Mt Errors Fix After Tch Php Server Upgrade

[DWD]

Recently TCH began upgrading PHP on their many servers as discussed here. When the upgrade hit my server, my Movable Type blog developed multiple problems namely a lot of "Error 500 Internal server error." The following is what I learned the hard way as to how to fix the problems. Maybe it will save someone the hours I spend figuring it out.

 

First, you need to change the file permissions on all of your Movable Type files that end in ".cgi" to 755. For me, most of the .cgi files were found in public_html/cgi-bin/mt4 folder and I found one straggler elsewhere.

 

Second, long...oh, so very long...story short, the MT default, at least for version 4.x, is to assign permission 666 to all files it creates. This causes problems with the new PHP upgrades. Additionally, manually tweaking the permissions will only provide a temporary fix as MT will change the permission back the next time it creates the file.

 

I was able fix the errors by making MT assign permission 644 to all files it creates. I accomplished this by adding the following at the very end of my mt-config.cgi file:

 

>#==== NEW DEFAULT FILE PERMISSION ==

HTMLPerms 0644

 

Since making these changes, everything has worked fine.

[TCH-Thomas]

Thanks for the info, DWD.

 

While you also posted this in the php upgrades (crosspostiing) thread, I am letting it stay, since it will help both us mods and MT-users to find solution to eventual problems.

[penguinstorm]

A note to add to this: Movable Type by default likes to create folders that are 0777. So when I rolled over to a new month...suddenly I had a problem again. Blurg.

 

Solution was found here:

http://forums.movabletype.org/2010/02/need-archive-folders-created-with-perm-of-755-not-777.html

with mt-config directive which should be set for 0022

 

>#==== NEW DEFAULT DIRECTORY PERMISSION ==

DirUmak 0644

 

Carry on!

[TCH-Bruce]

Welcome to the forums penguinstorm and thanks for the tip!

[TCH-Thomas]

Welcome to the forum, penguinstorm.

[DWD]

A note to add to this: Movable Type by default likes to create folders that are 0777. So when I rolled over to a new month...suddenly I had a problem again. Blurg.

 

Solution was found here:

http://forums.movabletype.org/2010/02/need-archive-folders-created-with-perm-of-755-not-777.html

with mt-config directive which should be set for 0022

 

>#==== NEW DEFAULT DIRECTORY PERMISSION ==

DirUmak 0644

 

Carry on!

 

I hate to disagree with you since I barely understand this stuff, but after much more trial and error and additional research, I think the following is what is needed to clear up the new archive folder error:

 

>#==== NEW DEFAULT FOLDER PERMISSION =====

DirUmask 0022

 

First note spelling of "DirUmask" and, second, note that the perms command works differently than the mask command, in short, it works backwards.

 

Anyway, the above code is what worked for me.