500 Error when accessing /ca

coldguy

Good morning. I am trying to install CollectiveAccess on my Ubuntu 24.04 LTS system. I have followed the instructions on this page https://manual.collectiveaccess.org/providence/user/setup/install/Ubuntu_20.04.html#install-ubuntu-20-04.

I am at the point in which I should be able to go into my browser and enter http://<server ip>/ca, but each time I do this, I get a "<server ip> is currently unable to handle this request. HTTP ERROR 500" on the page. I did check the log files in apache2 and was able to confirm that there was nothing there causing an issue.

What do I need to do to finish the installation? Thank you so much for your attention and participation.

seth

If you're running PHP-FPM (which is likely), then try looking in the PHP logs.

coldguy

seth Thanks for the suggestion. I missed the line where the PHP does not show errors or logs by default. I updated php.ini to show me the mistakes and write to a log file. Once down, I restarted apache2 and was able to confirm that it was running. The new behavior is that I get a blank white screen when I go to the /ca page. Hooray new behavior was found!

I then attempted to load the log that I created in the ini to see if I could copy and paste the error here to get an idea about what happened, but I only found that it was not showing up in the folder. This is odd, so I restarted the machine and tried again. Same behavior: white screen when going to /ca and no log to be found in the desired folder (/etc/php/7.4/apache2/php-errors.log). I feel like I am missing something dumb, but I do not know what it is. Feel free to let me know if there is anything else I should try. Thanks again for your help.

seth

did you configure the log to show in /etc/php ? Usually it'll be in /var/log.

coldguy

I checked again, and that was the right location for the log, I tried to restart the system, and we are back at the 500 error. I checked the version of php just in case it was not the right one but I have it as 7.4.33 with no log to look at.

monica

Do you have setup.php set to show stacktraces? This might help figure it out. Double check in app/log of CollectiveAccess also. PHP logs are usually at /var/log/, if it's running using the mod-php in apache, then I thought it would show in the apache logs. Check there again after you have turned on logging in php.ini

coldguy

Good early morning. I checked the settings and enabled stacktraces. When I went into the app folder, there was no log to be found. I switched the location of the php log file to var/log just in case that was an issue. After a restart I am still getting the same 500 error.

I took a look at the apache2 logs just in case there was something there and the only thing that I was getting was "
AH00558: apache2: Could not reliably determine the server's fully qualified domain name, using 127.0.1.1. Set the 'ServerName' directive globally to suppress this message." However, I corrected this yesterday, and in viewing the most recent entry, no error is there indicating anything was wrong.

The only thing that could be an issue that I could think of at this point is that the LTS version that I am using is technically newer than the one on the tutorial. Do you think that might have something to do with this?

monica

I have not tested it in 24.04 yet, only up to 22.04. I believe someone else had issues with 24.04 too.
There should be an app/log directory that holds application logs. If that directory is empty, then the application has never had a chance to run and chances are the issue lies in Apache or PHP set up.
If it's a 500 error, then there should be a log somewhere where Apache or PHP are saying what's going wrong.
How did you install Php 7.4 on 24.04? I would have thought it stopped supporting anything under PHP 8.

coldguy

monica

"How did you install Php 7.4 on 24.04? I would have thought it stopped supporting anything under PHP 8."

I followed the instructions in the guide on the website and forced install 7.4. I had to run then "update-alternatives --config php" to tell it to use the older version (the default was 8.x for apparent reasons).

On a lark, I tried to see if I could get the white screen to appear again, as I mentioned before, and sure enough, I figured that out. In Firefox, white screen, Chrome, 500 errror. As for the logs well I found that the php is not there at all.

https://imgur.com/a/ydToaeH

I checked with apache2, and the issue there was that it wanted a domain name instead of being a local host. I did a quick google to the the ini updated to have that no longer show as an error. I did notice the redis just now so going to follow that for a bit before I post again.

P.S. localhost on "ip a" is showing me a 127.0.0.1

darrigan

Hi,
What if you try to access to a simple file at your web root, like an index.html just containing "hello"?
And another one like index.php containing a basic php code like <?php phpinfo(); ?>?
In addition, I remember, on a new server to which I am migrating, having a server error because the .htaccess was blocking. There was something missing in the Apache configuration for this to work...
Another thing that seems curious is your "127.0.1.1": is that supposed to be the IP address of the localhost? (Usually this is "127.0.0.1".)
Maybe this will help...

coldguy

darrigan I can access the default apache index.html with no problem, so the good news is that I know THAT is working. When I try to be sneaky and open a file in the browser like "http://<serverip>/ca/THANKS.txt, I get a not found error, like when I try to get into the ca folder, it denies me access to it on a browser on another computer (can ssh into it).

I gave this a go to see if it would help and got nowhere with it
https://askubuntu.com/questions/325498/apache-cant-access-folders-in-my-home-directory

I'll let you know when I get another idea.

coldguy

I GOT IT! Even when I followed the instructions for changing the version of PHP in the tutorial, the most recent version was still going to be used.

For future users searching this thread, you must use the commands (Apache version) in the terminal.

https://tecadmin.net/switch-between-multiple-php-version-on-ubuntu/

Once I did that, I ran the index.php page that @darrigan suggested earlier and confirmed that it was on 7.4; once I reran the page, it was sent to the installation page.

While I would like to take a victory lap now...I am not out of the woods yet. However, since we are on a new problem, I will create a new thread on it not to cause a searching overflow.

If you want to see that new thread click here: https://support.collectiveaccess.org/d/301693-error-on-first-connection