Holy Hell....help!!!
wildflowerswest - October 24, 2009 - 04:37
OMG.....
I am a total novice and have managed to install drupal on my server. This would be good BUT my exsisting website content is gone!!! When I go to my website - www.wildflowerswest.org - I now have a welcome to my new drupal page instead of my dear wonderful website. My file manager on my server shows all my usual files and the new drupal ones.
How do I fix this?????, I'm freaking out!!!!
Thanks,
Darice Dixon
I don't understand what you
I don't understand what you mean. Were you upgrading Drupal?
If you are installing Drupal from scratch, there won't be any content because its database driven, not driven by static files on the webserver.
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drupal web development
drupal web development blog
I guess I have really messed
I guess I have really messed up. I did install drupal from scratch not knowing what I was doing. The content that I used to have at my site wildflowerswest.org is not there when I go to my address. The screen I now get is a welcome to my new drupal page. Tell me this....what do you see when you go to www.wildflowerswest.org
yes, your index file has been
yes, your index file has been replaced with the drupal one. Your site is still there, but the homepage has been replaced by the drupal one.
what do I do to get my site
what do I do to get my site back?
do I need to uninstall? How
do I need to uninstall? How do I do that?
whew!! Figured it out, back
whew!! Figured it out, back to normal. SO... I would love to play with drupal. Can someone please help me get started and explain how to install the program on my server without messing with my current site?
Looks like you got it working
Looks like you got it working again.
Yes, thank you for staying
Yes, thank you for staying with me!! That was scary. So... any advice on how I can teach myself about drupal without interfering with my current site?
Best advice is installing it
Best advice is installing it on a separate web server and building a separate site. Then you can play around with it as much as you want before it goes life. You can get hosting for around $6 a month. I have been using Drupal for 2 year now and just using it and experimenting will bring so much knowledge.
Ah ha...I am most interested
Ah ha...I am most interested in drupal and want very much to continue. I notice my server allows me to create a subdomain. Have you any experience with trying to put it on my same server but on this sub-domain approach?
It'll work fine in subdomain,
It'll work fine in subdomain, I've used it to show admins on one of my sites dev stuff before springing the upgrade on unsuspecting users :) there' a line called $base_url somewhere in the settings.php that you'll need to change to the subdomain.
This is soooo great. I've
This is soooo great. I've been fooling around with the user panel on my server. I created the sub-domain and have just finished installing drupal to it. Can you please tell me what you see when you try this addy:
http://sales.wildflowerswest.org/drupal/
You have been of tremendous help. I thank you for your attention :)
Standard drupal startup
Standard drupal startup (garland blue theme, login block, "Welcome to your new drupal website"). I'd call that successfully installed ;)
Can also set up XAMPP on your
Can also set up XAMPP on your windows computer http://drupal.org/node/161975
I sometimes use XAMPP to copy my active drupal sites and tweak in a test environment before on the live site.
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The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side
Thanks for the link. I just
Thanks for the link. I just followed it, very interesting. Sounds like fun to learn about as well!
If I were you, I would NOT proceed
> sales.wildflowerswest.org/drupal/
If I were you, I would NOT proceed. You've done it 'wrongly' IMO. By having that folder-name in the url, you are ruining the 'portability' of the installation. That means, if you build a site using that install, you will be forced to have the folder-name in the url if you ever decide to take the installation live. If you removed that 'drupal' folder-name by moving the website to a root, then all the links to your content would break; no images or media would display.
So what I would do is:
· create a subdomain called drupal2 (which should be automatically placed in your 'public_html' root folder)
· using an ftp client (or your cpanel file manager) go to sales/drupal/sites/ and CHMOD 'default' to 755
· using an ftp client (or your cpanel file manager) go to sales/drupal/sites/default and CHMOD 'settings.php' to 755
· using an ftp client (or your cpanel file manager) move all the files from /sales/drupal to public_html/drupal2
Now you can access the drupal site: using drupal2.wildflowerswest.org
When you're happy with your drupal site, you can move it to any other subdomain or into root without the links to any of your content breaking. I appreciate that this install is just for testing, but you may as well start off your test site correctly, just in case you decide to take it live later.
The other thing I would do would be to use the 'password protect' feature of your cpanel on the 'drupal2'
subdomain folder. This will stop anyone (including search bots) seeing and/or indexing your site whilst
you're still building or testing it.
Hi Anti, You know what? I am
Hi Anti,
You know what? I am going to do exactly as you have said. Thank you greatly for the clearly written steps. I would value avoiding problems later. In the meantime I have just uploaded a first new theme and look forward to seeing how that flows. Sure am having a good time with this.
Last night I set up a sub directory (birds.wildflowerswest.org) to also play with Joomla. Do you happen to know if the same concept applies?
Well, its done with the site
Well, its done with the site operating in off-line mode. I changed the permissions carefully but there were some problems moving some of the files. I wound up starting all over. I had not done much yet. No big loss.
Thank you for your time!
