For one forum, when I was updating to a newer version, I saw the following at the FTP Information Required page:
Some of the files the package manager needs to modify are not writable. This needs to be changed by logging into FTP and using it to chmod or create the files and folders. Your FTP information may be temporarily cached for proper operation of the package manager.
When I provided the FTP login information, though, and then chose Install Now, the update was applied. However, on another system, when I refreshed the page, I still saw the old SMF version, even though I had seen the message "The package was installed successfully. You should now be able to use whatever functionality it adds or changes; or not be able to use functionality it removes.. I went through the steps again and saw an error message:
An Error Has Occurred!
You cannot download or install new packages because the Packages directory or one of the files in it are not writable!
I checked the SMF error log, which you can view through the administrator interface to the SMF software by taking the following steps:
I navigated through the log to find the entries starting at the time I attempted to upgrade the software. Note: you can change the "start=number" parameter at the end of the URL in your browser's address field for error log entries to be an arbitrary number you pick to avoid manually moving back through lots of pages, e.g., "start=1635".
The first entry I found in the error log for the install attempt referenced
"failed to open stream: Permission denied" for Subs-Package.php in
the forum/Sources directory.
I noticed that on the forum where the upgrade had been successful that
the permissions on the Sources directory, i.e.,
775, but the permissions on the file Subs-Package.php differed.
$ ls -ld Sources drwxrwxr-x 2 jdoe jdoe 4096 Jul 18 20:39 Sources $ ls -l Sources/Subs-Package.php -rw-r--r-- 1 jdoe jdoe 93120 Apr 30 2008 Subs-Package.php
I changed the permissions with chmod 777 Sources/Subs-Package
to match the system on which I had been able to successfully complete
the upgrade. When I tried reinstalling again, the results were the
same, however.
And I found, when I checked the permissions for yet another forum
on a hosting provider where the file permissions for Subs-Package.php
were 666 that I was able to successfully upgrade the software
on that system.
Looking for other differences, I found that, when I looked at the downloaded
file on the system where the upgrade failed, that there were several
copies of the downloaded upgrade file, corresponding to the various upgrade
attempts and that they had the user and group of apache rather
than the user's userid. For the two forums where the upgrade succeeded,
the downloaded file had the same ownership as the other files in the directory,
i.e., the userid for the user. I deleted all of the prior downloaded
.gz files for the upgrade.
[jdoe@example forum]$ cd Packages [jdoe@example Packages]$ ls -l total 60 -rwxrwxrwx 1 apache apache 18904 Jul 20 20:50 1.6c_new_prof_upgrade.zip drwxrwxr-x 2 jdoe jdoe 4096 Jul 18 20:39 backups -rw-r--r-- 1 jdoe jdoe 324 Dec 31 2005 index.php -rwxrwxrwx 1 jdoe jdoe 254 Jan 15 13:34 installed.list -rw-rw-rw- 1 apache apache 4178 Jan 15 12:43 smf_patch_1.0.20_1.1.12_1.tar.gz -rw-rw-rw- 1 apache apache 4178 Jan 15 13:32 smf_patch_1.0.20_1.1.12_2.tar.gz -rw-rw-rw- 1 apache apache 4178 Jan 15 12:30 smf_patch_1.0.20_1.1.12.tar.gz -rwxrwxrwx 1 apache apache 1768 Sep 3 22:00 WOW_Names.zip [jdoe@example Packages]$ rm *.gz
I clicked on click here to install which resulted in the
smf_patch_1.0.20_1.1.12.tar.gz file being placed in the directory.
Again it had apache listed as the owner and group.
[jdoe@example Packages]$ ls -l *.gz -rw-rw-rw- 1 apache apache 4178 Jan 15 14:48 smf_patch_1.0.20_1.1.12.tar.gz
I logged into the root account and changed the owner and group to be the user's userid.
[root@example Packages]# chown jdoe smf_patch_1.0.20_1.1.12.tar.gz [root@example Packages]# chgrp jdoe smf_patch_1.0.20_1.1.12.tar.gz
I was at the webpage where I was prompted for the FTP login information, so I provided those and clicked on Proceed. Again, when I installed the upgrade and checked the version, the old version was still listed at the bottom of the forum webpages. But when I looked at the installed packages under Admin for the forum, I saw the new version listed as an installed package.
| Mod Name | Version | ||
| 1. | New Profile Layout | S-Ace | 1.6 | [ Uninstall ] |
| 2. | WOW Names | 1.0.0 | [ Uninstall ] |
| 3. | SMF 1.0.20 / 1.1.12 Update | 1.0 | [ Uninstall ] |
But, if I chose Browse Packages and looked under Modification Packages, I didn't see an "Uninstall" option for the upgrade package, though I did for other installed packages.
