on,
turned off,
and rebooted.

Message is the same. I could reload Drupal again.

Local cache cleared... still the error persists.

akayani’s picture

extension = fileinfo.so

; {{{ The following lines were automatically added by DreamHost
extension=xcache.so
; }}} That's all from DreamHost

sprite’s picture

I've provide as much help as possible.

What you are now asking is like a doctor trying to diagnose someone by email, without being able to actually examine the patient. There could be problems in any number of configuration files that need to be checked.

Once again though, mostly likely the problem is in the .htaccess file in your website's root directory. IN Drupal the .htaccess file manages URL redirection because all Drupal URL are synthetically created by Drupal's code.

spritefully yours
Technical assistance provided to the Drupal community on my own time ...
Thank yous appreciated ...

sprite’s picture

If you are running a VPS, why don't you have total root control of the entire server?

spritefully yours
Technical assistance provided to the Drupal community on my own time ...
Thank yous appreciated ...

akayani’s picture

That might have been supported by Dreamhost once upon a time but they have removed the ability from both the standard VPS and the SSD based VPS. I asked them to do some installs on my behalf that would have taken all of 30 seconds of staff time and that is not allowed.

I've done a lot of search in the past few days using "Dreamhost and Drupal" as the search parms, I can see people complaining about slow response times but I can honestly say that's never been an issue. I get page loads in <2 secs.

Don't you think it is a bit bazaar that me as a Drupal user for many years and as a user of DH for just as long can't just install D8 without fuss or if there is fuss can't find someone that have been there and done that given the 2 years D8 has been active? And that I couldn't do this on either VPS albeit running Apache or Nginx.

There is no .htaccess file in root. OK... I think I'm understanding the issue maybe.

I think this is the issue... cp * ~/peacepharm.8 -r

No hidden files copy. Maybe in the past I've used cp . ~/peacepharm.8 -r

That would make sense with why I can't see an issue listed.

akayani’s picture

I really appreciate that bit of hand holding! I'll go to the corner now and put on the dunces hat in shame. ;)

sprite’s picture

reply to akayani :

From your description of your situation, it sounds like that company is "nightmare host", not dreamhost.

If you are paying a couple hundred bucks a month for a VPS, at a minimum you ought to have total control of your VPS and the ability to configure it as you please.

spritefully yours
Technical assistance provided to the Drupal community on my own time ...
Thank yous appreciated ...

SiliconSorcerer’s picture

Actually I'm cheap I pay the $100 a year plan with over 50 hosts in the shared. Some of them get pretty darn good traffic at least usually enough to get me $4-500 from google ads a month and no complaints so Im actually quite tickled pink for free money! This is the only Drupal site my 501(c)3 foundation most are hand and some WordPress. I just thought why not go to 8. I guess why is now going to be the answer at least for now.

akayani’s picture

VPS + SSD RAM: 2000 MB | Storage: 19.9 of 60.0 GB > $30

Older VPS with standard disks
RAM: 485 MB | Storage: Unlimited GB > $24
MySQL RAM: 485 MB | Storage: Unlimited GB > $24

VPS with SSD RAM I'm using to play with Diaspora

The next level up is Dream Compute that does have root access. That would have been $12 a month with root access. Or $48 a month with 4vCPUs.

https://www.dreamhost.com/cloud/computing/#dhc-benefits

Maybe you are paying too much? ;)

If we had our promised fiber connection at 100mps that was to be wired up in August 2013 and not the pathetic 2 mps I get on ADSL, then just hosting the stuff from home would be the easy cheap solution. But here in Australia we are doomed by Turnbull bull and will be lucky if we get 25mps on his crap wired nitworth!

sprite’s picture

The price we are paying is NOT the central topic or the matter at hand ...

Regardless of price, it is clear you aren't getting appropriate features and services for having purchased VPS hosting.

With a proper VPS installation, you should have COMPLETE AND TOTAL control of the virtual machine, as though it were your own, with the option of paying extra for certain management features, like automatic total system backups, extra dedicated IPs, WHM and cPanel license, with full root access to everything on the virtual machine, plus quality tech support if and when needed (in a hurry if required).

It is clear from your nightmare experience that one gets the level of features and service one pays for.

The bottomline is that your Drupal VPS still isn't working; you aren't getting adequate support from your VPS host, and you don't seem to have adequate access and knowledge to diagnose and fix the problems yourself, otherwise you would not have posted here!

spritefully yours
Technical assistance provided to the Drupal community on my own time ...
Thank yous appreciated ...

akayani’s picture

Did you miss what I said? It was me using cp * and not cp . to copy files. I can't blame DH for that.

Amazing what you can do without root access. The issues I have isn't about what I can't do but about the lack of documentation and my knowledge in how to do it. I managed to get Diaspora up on Rails without root access but it took me 15 days of doing a bit each day until I was sick of it.

You are right, you need root access, but even when you can get around this you aren't going to find a lot of documented support. It's not fun.

Likely I'll move everything to DH with root support. That just wasn't where I started 2 weeks ago. It was a Facebook ban for 30 days for being too ironic and (%($ you I'll look for a distributed social network.

I suspect what DH do is develop a hardware software solution then never touch it again unless they absolutely have to. They were pretty early to deploy VPS and when they did that deployment they gave root access. They likely stopped that for a reason. Support costs I'd guess.

Are DH good or bad? They seem fine to me and pretty cheap. Only they would know really. There are definitely better options with more features.

SiliconSorcerer’s picture

the fileinfo is enabled but NOTHING I click works... /admin/whatever there is no admin directory what-so-ever so I guess this must be handled in the magic something or another that isn't working.
I do remember at one time there was a configuration page that would rebuild the whole thing based on selecting something or another option when I busted something or another on 7 quite sometime ago, if I could get to that page to select it I suspect it would do whatever that did before for the configuration build or if that's a file find it but ????

akayani’s picture

It was me and my use of Linux cp and no one else is to blame.

cp * /somewhere doesn't copy hidden files. the command is cp . /somewhere

It's a lesson; I will never forget again!

SiliconSorcerer’s picture

BINGO, add me to the dum..a list!
I did the SAME THING, works now.
I extracted it and just thought I don't want it in a subdirectory cd and cp * .. DA!
thanks!
P.S. I love dreamhost, other then getting screwed on a referral somehow more then once (who knows who's fault) I've been very happy.