Migrated sites dozens of times
@Anti
I've copied/migrated/moved and bashed drupal installs from my xampp on my own computer to and from live sites and across different servers. As long as you do not use absolute url's and use relative url's across the site it's fine. I've done this many times with a site with over 200 users with photo galleries, profiles and pile of user content types.
Drupal can be moved from one folder to another or from a folder to root.
I realize going back to change absolute urls to relative urls would be a huge pita. I've not seen a module yet that uses absolute urls.
My method of copying a site (right or wrong) is:
Back up database with http://drupal.org/project/backup_migrate which does a great trick with default settings not backing up cache in database severely reducing database size.
Back up the entire drupal install, modules and files via ftp or zip it up in the domain panel.
Place drupal and all files in the new spot (xampp, folder, server or domain)
Create new database.
Import the database via phpmyadmin
Go in the drupal config file and reset the database settings, if needed. If moving to a new folder on same domain or site then database settings in config do not need to be changed.
Check the site in new space. Running update can work some magic :)
And lastly check for dead links if by chance I made some absolute instead of relative urls.
Previous to figuring out the above I wasted a lot of time building a site in test environment then manually rebuilding everything and adding content to the live site.
Marc
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The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side
> As long as you do not use
> As long as you do not use absolute url's and use relative url's across the site it's fine
I disagree, but obviously you seem sure about what you're saying, and so I'm interested in learning more about this. I'm going to describe my experience/rationale and if you have time, I'd appreciate it if you could describe flaws or errors I have made. OK, so lets take the example given to us:
sales.wildflowerswest.org/drupal/
Imagine an image placed in a node.
Normally (with drupal in a subdomain or root) it would be inserted with a 'partial absolute' path:
< img src='/sites/default/files/image01.jpg' >
This is portable. That first slash means 'append this path after the .com part of the url'.
Using this path in content, the drupal install can be moved to the root of *any* domain or *any* subdomain.
However, with drupal in a folder, the 'partial absolute' url in content has to be:
< img src='/drupal/sites/default/files/image01.jpg' >
because the browser must have the correct path to the file in order to display it.
And as far as the browser is concerned, the correct path to the file is:
subdomain.domain.org/drupal/sites/default/files/image01.jpg
Can you explain how you have managed to use a folder yet are still able to
use the desirable: /sites/default/files/image01.jpg paths within content?
You are basically claiming that drupal can stealth folder names in the url, which is a
feature I have not encountered, but it would be an extremely useful thing for me to
be able to do. At the moment, I have to use a clever bit of htaccess script in order
to use drupal in a folder and then stealth the folder name.
Thanks for any insight.
_
I think it's just some confusion with terminology:
<img src='/sites/default/files/image01.jpg' />is not an absolute url, it's called a "root relative" url (for being relative to the root of the drupal install). If you use root relative urls and keep the same structure on the migrated site, you should be fine.An absolute url (ie
http://www.example.com/drupal/sites/default/files/filename.ext) will obviously fail if you change either the domain or the drupal root path. Also note, there are no degrees of absolute urls-- either a url is absolute or it isn't. I always use root relative urls in the site and create dev sites with subdomains and I've never had any problems with urls after site migrations._
Don't be a Help Vampire - read and abide the forum guidelines.
If you find my assistance useful, please pay it forward to your fellow drupalers.
I got the expression 'partial
I got the expression 'partial absolute' from sources on the net.
It was described as "an absolute url without the 'root' part".
However, I do like 'root relative' better, and will use that in future.
But you haven't clarified for me:
If drupal is in a folder, then do you have to use
/FOLDERNAME/sites/default/files/image01.jpg as the path within content?
If you do have to use that path, then when the site is moved to a differently structured host, such as into the root of a domain or subdomain, then surely the path won't work. This means you must have FOLDERNAME in the url wherever you move the site.
If you DON'T need to use the foldername in the path within content, then please share how this is possible, because it doesn't work on my sites. Especially if this means that drupal can stealth the folder name, and remove it from the url when using the site.
Thanks.
_
Yep, if drupal is in a folder, as in my second code snippet above, you need to include that folder in the urls-- which is why I always recommend using subdomains rather than folders. You can also fix this with some apache rewrite foo, but that's probably beyond the reach of most hobbiests-- not to mention some professionals, lol.
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Don't be a Help Vampire - read and abide the forum guidelines.
If you find my assistance useful, please pay it forward to your fellow drupalers.
> Drupal can be moved from
> Drupal can be moved from one folder to another or from a folder to root.
So above statement from marcrocs is incorrect then?
I'm not on a witch hunt - just want to clarify that drupal is not portable when using folders (unless moving to a same-named folder) and cannot stealth folder names from the url (unless 'private' file system is used).
Cheers.
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drupal is relative to its index.php regardless of where it is stored.
when in a subdirectory, one would first try setting a $base_url in settings.php
If that doesn't work one would use the rewrite rule provided in .htaccess to scrub the subdirectory out of the url.
