Thread

I have an old EE blog (licensed, version 1.4) that I maintain for its author even though he is no longer posting to it. He still would link to old posts from his new (not under my administration) blog from time to time, though. I also have a blog under the free “core” version 1.7 that I quit posting to as well. The urls for the first and second blogs are as follows:

http://timblair.net/
http://spleenville.com/v2/

Well, one day these blogs just seemed to up and die. When I try to open either one, I get the following message:

The system path does not appear to be set correctly. Please open your path.php file and correct the path.

These are in different folders under my main domain of Spleenville.com. Furthermore, I have timblair.net using an .htaccess file with a DirectoryIndex command in it to force typing “timblair.net” to bring up the site—the install is actually in the subfolder called “**” and the system folder I renamed to “****” The other blog is under the “v2” folder with the system folder renamed to “********” I didn’t use an .htaccess file for that site.

Anyway, I checked the path.php files for both and they have the path set correctly. As I said these are archived sites I maintain, the first for the owner, the second for me. I don’t really care about the second site, but the first (timblair.net) is not mine, so I want to get this fixed. The hosting company I use hasn’t a clue as to what is wrong. I have not upgraded or performed any changes to the files, so I don’t know what else to do. Would upgrading to the latest version fix this problem? Or is there something else I could do?

[Mod Edit: Edited post to remove sensitive information]

Hi andrea,

Welcome to the forums!

The first thing to check is whether the hosts have upgraded or changed your hosting account. Any changes may have affected the way the sites work. have you made sure and checked the permissions of the files in the accounts? Do you also have a pMachine Pro site somewhere on this server?

Cheers

Greg

They did upgrade Cpanel recently but I could swear this happened before the Cpanel upgrade. Also—I do have a Pmachine setup (not a pro setup, just whatever was free at the time—2004) directly under the root folder which is why I put the Expression Engine install under a separate folder and used an .htaccess file to force a redirect when people would input the domain url. As I said everything worked fine under this setup since 2004, until a few months ago. No new posts have been added since 2008, and all comments have been closed since then. I’ve been wondering if something just somehow degraded and caused all this. I did ask my hosting service if they had made any changes in their PHP but they said nothing that changed should have affected my site.

I also checked the permissions and they seem to be fine.

andrea,

In your path file can you try adding your full server path to the system folder.
Your host can provide your sever path for you.

So instead of

$system_path = "./system/";

you would have something like the following. Replace with your own server path

$system_path = "/usr2/username/www/root/system/";

I tried that. It didn’t work.

I’m thinking now it has to be some setting they changed when they upgraded Cpanel. What setting changess—in php, or otherwise—would affect an install of Expression Engine?

Sigh. Okay, I attempted to update to version 1.7. I am able to get to my control panel, but I can’t bring up the weblog. I am getting a message saying “your system does not appear to be installed. Click here to install it.” Of course I had deleted the install.php file, because it warned me I should not use that unless I am installing Expression Engine for the first time.

I do have an .htaccess file with a DirectoryIndex comment so that people loading the main url won’t have to add the folder everything is actually in. Updating was glitchy—at first I couldn’t get to the control panel at all. Then I got to it with no problem. Is this just hiccups, or do I have to do something else to get things up and moving?

It’s not the .htaccess file - I tried deleting it and using the url with the folder—no change, I still get “The system does not appear to be installed. Click here to install it.” But I can get into my control panel just fine.

OK! It looked like all I had to finally do is put my old path.php code in the new one, which was blank for some reason. Now the site works.

Great!

Please post again with any future issues 😊