Has anybody managed to install OpenPublish cleanly on a shared host without any problem?
My experience is that the install breaks at some point or other before the Finish, resulting in either a non-functioning site or a partially-functioning site with some features (e.g. the feeds) crippled.
Tried on three different major hosts (including bluehost and fatcow), even with php settings temporarily tweaked way above normal level:

max_execution_time = 600
max_input_time = 600
memory_limit = 256M

Clearly build 268 is problematic to install on the standard hosting of most hosting companies unless some directions are given on server settings. There is no specific documentation on this in the download or in the download site.

Comments

goloka’s picture

goloka commented
Priority: Normal » Critical
febbraro’s picture

febbraro commented

Are you getting errors that tell you that PHP is timing out? If so, can you look at this comment:

http://drupal.org/node/396084#comment-1483356

The current profile is hardcoding the default timeout to 120 even if you specified 600. The fix in that comment is in our repository but has not made it to an build yet. Can you give that a try?

goloka’s picture

goloka commented

Yes, that was one of the errors generated. I had seen benoit.borrel's suggestion previously, so I changed the timeout value in the profile itself. Still it generated errors on Bluehost, including something like "internal recursion limit of 10 exceeded". Their tech support didn't want to deal with anything other than the standard Drupal installer, although their control panel gives us access to the settings in the php.ini and .htaccess.
I then asked Fatcow if Drupal OpenPublish install profile is supported on their system's standard hosting. After checking with their tech specialist, they emailed me:
"we do support drupal openpublish install profile on our server. You can install this application in your account without any issues."
After signing up, I found that the install bombs out, but worse, their control panel doesn't even show the server error messages generated. Their tech specialist then suggested that I go back to the application vendor and get them to fix the problem (but how, without knowing what the error messages are?). I reminded him that I had specifically asked, and was given an assurance in writing that OpenPublish will run without problem on their system, so it is their duty to ensure that it does.
It has been six days already and they have still not been able to get it working yet (if they keep this up, their CEO will soon hear about it). I presume others too are having similar problem, that's why I asked whether anybody has managed to install OpenPublish on shared hosting without problem. So far, nobody has answered positively. It will be a big help if you can find a way around this problem, so that we can start using the great semantic features of OpenPublish.

darkchild’s picture

darkchild commented

I am also a great fan of open publish but I am not able to run it on my shared hosting (hostnine). I tred to install in my hosting account initially but it kept timing out. I then tried on my wampserver and it worked out after tweaking a few times on wampserver...I then uploaded that install to my shared server and i can access the install. However, i cant update because it keeps timing out....

The error message
Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 33554432 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 622223 bytes)

Does anyone know of any webhosts that support Openpublish

febbraro’s picture

febbraro commented

I dont specifically know of any shared hosting providers that don't support OpenPublish, you will just likely require some tweaks to the PHP config to be able to install it.

@darkchild - You are running out of memory and currently have 32MB specified (according to your error) try raising the memory_limit to 64MB or 128MB if possible.

@goloka - There may be one other thing you can try to prevent the timeouts. #1 are you installing on windows? PHP/Windows are pretty bad with respect to file access and OpenPublish includes quite a few files. You will probably want to set realpath_cache_size to 512K or 1M or 2M if you can. http://php.net/manual/en/ini.core.php#ini.realpath-cache-size

goloka’s picture

goloka commented

No, I am not installing on windows. I am installing on Bluehost's robust Linux servers and the latest OpenPublish build 292 installer still breaks towards the end (after OpenCalais key is entered) with a "page not found" error. No feeds show up on front page. Manually added a feed, the feed items are read in but with an error msg: "SemanticProxy processing error" each time. Again the feeds don't show up on the front page, but the problem is more than that since the install itself did not complete cleanly.

@febbraro said above: "I dont specifically know of any shared hosting providers that don't support OpenPublish."
Well, do you know of any shared hosting provider, just name one only, who can actually support a clean install of OpenPublish?
If you are unable to name a single host, then as the CTO of Phase2Technology, can't you assign a tech to do an actual install on a shared host and verify whether this problem is just a matter of "tweaking the PHP config" (as you have suggested above), or more than that?

It has been five weeks since I asked in this forum whether anybody out there has managed to install OpenPublish cleanly on a shared host without any problem. So far there has not been a single positive answer, only some negative ones from others who have also lost a lot of time trying to get the install profile to run properly. OpenPublish is a great distro but it's going to be sorely missed by many of us on shared hosting until this problem is solved.

myersca’s picture

myersca commented

I was able to install it on the Jaguar PC VPS semi-dedicated account (the $29 a month option). Not a normal shared account, but not a dedicated account either.

I would be careful because this is not a simple install of Drupal. If you plan on running it on a normal shared account, the hosting company may have a problem with that, especially if it becomes somewhat popular. It does a lot of things and requires more resources than a normal Drupal install would and for the normal $9 a month shared plans, it would not be optimal and you may get kicked off.

IMHO: Of course you may want something to play with internally, but given all the things this does, it may not run optimal on any shared account especially if you want something that will be a public site. It is better to start it off on the right foot, than to get it going then have your account suspended.

I will try to install it on a Network Solutions shared account this weekend. I will report to you how this goes.

goloka’s picture

goloka commented

Thank you, Myers, for your feedback.
Now looking forward to hear of your experience with a standard shared hosting account.

myersca’s picture

myersca commented

I tried to install it on Network Solution's advanced shared plan and it did not work. It got hung up at the configuration Calais screen. I was able to get it to work by copying the mysql tables from another site, importing them into the NS site table. The performance is not too good either on the shared account, but that was not a surprise to me seeing how it ran on the VPS account, which may be the minimum you want to go.

irakli’s picture

irakli commented
Status: Active » Fixed

I am afraid OpenPublish is too complex for most shared hosting solutions. Drupal in General is quite hungry for memory and OpenPublish has many advanced modules on top of it, which makes it impossible to fit all the functionality in the limited resources of a shared hosting account. Also, advanced Drupal modules require PHP 5.2 or later, not always supported on shared hostings.