If one didn't want to use subdomains another method would be to point the domain to the folder (doc root) that drupal is installed in, when in a subdirectory. At which point the subdirectory doesn't make any difference at all.
_
It's not that drupal is not portable-- there's any number of ways to handle portability. Everything VM said is also correct.
This isn't really a drupal issue per say-- the same caveats would apply to any php application. Paths need to be accurate, that's the bottom line. The reason I recommend root relative paths and subdomains is because that tends to be the easiest method for newbies and nontechnical site builders to grasp.
_
Don't be a Help Vampire - read and abide the forum guidelines.
If you find my assistance useful, please pay it forward to your fellow drupalers.
Thanks for the
Thanks for the clarification.
I thought I was missing out on an important feature,
but it looks like my original advice in this thread
was OK.
see this module for path
see this module for path replacements on the fly
http://drupal.org/project/pathologic
2 years, good on you. I am
2 years, good on you. I am interested to see your website that you have built with drupal. Can you point me to it?
If your wildflowers site is a
If your wildflowers site is a clients, then don't mess with it like that. Install Drupal on your local PC and build wildflowers into is by using Drupal as a static site with Pages and a menu recreating the look of your old site. When that's done think about uploading it. Then you can get clever with new facilities. Drupal is not the easiest CMS for a beginner (me being one). Have you looked a Joomla!?
PS I'm just testing out Aptana as a local development tool connected to my WAMP server (it also has it's own built in server). This is to replace my Dreamweaver as I cannot afford to upgrade.
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Thanks for your time.
If you use symlinks on the
If you use symlinks on the webserver (to have versions of code, like 1.0, 1.1, 1.2 when making upgrades), beware - Aptana does not play well using symlinks.
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drupal web development
drupal web development blog
Thanks for the replies. I
Thanks for the replies. I sure am green. Don't know what some of these topics are that are mentioned. XAMPP, WAMP server, is my website a client? I have no idea and need to learn about all of those. In the past I played with Linux a little but currently use the Vista install that came on my laptop.
As a matter of fact, though, I created a 2nd sub domain and also got Joomla installed last night as well as drupal. These were very easy to set up using a tool in my control panel of my server .. called fantastico deluxe. Inmotion hosting is great btw.
So since I have no links of any kind on my main pages about the sub domain pages I would just like to keep plugging away with the status quo. The drupal and joomla pages are for practical purposes not published. I may look at Joomla more today. I really AM having an uphill battle using drupal to configure even one page. I can't even figure out how to center a header. Sigh.
Mostly I have used dreamweaver to design my pages and upload my content to my server. I am most curious to learn about these CMS's though.
Ain't it all fun!!
Darice Dixon
www.wildflowerswest.org
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fyi-- fantastico installs are fine to play around and learn the software. HOWEVER, once you decide to seriously create a production website do yourself a favor, and install the app (drupal, joomla, wp, whatever) manually as directed by the instructions.
_
Don't be a Help Vampire - read and abide the forum guidelines.
If you find my assistance useful, please pay it forward to your fellow drupalers.
Worldfallz Are you meaning a
Worldfallz
Are you meaning a local install? And would XAMPP be a good tool, as it sounds it might be?
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local, remote, whatever-- once you decide to build a real site don't use an installer (ie fantastico), do the install manually. Installers end up creating nothing but bizarre difficult to diagnose problems later on.
As for xampp-- i've never really used it. I prefer wampserver.
_
Don't be a Help Vampire - read and abide the forum guidelines.
If you find my assistance useful, please pay it forward to your fellow drupalers.
=-=
if you are building in a subdomain of your main domain the subdomain will be inexed by google and other search engines. Like others I suggest building on your local machine so as not to screw up your already existing content in search engine listings.
Another method would be to put a robots.txt in your subdomain root but this will only work for bots that pay attention to robots.txt and not all do.
Man oh man, I am glad to have
Man oh man, I am glad to have found this forum. You are all geniuses in my newbie world. What you have to say sounds like a valid concern. Someone has mentioned XAMPP which I started to read about. It sounds like it would greatly facilitate the local install. I may leave my new sub domains as they are for now and direct my attention to a local install.
Anti has just given me some good pointers for setting up the sub domains better. I'll do that and then get local.
THANK YOU very much for the good information, you have not been misunderstood :)~
Darice Dixon
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If this is the case and the site will eventually be moved to it's own domain or the current domain, from the subdomain. I'd set the site offline in the administration UI.
Hmmm, now you are, I am
Hmmm, now you are, I am afraid, misunderstood....'set the site offline blah blah'.... are you speaking about the settings for the server installation? UI....user interface? That would be my user control panel on my server? If so, I could find out how to do that :)
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drupal administration area. Set drupal offline so anon users (role bots fall into) can't see, therefore can't index the site.
He just means visiting the
He just means visiting the "Site Maintenance" page under administration and switch the site off line
Ah, gottcha. It is now
Ah, gottcha. It is now offline. Perfect. Now I can make those sub directory changes recommended by Anti and stay with the server install and continue learning how to use the program!