Help With Setting Up An Mt Blog

[waveflux]

I'm trying to set up my blog at the new TCH account in advance of changing the nameserver settings, but am running into problems. I followed the basic MT install instructions, but get a 500 internal server error when I try to run any of the CGI scripts; I must have incorrect settings in the MT.cfg file (looking at the CGI Path, DataSource, Object Driver, Database, DB Host, and DB user settings), but am not sure what they should be. I'm pretty sure that I uploaded everything correctly (certain files uploaded as binary, others as ASCII). I certainly don't mind starting from scratch, but could use help with the config file settings. Also, do I have to create a database in advance before uploading the MT files? Any guidance would be appreciated.

[TCH-Bruce]

Welcome to the family, waveflux.

 

Usually when you encounter a 500 error means that you have the worng permissions on the files or they were uploaded in a binary format when they should have been ASCII format.

 

They should have a setting of 755

 

Here is a tutorial for installing Moveable Type

 

Also, I am moving this to a more appopriate forum for organization.

Edited July 26, 2004 by TCH-Bruce

[kaseytraeger]

I installed MT a few months ago, and I do remember setting up my database before installing. I'm not sure if that helps or not, but for what it's worth, you at least know how one person here did it!

[LisaJill]

You have to create the database prior to running mt-load.cgi. You also have to make sure that those lines are in mt.cfg first so that you're sure that you're using the mysql (preferred) setup.

 

It would give an entirely different error, though, if it was the database. Definitely check the permissions like Bruce said. =)

[waveflux]

Thanks for the replies. I had in fact set up a database before the first attempt at installing MT, but, uh, did it badly. So I started from scratch, made a couple more mistakes, and painfully solved them. Now the blog has been recreated, the old entries have been imported, and things seem to be working well enough. I changed the name servers for the site, so the new blog should be online soon.

 

I do have a question about a weird result. As I login at the new blog's MT control panel, the pages are all...style-less. Just plain vanilla text. Imagine a CSS page without the stylesheet, and you'll get the picture. The control panel site certainly works, but its appearance troubles me. Has this happened to anyone else? Could I have overlooked a file during the MT installation, or perhaps corrupted it?

 

PS - It must be the files in static files folder: the docs and images folders and the styles.css file. They're all there where they should be, and I took care to send images as binary and other files as ASCII. Could permissions be the problem?

[LisaJill]

What's the url to your mt.cgi? I can probably tell you in about 1/2 a second why it's not working with that. =)

 

But let me ask - what did you put in mt.cfg as the staticwebpath? Do you already have the domain going there or not yet? That should help troubleshoot it.

[waveflux]

What's the url to your mt.cgi? I can probably tell you in about 1/2 a second why it's not working with that. =)

 

But let me ask - what did you put in mt.cfg as the staticwebpath? Do you already have the domain going there or not yet? That should help troubleshoot it.

I'm not proud.

 

Lisa, that URL is http://209.152.182.112/~mvfrytl/cgi-bin/mt/mt.cgi .

 

Your other question: jeez, what path haven't I tried? But the StaticWebPath I initially used, and came back to, was /mt-static/ .

 

Seriously, any help would be greatly appreciated. I decided I had the path wrong, but can't seem to figure what it should be. Name server propagation is underway; the blog itself, with accompanying HTML and directories, is set up and waiting.

[TCH-Rob]

waveflux,

 

I dont know MT at all so I wont begin to lead you down a fruitless path but I would like to welcome you home. Thumbs Up

[TCH-Rick]

It will be much easier to get everything working once the domain has propagated. There were a couple of problems including the path to your mt-static directory which I corrected. The permissions also were wrong and should be 755 for the directories in mt-static.

 

Once the domain has propagated you should correct the mt.cfg file or stats will not record access of the blog. You will need to change the cgi-bin directory and the static files path.

[LisaJill]

Just as a quick explanation as to why the css would not have worked in this case.

 

Once your domain has propogated, mt-static will be located at ******/mt-static.

 

however, right now you don't have a domain name pointing there, so by using /mt-static you are teling it to go to the root and then up one. The root in this case was http://209.152.182.112/ so it was looking for http://209.152.182.112/mt-static but you actually had it in http://209.152.182.112/~mvfrytl/mt-static

 

It appears Rick has intervened and fixed it up for you, but I just wanted to give you an explanation so that you could understand it for the future. =)

 

Let me know if you have any questions!

[waveflux]

Sweet.

 

Rick, thanks so much for making those changes. Lisa, thanks very much for the explanation. Rob, thanks for the Thumbs Up. I think I understand what I did wrong, or much of it at least. Once the domain has propagated, I'll edit the mt.cfg file as Rick suggested.

 

Including Bruce moving this topic to an appropriate venue, I've heard from four TCH reps in the course of this thread...which is four more than I would have heard from at my old host. It's much appreciated.

[TCH-Don]

Welcome to the Family waveflux,

 

and your new home!

 

as You have already seen

we really are like family here.

So if you need anything,

just ask your new family!

We love to help

[waveflux]

Thanks much for the welcome, Don. I just popped back into the thread to let you folks know that the domain is mostly propagated, the required changes to mt.cfg have been made, and everything's insanely great (as they say in SteveJobsLand). Very thankful for the help, and quite glad to be here.

 

(I imagine that a lot of your customers probably arrive at your shores as gasping, grateful refugees. I know the feeling. )

[TCH-Don]

LOL

That describes the way I came here (gasping)

But its been great the minute I joined my family here Rock Sign