Our recommendation is to use affordable VPS hosting poviders, where you have root access (and/or CPanel) and can configure your settings.

We've had much success with http://www.slicehost.com/. Their cheapest VPS is only $20/month - quite affordable.

Thank you.

febbraro’s picture

febbraro commented

@goloka why don't you run through the entire OpenPublish install locally on your own computer so you can change any configuration settings you may need and once it is fully installed, move it up to your shared hosting provider. The install is the most resource intensive part of the entire setup, so perform that somewhere you have control, then move it up to your shared host. Otherwise, you can also do what @irakli suggested in the post above.

profjk’s picture

profjk commented

I could install Openpublish on a shared account with PHP memory set to 64M. But I am unable to access the site; which returns the following Error message:

*************
Internal Server Error
The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.

Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.

Apache/2.2.11 (Unix) mod_ssl/2.2.11 OpenSSL/0.9.8i DAV/2 mod_auth_passthrough/2.1 mod_bwlimited/1.4 FrontPage/5.0.2.2635 Server at www.stoxindia.org Port 80
************
Any Idea, what could be going wrong?
Thanks in advance.

myersca’s picture

myersca commented

I was also getting this on the NetSol shared account I did a test install on. It is probably a memory issue.

irakli’s picture

irakli commented

@profjk, can you look into Apache logs for PHP errors, when you get that error, while requesting the page? There should be more information in the logs explaining the cause of the error.

Thank you

irakli’s picture

irakli commented
Status: Fixed » Needs review

Hey,

even though we really can not support openpublish on all and any shared hosting servers, we do respect the interest to use OpenPublish on shared hosting and care about your opinion.

We have recently had an interesting exchange with http://pinchhost.com. They let us know that they were able to install OpenPublish easily on their shared hosting. This is great news because hosting providers know their environment much better and are better equipped to support OpenPublish than we can. I am sending the URL of this thread to pinchhost.com and hopefully they can let you know more interesting details.

You can also get in touch with them at: http://twitter.com/pinchhost

Many thanks to everybody for your feedback and a special thanks to nice folks at PinchHost, of course.

cheers

PinchHost’s picture

PinchHost commented

@irakli Thanks for keeping us updated!

The initial installation page made clear that "register_globals" needed to be disabled. This can be carried out through our cPanel. After the configuration was disabled, the installation ran smoothly. I skipped any Calais configurations as I was simply checking if the system would install. Occasionally Calais notifications appear, but I'm sure that could be fixed quite quickly. I've added a test article which was added to homepage and RSS feed, the admin panel appears to be running without issue.

If you have any queries at all, please let us know. We offer an unconditional 60 day money back guarantee and after that period we provide refunds for unused months. The demo is running at http://www.pinchhost.com/openpublish/, contact us if you'd like a username and password to login to the administration area of the demo.

pj’s picture

pj commented

Hi, This is something unrelated to hosting though I could manage to install easily in shared hosting at Godaddy. My problem is, I am not able to change the logo, which I could easily do with drupal installation. Is there anybody who faced the same problem? Thanks

febbraro’s picture

febbraro commented
Status: Needs review » Closed (works as designed)

@pj. Please open another issue for this.

askandlearn’s picture

askandlearn commented

I was able to install OpenPublish on Hostgator with no problems.

zarrarnyc’s picture

zarrarnyc commented

hi,
I have installed OpenPublish succesfully on Bluehost. Its not a big deal, but you do need to increase memory usage and the default execution / timeout setting. It works wonderfully. The only issue I have is trying to log onto openpublish.org, the site has been down for almost three weeks, maybe I am at the wrong site.

irakli’s picture

irakli commented
Title: OpenPublish install fails on shared hosting » OpenPublish Official Address

http://openpublishapp.com

irakli’s picture

irakli commented
Title: OpenPublish Official Address » OpenPublish install fails on shared hosting
Status: Closed (works as designed) » Fixed
domineaux’s picture

domineaux commented
Title: OpenPublish install fails on shared hosting » What are the requirements for setting up configuration files for apache, php, mysql,etc.?
Category: bug » support

I was looking to install the OpenPublisher on shared hosting server.

No way I'm going to change my hosting for this application.

My webhost does a great job for me, and the support is awesome.

http://www.mediaserve.com/

What are the requirements for setting up configuration files for apache, php, mysql,etc.?

My host will make necessary changes for me, no questions asked.

My understanding is this is just a drupal installation with modules pre-selected that are applied during installation.

Status: Fixed » Closed (fixed)

Automatically closed -- issue fixed for 2 weeks with no activity.

Adam S’s picture

Adam S commented

I installed the openpublish on the $7 a month shared plan at http://www.apthost.com/ . It's just for test, but I have not had any problems with it. The server is often very busy, however, openpublish and drupal I think preform a little better than the social networking Joomla installation I had on the site. The beauty of apthost is that they let you upgrade the service very easily to a complete dedicated server. So, as your site grows your servers can grow too. That's mostly why I use them.

ivrh’s picture

ivrh commented
Version: » 6.x-1.x-dev
Component: Code » Documentation
Issue tags: +firehost.com.au openpublish

We have Open Publish installed with no issues at firehost.com.au. They offer initial openpublish installation and configuration and then you could customise it by adding modules and theming as required. Probably relevant to folks form Aussie, as they have datacenter in Australia.