Joomla 1.5.6 install Fails "cannot open civicrm.settings.php"

[AnyTimeCoMM, LLC.]

We are running the the following;

Apache 2.0.52-41
PHP 5.2.6-2
mySQL 5.0.51a-2

Joomla 1.5.6
php.ini and .htaccess contains all required settings.

We have tried to install the latest 2.1alpha2 release over 20 times and with no change we continually get the following message.

Cannot open /var/www/vhosts/xxxxxxx.com/httpdocs/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm.settings.php

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Deepak Srivastava]

May be administrator/components directory doesn't have writable permission.

In order to make sure everything else goes smoothly, Go to "Help>> System Info>> Directory Permissions" (in joomla) and make sure all directories listed there have writable permission.

[AnyTimeCoMM, LLC.]

We appreciate the quick response, but as normal, all directories are writable that referenced in the system settings.

[Deepak Srivastava]

Can you try with ftp turned off and see if that helps.

[lcdweb]

Sounds like a permissioning problem. May be an owner/group problem. I've run into that before if I upload the installation file using an FTP program, the site (Joomla - apache owner) may not be able to write to the file.

To test it, install eXtplorer in Joomla (http://joomlacode.org/gf/project/joomlaxplorer/), navigate to the settings file, and try to edit/save from that utility (when using the utility, you are generally the same owner as the rest of Joomla). If you can't save, that's the issue. You'll have to reassign the owner or setup subgroups for users.

[AnyTimeCoMM, LLC.]

Again, thanks for the quick replies..

All permissions on the install files are set to owner of the domain, not apache.apache.. Are you saying they need to be set to apache.apache??

[lcdweb]

Well...
Permissioning may be setup differently on different servers. The issue I ran into, which you'll need to translate to your environment, was that activities done directly through Joomla inherited the apache user. But ftp uploads or activities done through a host control panel interface, had different users as owners/groups.

So the problem was that I Joomla didn't have sufficient privileges to work with the files that had been uploaded via ftp and unpacked through a control panel.

My troubleshooting step (with eXtplorer or JoomlaXplorer) was to basically confirm whether Joomla was able to edit the settings file. Since both of those extensions are inside Joomla, they have the same user permission level. If you're not able to edit the settings file from within Joomla, it would seem to confirm that the problem is permissioning.

If that's the problem, you'll want to go into civicrm install package directory and make sure the owner/group matches whatever the owner/group is for the Joomla files.

Make sense?
I'm no linux wizard -- but this sounds like something I ran into recently, so hopefully it helps.

[AnyTimeCoMM, LLC.]

I understand what your saying about perms.. Usually when you install something through Joomla, it automatically gives it the user apache.apache permissions.

Considering we uploaded these files using linux directly and not as either joomla nor apache, we assumed the owner would have to be the domain user.

I am know going to try to change the perms to apache.apache and will let you know the results.

[AnyTimeCoMM, LLC.]

Well that didnt go either! so i have tried installing using the following users

apache.apache
root.root
domainowner.domaingroup

All of which have resulted in the file not being able to open. Now, all the Civicrm menu items are listed but when i click on any of them i get the blank screen with 500 error.

[lcdweb]

did you install eXtplorer?
Try unpacking the civicrm install file using that, and then install through Joomla.

If the menu items are there, that's because the sql inserts into jos_components succeeded, but it sounds like the files themselves were not copied to the correct folders.

Have you been able to install other extensions? Try that. If you run into problems, than the issue is probably with permissioning in your joomla folders (components and administrator/components) rather than with the civicrm files.

[AnyTimeCoMM, LLC.]

I have installed it!

but now im seeing nothing with it as well.....

Heres my system info on file permissions.

administrator/backups/ Writable
administrator/components/ Writable
administrator/language/ Writable
administrator/language/en-GB/ Writable
administrator/modules/ Writable
administrator/templates/ Writable
components/ Writable
images/ Writable
images/banners/ Writable
images/stories/ Writable
language/ Writable
language/en-GB/ Writable
language/pdf_fonts/ Writable
modules/ Writable
plugins/ Writable
plugins/content/ Writable
plugins/editors/ Writable
plugins/editors-xtd/ Writable
plugins/search/ Writable
plugins/system/ Writable
plugins/user/ Writable
plugins/xmlrpc/ Writable
tmp/ Writable
templates/ Writable
Cache Directory /var/www/vhosts/xxxxxxxx.com/httpdocs/cache/ Writable
Cache Directory /var/www/vhosts/xxxxxxx.com/httpdocs/administrator/cache/ Writable

[AnyTimeCoMM, LLC.]

OK I GOT IT WORKING..

This is how..

I followed all the instructions of changing the php.ini and the htaccess files.

I had to disable ftp mode in Joomla and make sure that apache.apache owned all directories and files needed for the install..

So by installing extplorer then uploading/unziping the program using extplorer i was able to get the install to finish.

[fcreek]

But how did you get extplorer to unzip the file? Every time I try, it just says "failed to connect to server." Supposedly that was an issue resolved in v2.0.

Btw, congrats!