Solution to many problems installing VB5
 

Hello all,

I've been struggling trying to install VB5 for a couple days now and with the help of a friend I finally got it working! Note: this information is only useful for people who installed VB5 in a sub-directory. If VB bulletin is at your site's root, this doesn't apply. I'd like to share this with you in hope that it helps someone in need...

First, I'm on a Hostgator shared plan and by default hostgator doesn't use PHP 5.3 unless you specify it in your htaccess. So, you must put the following line of code in your htaccess file. For me, since I was installing in a sud-directory (mysite.com/community), I just put the code in the parent htaccess at first, located at the site's root (public_html). Here's the line of code:

AddType application/x-httpd-php53 .php

Once, you put this in your htaccess, you'll be able to install VB5, otherwise it will give you a warning. Once I got VB5 installed, I was getting a few common errors I've seen around the forums. First, I was unable to login at www.mysite.com/community/admincp. I would get a "page not found" unless I navigated to www.mysite.com/community/core/admincp. Also, If I navigated to www.mysite.com/community and clicked on the main forum, my profile, etc. it would produce "page not found" errors. If I clicked on "site home page" from admincp, it would just look like a blank white screen.

Anyway, after reading many forum posts, I knew it had to be a mod_rewrite problem, but hostgator had mod_rewrite enabled. The solution ended up being a very specific code I needed to add in the htaccess in the sub directory. Note: this is the htaccess located in the VB folder you uploaded, not at the site's root. You'll notice that I added the first line because I have hostgator, so you may not need that one. The second line (Options...) was recommended to me by a friend and it doesn't seem to be hurting anything (but if you're an expert and think differently, please tell). The real lifesaver is the line RewriteBase /community/. If you've installed VB in a subdirectory, what is it called? If you put it in www.mysite.com/forum then you would write RewriteBase /forum/. Cool?


AddType application/x-httpd-php53 .php
Options +FollowSymLinks



RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /community/


# Redirect old install path to core.
RewriteRule ^install/ core/install/ [NC,L]


# Main Redirect
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php?routestring=$1 [L,QSA]


# Because admincp is an actual directory.
RewriteRule ^(admincp/)$ index.php?routestring=$1 [L,QSA]








I hope this stops a few people from pulling their hair out.