Troubleshooting
From Elgg Documentation
Links don't work!
I can't save my settings on installation!
Elgg relies on the mod_rewrite Apache extension in order to simulate certain URLs. For example, whenever you perform an action in Elgg, or when you visit a user's profile, the URL is translated by the server into something Elgg understands internally. This is done using rules defined in an .htaccess file, which is Apache's standard way of defining extra configuration for a site.
These errors suggest that the mod_rewrite rules aren't being picked up correctly. This may be for several reasons. If you're not comfortable implementing the solutions provided below, we strongly recommend that you contact your system administrator or technical support and forward this page to them.
mod_rewrite isn't installed.
Check your httpd.conf to make sure that this module is being loaded by Apache. You may have to restart Apache to get it to pick up any changes in configuration.
The rules in .htaccess aren't being obeyed.
In your virtual host configuration settings (which may be contained within httpd.conf), change the AllowOverride setting so that it reads:
AllowOverride all
This will tell Apache to pick up the mod_rewrite rules from .htaccess.
The install script redirects me to "action" when it should be "actions"
This is a problem with your mod_rewrite setup (see elsewhere in this FAQ).
DO NOT, REPEAT, DO NOT change any directory names!
Emails don't support non-Latin characters
In order to support non-Latin characters, (such as Cyrillic or Chinese) Elgg currently requires multibyte string support to be compiled into PHP.
On many installs (e.g. Debian & Ubuntu) this is turned on by default, however it may not be. Use PHP info to check.
I am having problems running on MAMP
On certain versions of MAMP, Elgg will either fail to install or have intermittent problems while running.
This is a known issue with MAMP and is related to the Zend Optimizer. Until Zend/MAMP have resolved this issue it is recommended that you turn off the Zend Optimizer in your PHP settings.
I have mod_rewrite installed, but my install action isn't working!
If you're getting errors on installation like:
Not Found. The requested URL /elgg/action/systemsettings/install was not found on this server
You may need to give mod_rewrite a pointer to where your Elgg installation is.
- Open up .htaccess in a text editor
- Where prompted, add a line like
RewriteBase /path/to/your/elgg/installation/(Don't forget the trailing slash) - Save the file and refresh your browser.
Please note that the path you are using is the WEB path, minus the host.
For example, if your Elgg install is in:
/home/marcus/public_html/
Your RewriteBase line should look like:
RewriteBase /~marcus/
I can't validate my admin account because I don't have an email server!
While it's true that normal accounts (aside from those created from the admin panel) require their email address to be authenticated before they can log in, the admin account does not.
Once you have registered your first account you will be able to log in using the credentials you have provided!
I'm installing over an existing Elgg classic install and am getting all kinds of errors (e.g. 500 Internal server error)
Don't!
Elgg 1.0 is an entirely new codebase and data model, and is not backwards compatible with Elgg Classic! Additionally, it has different installation requirements.
You must install Elgg 1.0 to a new database, and in a different directory on your server.
We will be providing a way of migrating between 0.92 and 1.0 in due course.
Installation breaks with "Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_NEW"
Elgg is not running under PHP 5.
Remember, PHP has three components - the php module, php cli and php cgi. Running php -v on the console and getting 5.x.x back does not necessarily mean that the apache module is running PHP 5!
Confirm you have PHP 5 installed and activated as an apache module.
I've installed ok, but when I upload a file or change my profile picture I get a white screen!
Most likely you haven't got the PHP GD library installed or configured properly.
No emails (including activation emails) are being sent
This is likely a configuration issue.
Elgg needs access to sendmail as described here in order for email to be sent. Check the email configuration in php.ini.
Everything seems to be running very slowly
Elgg makes extensive use of the back end database, making many trips on each pageload. This is perfectly normal and a well configured database server will be able to cope with thousands of requests per second.
Here are some configuration tips that might help:
- Make sure that mysql is configured to use an appropriate my.cnf for the size of your website.
- Turn on mysql database query caching
- Increase the amount of memory available to php and mysql (remember, you will have to increase the amount of memory available to the php process in any case)
Advanced performance improvements are discussed in Scalability.
