Geeklog Forums

What I did wrong....
1. I jumped in over my head and tried to lauch a website with an off-the-shelf installation of a software package from GoDaddy
2. Tried to start setting it up before I knew what I was doing
3. Not getting enough sleep to make sense of any of this.

OK... now that that is out of the way let me see if I can sum up my issues in some kind of concise and understandable text.

With no previous experience or reason to think I could do it, I jumped right in and registered a domain name with (of all places) GoDaddy. I decided that even I could get a website up and working using thier FREE Ad Supported Hosting using thier Value Applications which you guessed it included Geeklog. I used thier installation through the "Control Panel" which was very easy... so I was off and running. But then it hit me... I could not find my GL installation when I went to my registerd URL. No surprise now... seeing how far it is down in the directory structure. Now I have read at least 10 topics on this and they all say "Read the Installation Instructions" which I did at least a half dozen times. This is where as a total NOOB I am at a complete disadvantage. It made no sense... NEXT STEP???

Now, I may have some kind of mental lapse but this site has FORUMS which I think I am posting in... I can not seem to find the forum in my installation. HAVE I MISSED SOMETHING?

And now... I am wondering about a file that GD had me create and add to my main directory... (.htaccess) I tried "DirectoryIndex Index.php" which had the effect of finally having my GL installation show up when you type in my URL, but it had a rather negative affect of preventing me from being able to login to my site. It would say that I was logged in but I was never given my ADMIN options. I then tried "Redirect / http://www.HorseShowLife.com/geeklog/public_html/" which had the effect of never letting the page load. My network utilization went to 85% and the status bar kept showing the "Opening Page ...." but the screen kept refreshing or something because I never got to see the page.

So now I am so confused that I am considering just throwing out everything and canceling my domain name registration.

While I agree one should not host a website at GoDaddy, GoDaddy does have good domain registration prices and configuration. Since you already have the domain. Do not cancel it. (You may never get it back!) Just find a new webhost and then configure the names servers at GoDaddy to use the nameservers at the new webhost.

Thanks for the reply JM.... I think what I need is an "IDIOTS GUIDE TO GEEKLOG"... or something like that. Pretty much some instruction that assumes I am Forrest Gump and don't know anything except "Life is like a box of chocolates..."

I don`t understand al details of your problem but I`m sure there`s a solution. First of all the forum here is a plugin, an add on to the basic installation. That`s why you dont find it.


So Geeklog is running?

What did you have to write into the .htaccess file? This seems to be GD specific. Is there any GD description page you could link to?

The redirect does not sound good. Probably the .htaccess was wrong.

Thanks... I figured that out just before I logged in here to see if I had any replies.



Yes, the GD installation is running, BUT it only works if the URL that you use to get to it is here which is not what I had invisioned.



The recommended use of the HTACCESS file was simply to put in a REDIRECT statement. I had to go read up on this file structure and so I formulated this as I stated above. I am not sure what effect this file has on the operation of the GL software but since the pages are dynamically generated this could have been the root of the problem I was experiencing. The bottom line here I think is this....

I think that the GL team and GD team need to work out a proper installation so that the GL application works as expected because there are more than a few people like me without the expertise to fix this and continue to use GL. I think that GD has the same issue with Simple Machine Forums which it also has in its "Value Applications" list of installable software. But in the end, if it is the desire of the GL team to see this application expand its user base, it could easily do that through GoDaddy but not unless they do something about the raggedy install that GD has put together.

Well, as for the cpanel and 'fantastico' users we seem to have found solutions so it should be possible with GD too. Have you tried their support? It might be helpful.

The redirect to http://www.HorseShowLife.com/geeklog/public_html/ you tried also sound logical. I just wonder why there is /public_html/ below /geeklog/ and not the other way round. It seems that GD does not give clear enough instructions.

What was that REDIRECT statement like?

Actually, we have never been contacted by GoDaddy or any of the other providers of those "auto install" scripts. They made those on their own. And, it seems, without really understanding how it was supposed to be set up ...


Btw, you could try one of those: Alternative installation instructions

bye, Dirk

I am away from home and using a company laptop. I will have to try the alternate installation instructions in a few days.

In the mean time, I wonder why GD would have placed GL into its "Value Applications" list without first at least running it by the GL team or at least considering how it is to be used or more importantly how thier customers with little or no experience would expect to use the software. I can't imagine that they gave it a second thought given the way it installs.

Just out of curiousity, has the GL team ever contacted GD about this, and if so, what was thier response.

It could still be a bunch of misunderstandings on your side I agree that it is very unlikely that GD does anything untested. Those providers using cpanel and fantastico for automatic installation seem to have no problem with Geeklog. It is not difficult and does not really behave differently from other software.

