Thread

We are using EE Version 2.1.1 on a Windows server.

Everything was working normally while I built and launched the site. It has been live for several days.

Suddenly yesterday afternoon I began to receive the CGI Error when I submitted any updates to templates. The updates are holding, but no redirection to the edit screen occurs.

We have not made any changes to PHP after the original install.

Please advise,

Thanks,

Jay Ferranti

Jay,

Are you saving templates as files?
Double check permissions on the relevant folders again.

What was the exact error you received?

We recommend an upgrade when you have a chance too. While it may not fix the issue at hand it will ensure we are all troubleshooting from the same page

What version of PHP are you using?

Thanks for the reply.

1) Not saving templates as files.
2) PHP version is 5.3.3
3) Exact error: “CGI Error The specified CGI application misbehaved by not returning a complete set of HTTP headers.”
4) This version of EE (2.1.1) was downloaded from my downloads page only a few weeks ago, now it appears the latest version is 2.1.3, have there been two upgrades since just before Christmas? I’d be happy to upgrade it but I’m worried about that, seen some frightening posts on the subject of upgrades.

5)Permissions have not changed, but I’m not sure what “relevant folders” means. I’ll have them check that on the server if you tell me which folders specifically. Everything was working normally until a few days after we launched the site.

The only thing I’m aware of is that I decided to experiment with caching on the home page template only. The problem started close to the time I switched caching to Yes. I turned it back to No but that didn’t help.

Hi Jay,

Don’t let the scary posts put you off. 5.1.3 is the way to go.

What version of IIS are you working on?

Has there been any updates to your windows server at that time?  Windows update can be a bit of a pain that way.

Are you the only person who manages that machine? If not can you be 100% certain that something was not tampered with. I ask as you say it was working fine live. 

The relavent files John was asking about were the files and directories which need to be writeable. (Step 4: Set File Permissions)

IIS 6.0

I’m not managing the machine, it belongs to my customer. I have worked with them quite a while and trust them. So I relay what you tell me. We’ve set permissions on the above directories and we’ve cleared cache, but we are still getting the CGI error when we submit.

It was indeed working perfectly thoughout the site build and a few days after the launch. None of us have done anything to the server or to Expression Engine. They have not run Windows Update, and wonder if doing so will correct the problem.

jayferranti,

Do you or your client have access to the IIS error log? 
Perhaps there is a specific message in there that will tell us exactly where there is issue

Again to iterate what Barry says, EE2.1.3 would be a recommended approach to any troubleshooting

I’m getting this same error after updating to EE 1.7, I’m waiting to hear back from my host to see if they know what the problem might be. It’s not just with saving templates as files, it’s happening with a number of form submissions in the control panel. The data is saved to the database but that error is returned.

Very good. Please let us know when you hear back from them.

We didn’t get an error in IIS, here’s what the admin sent late yesterday from the error log (below), and below that, a question about Fast CGI.

“No luck from the IIS error log.  I only found a handful of entries and they were specifically related to images & timeouts.

Here is a typical entry from the log file when a template is updated but it’s not an error.

2011-01-18 22:18:09 W3SVC1 192.168.200.25 POST /system/index.php S=c878ab4b2ddb34832bb9c435f53a81eb30ac4d39&D=cp&C=design&M=update_template&tgpref=19 80 - 192.168.200.84 Mozilla/5.0+(Windows;+U;+Windows+NT+5.2;+en-US)+AppleWebKit/534.10+(KHTML,+like+Gecko)+Chrome/8.0.552.237+Safari/534.10 502 2 2147500037
——————

ALSO:

We ran across this thread, and are curious about turning off Fast CGI. We’ve tried all the other suggestions in the thread but don’t know how to turn off Fast CGI. Can you tell us how to do that?
http://ellislab.com/forums/viewthread/152926/P0/

You can certainly try turning it off, yes. Unfortunately we won’t be able to assist you much with these server configuration issues but your admin should know how to handle this. Have you had a chance to upgrade to 2.1.3 yet?

I haven’t had any success so far. The hosting provider said they don’t offer PHP via Fast CGI. They’ve asked if there is an optimal version of PHP to use for EE on windows servers. I currently have 5.2.2.

Hello,

This is the customer that Jay was posting for. 

I have upgraded our version of EE to the latest 2.1.3, and it has resolved our problem.

Thanks!!!!

Glad you are up and running again. Feel free to start a new thread if you have any more questions.