Topic: Forum's Permissions Being Changed After Install

[Resentful]

I recently upgraded to SMF version 2.0 RC5. When I attempt to install SimplePortal, my folder's permissions are all changed to 777, and my forum becomes unusable to every member. The forum simple shows white pages. I have noticed many users have experienced the same issues.

Main Site:
http://www.cheatinghaven.com

This affects all of my sites considering it changes all of my folders settings.

I am hosted by Hostgator.com.

Thank you in advance,

Resentful

[AngelinaBelle]

The SMF package manager will set permissions to 777 if possible.  If not, it will set permission to 755.
Some hosts won't let your php pages work if you set your permissions like this.
Try resetting your permissions, then check if the install succeeded.

[Resentful]

It resets all of my permissions to 777.

The installation fails every time and simple makes my forum pages white. Once fixed, there is no sign of Simple Portal and it is still able to be installed.

[AngelinaBelle]

This problem is happening because of some difficulty between how SMF's package manager does things, and how HostGator has things set up.
 
Please check:
* The owner and group your files and directories belong to.
* The user php runs as when running your forum
* Are the above two the same?
 
The thing is a permission (chmod) of 0755 should work just fine to make your files writable. 0755 means "owner: 7 (r+w+x), group: 5 (r+x), world: 5 (r+x). If 0755 doesn't allow php to write files to a directory, then the user "running" php must not be the same user who owns the file.
 
Host Gator says they run suPHP. So php should be running as the user who owns your website, which should also be the user who runs your files.  If this is not the case, you will need help from HostGator to set things straight.
 
Many SMF users have reported similar problems installing other packages, and gotten the support they needed at simplemachines.org.
 
Please search the information on permissions and suphp from your host (you could start with a google search on hostgator chmod to turn up some good starting points)
 
I can continue to work with you on this, but it could take you a while, working with me, to find the source of your problem.

[Resentful]

The permissions are correctly set and PHP is able to write and modify files.

Other packages install fine, but Simple Portal will not. It appears to be an issue with RC5 or Simple Portal itself.

[AngelinaBelle]

Which other mods have you installed successfully?
Can you check if any of them involve creating directories or copying files into existing directories?

[Resentful]

No other mods are in charge of modifying or creating any directories.

[AngelinaBelle]

So -- SimplePortal is the only mod you have installed that requires files or directories to be created.
This is the reason you have not had this problem with the other mods, and only with SMF.
 
The problem arises when SMF's Package Manager attempts to copy some file into an existing directory, or else it occurs when the Package Manager attempts to create a directory.
 
When the Package Panager prepares to move a file or create a directory, it first checks to see if the directory it needs to put the file in is writeable. If not, it changes permission on the directory to 0755 and checks again. If the directory is still not writable, it changes permission to 0777.
 
The fact that SMF changed those directory permissions says that it saw those directories as not writable.
 
Please check
* Which user owns those files and directories
* Which user PHP is running as (suPHP or PHP suExec)

[Resentful]

This only happened once SMF was updated. I will check on the PHP settings later today though.

[AngelinaBelle]

If SMF is doing something, it will be good to report it at simplemachines.org.
Please do check the CHOWN on the files.

[Resentful]

The problem was that I had old themes that no longer existed. Once I deleted them, it installed fine.

[AngelinaBelle]

The problem was that I had old themes that no longer existed. Once I deleted them, it installed fine.

Thanks for providing that information. I hadn't heard that one before.
Can you be more specific? I'd like to add this information to our documentation.
 
When you say that the old themes "no longer existed", what does that mean? Where did they no longer exist?
 
When you say "Once I deleted them", did you mean that some of the themes' files were still there? Or that you needed to delete them from within the Admin Center?
 
Thanks for the information.