I have used GoDaddy to host HTML pages and it worked very well. When I decided to branch out into a database back dynamic website, I tried the GD GL installation. It was a disaster, As I looked into it more and more I realized it wasn't GL that was fubar'd. That was about 2 years ago. I changed webhosts and learned how to install GL by hand (rather than some webhost value-added install).

As I said above, GD is great for cheap domains. That's their core business. But their php and mysql stuff can be a pain to work with.

At this point... I suppose I will have to simply abandon the GD "auto install" of Geeklog. I can not make it work for my need.

I think that GL is what I want, and I am going to have to pay a programmer to extend its functionality to fit my need. I had just hoped that it would be simpler and less costly.

This was suppose to be a preliminary function test to see if GL was the best "out of the box" platform. I am told by my developer that the LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) platform is optimal for the kind of site/application that I am shooting for. At present I am in the middle of the business plan which is turning out to me more of the beginings of a requirements document. It looks like the modular nature of GL will fit perfectly because it will allow us to create functionality in the form of pluggins.

In the mean time, I am looking for any examples of where the GoDaddy hosting was successful for GL even it it was a manual installation that was FTP'ed up into place. Bear in mind, I am not a Linux master nor am I a Web master. I am just a business person that in my day job has a team of developers to do this kind of stuff for me.... keeping me fat dumb and happy.

I feel your pain, HorseShow.

I'm just a dumb ol' rancher here in Wyoming and have jumped into Geeklog with both feet. I've made some really dumb mistakes and have asked some utterly stupid questions, but am slowly learning the logic and have to ask fewer and fewer questions as I go.

But there are still many times when I take off my cowboy hat, scratch my head, and go fix fence or something while I noodle on the problem.

Use the search function on this forum as much as you can because most of the answers are here. My problem is that I don't always know how to ask the question.

Yeah... I think I need a "Crash Lab"... or at least another PC that I can make into a LINUX server. Then I can practive being a Linux Server Administrator and then work on becoming a webmaster.

Failing that... I need to get home so I can start trying to download the GL install and start practicing with the Manual Install and FTP. I am sure that there is a way to get it working on GD... I think someone here must have found a reasonably priced host that has a more flexible install environment. Perhaps the key is to get away from the "SHARED" hosting solution with GD and instead use thier Dedicated or Virtual Dedicated hosting options.

Supposedly this gives you CONSOLE level control of your server and hosting so you could set it up like you were hosting from your house.

Actually I testbed all of my geeklog stuff in Windows XP. Download PHP, Apache and mySQL and read the installation instructions. It isn't difficult. Apache can be configured to only respond to localhost requests. And mySQL can be setup similarly. You just pick a directory as your webroot and unpack the geeklog directories there. Simple.

As jmucchiello said it is not necessary and learning all that and having an own server can be a nightmare and a big waste of time.

One disadvantage of having a test-PC at home is that the configuration is definitely different from the shared webspace. So I use reseller webspace and split it up in a test webspace and operational webspace.

But anyway I have the feeling we are talking in circles

I've been using GoDaddy for both domains and hosting for years, and have been really happy with them - UNTIL last month when my Geeklog installation was wiped out completely when I tried to install GL in a different hosting account. It turned out that all those database backups I'd been faithfully making every week were inaccessible, because the way GD sets everything up, there is NO WAY to access the database via PHPmyAdmin. javascript:emoticon('')

For 3 weeks they promised that they would figure out a way to restore my site to the way it was, and then one day I got an email from them - "Sorry, we can't help you." The one thing they had done was to give me a SQL dump, and so I created a brand new hosting account and started from scratch, this time installing manually and using the backup to create a whole new database.

So I'm finally back up and running and have 2 pieces of advice - Yes, use GoDaddy for you hosting, but DON'T use the free account - you'll end up with the ad banners popping up on every screen, including the post editing windows, and it's very frustrating, and significantly slows your site down. The other, more important, advice is to install GL the hard way, (NOT using their autmatic install) which scared me at first but turned out to be easy. But you'll really need to have access to your DB via PHP myadmin if you ever hope to upgrade your installation.

As for having to to edit the htaccess file, that is something I've never to to mess with for any of my sites, so I don't know why you had to. But, I think it's definitely the reason you can't login - using redirects really messes up everything - I know from personal experience.

So here's my new installation:
http://www.iweathersfield.com/
I have lots of bugs that I still haven't worked out, but some things are way better, like being able to use the editor for posts, and having my users actually be able to log in instead of having to stay anonymous.

Sorry to ramble on, but having just been through this a couple of weeks ago I thought my experience might be helpful.

Speaking of help, I could actually use some, too. javascript:emoticon('') In my old install, I had
RSS local headline feeds coming in on a right side block, and it worked great, but since the reinstall (with the newest version of GL) the links no longer work - instead of going to the outside link, it's pointing to an internal page and giving a 404 not found. I had to disable the url rewrite function because NO links worked with it on. Any ideas, anyone?