The two forums where I had been able to successfully upgade SMF to version 1.11.12 had a default theme, the one where I had been unsuccessful had a different theme. The user thought that might be the cause of the problem, so she changed the theme to the default theme. I then deleted the downloaded upgrade file and tried again, but then saw the error message below:
You cannot download or install new packages because the Packages directory or one of the files in it are not writable!
I noticed that the Packages/backups directory for the forum
where I got that message was 775 whereas for one where I had successfully
upgraded it was 777, so I changed the 775 one to 777. When I then tried
again, I saw the message "This package is already installed, and no upgrade
was found!" I was able to click on the Install Now button, though,
to proceed. But the version still showed as 1.1.11 when I refreshed the
page, even though the "extracting package" message was "The package was
installed successfully. You should now be able to use whatever functionality
it adds or changes; or not be able to use functionality it removes.
I clicked on the Installed Packages tab and chose "Uninstall", but then got a message about the packages directory or a file in it not being writable again.
An Error Has Occurred!
You cannot download or install new packages because the Packages directory or one of the files in it are not writable!
And the update was showing up twice when I chose to "Browse Packages". I chose "delete" there to get rid of both instances of it.
When I tried again, the file was downloaded into the Packages
directory, but I got the "You cannot download or install new packages because
the Packages directory or one of the files in it are not writable!" message
again.
I tried creating a temp directory under the
Packages directory and setting the permissions on it to 777,
as I found suggested at
"Packages directory or one of the files in it are not writable!", but
that didn't help either.
I then tried another option for installing the upgrade. I went to the SMF website and downloaded the "large upgrade" version of smf_1-1-12_install.tar.gz. That one had the note "Using modifications, or not using SMF 1.1.11? No problem, this is what you need." associated with it.
Then under the Admin option on the forum, I chose "Upload a Package" and browsed to where I downloaded the above file, which I tried to upload. But I got the message "The package you tried to upload either is not a valid package or has become corrupted."
I noticed that the temp directory I had created earlier in
the Packages directory had been deleted, so I recreated it
and changed the permissions on it to 777 again. But that didn't help. I
still got the "The package you tried to upload either is not a valid package
or has become corrupted." message.
So I then tried the "small update" file, smf_1-1-12_update.tar.gz from the SMF website. I still got the "The package you tried to upload either is not a valid package or has become corrupted" message.
I also tried the zip file for the small update and the one for the large upgrade instead of the tar.gz files, but the results were the same.
I checked the error log again. I saw entries such as the following:
Apply Filter: Only show the errors with the same message
2: file_get_contents(/home/jdoe/forum/Packages/temp/./smf_1-1-11_to_1-1-12_patch.mod) [function.file-get-contents]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory
File: /home/jdoe/forum/Sources/Packages.php
I tried to install the file again. I created the
forum/Packages/temp directory again and changed the permissions on
it to 777. But when I got to the step where I could click on
Install Now, before clicking on the Install Now button, I
checked the contents of the temp directory.
[jdoe@example Packages]$ ls -l temp total 28 -rw-rw-rw- 1 apache apache 60 Jan 15 18:15 $auto_0.txt -rw-rw-rw- 1 apache apache 1743 Jan 15 18:15 package-info.xml -rw-rw-rw- 1 apache apache 2562 Jan 15 18:15 smf_1-0-19_to_1-0-20_patch.mod -rw-rw-rw- 1 apache apache 16238 Jan 15 18:15 smf_1-1-11_to_1-1-12_patch.mod
After clicking on the Install Now button and after I got the
"The package was installed successfully. You should now be able to use
whatever functionality it adds or changes; or not be able to use functionality
it removes", the files were still in the temp directory.
At Update 1.1.12 Packages question, I read that neither the small update nor the large upgrade will work through the package manager, though.
So I deleted the .tar.gz file in the Packages directory and
all the files in the temp directory beneath it. I then
placed the smf_1-1-12_upgrade.tar.gz in the directory
where the forum software is stored on the server. I then unzipped
and untarred it with tar -zxvf smf_1-1-12_upgrade.tar.gz.
I then pointed a browser to the upgrade.php file on the forum
website, e.g., http://example.com/forum/upgrade.php.
I checked the two options below:
Backup tables in your database with the prefix "backup_example_".
Put the forum into maintenance mode during upgrade.
I then clicked on continue. The upgrade completed
successfully and I could now see 1.1.12 listed as the version
number at the bottom of forum webpages. I deleted upgrade.php.
Additional Notes:
References:
Created: January 15, 2011