Resolved – PHPList Upgrade to 2.10.14

Resolution was to:
-Backup the entire /lists folder from web to local HDD
-Fully delete the entire /lists folder contents — all files
-Upload from local HDD the new /lists folder only to the web (ojaivalleycert.org/lists)
-Go to the Admin Directory on web — which gave 500 error
-Update the .htaccess file (I copied from previous working install from backup) to address the 500 error.
REVISED 20110806 – Update the config.php file (I copied from previous working install from backup) – lists/config/config.php
-Go to the Admin Directory on web again
-Log-in to PHPList and click Upgrade Database (followed instructions)

Note: One of my concerns were the files within the root of /lists on the web — I saw things like “Upgrade”, but the instructions were to click upgrade within the PHPlist system. Needed to really follow instructions closely. The way the documentation reads it’s a bit confusing regarding the public_html folder, because all I needed was to go in and just focus on the /lists folder contents. All good now.

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I use PHPList for my mailing lists for both Ojai Valley CERT/Ham Radio and for Senga Classic Stage Company.

Currently, I’m running version 2.10.10 and the Latest version is: 2.10.14

Here is the link to the upgrade procedure: http://docs.phplist.com/PhplistUpgrade

-Followed procedure to use phpAdmin to make backup of database to local HDD
— Find the correct PHPList SQL database — I have several
–So far so good — just followed backup procedures from within phpMyadmin
–Just to be sure, because the upgrade documentation isn’t really clear, I also copied the lists folder to my local HDD (Note: In hindsight, this may have saved me).

Big Note: Making a backup copy of the server directory /lists saved me big time, because I had to restore to get back online again. Need to ask forum why upgrade didn’t work.

Downloaded latest PHPList to local HDD
-Downloaded and Unzipped

Upload the unzipped folder to the /lists directory on server
–What’s throwing me off is the folder structure for the new download doesn’t match any folders within current /lists
—Didn’t delete any files on server, but uploaded anyway to the /lists folder

Not sure why I need to adapt the config.php file as I didn’t see any overwrites of the admin folder — this documentation I’m following seems to missing something.

Great… now I’m seeing that there is a /public_html parent directory of /lists that was uploaded. Somehow, the current parent directory I had on server was /lists. That explains why I wasn’t overwriting any existing files during the upload.

I’m seeing this within config.php, so I must have edited out the /public_html for some reason:

# if you change the path to the PHPlist system, make the change here as well
# path should be relative to the root directory of your webserver (document root)
# you cannot actually change the “admin”, but you can change the “lists”
$pageroot = ‘/lists’;
$adminpages = ‘/lists/admin’;

I think my answer, if I’m going to keep things relatively the same, is to transfer the files out of /public_html directly into /lists on the server.

What I don’t get is the documentation alludes that I did the above correctly – http://docs.phplist.com/PhpListConfigDatabase This is now really weird that the installation had /lists within /public_html

Now I’m getting this error when I deleted the files within /lists on server and uploaded fresh from the /public_html directory on HDD:

Error 500 – Internal server error
An internal server error has occured!
Please try again later.

Note on 500 Server error:

-I now vaguely remember getting this error initially when I first installed PHPList. Now I’m wondering if my upgrade actually had worked OK and I just had to do the following:

Why do I get a 500 Server Error?

If you get a ‘500 Server Error’ when installing, your server probably runs PHP as a cgi, not as an apache module (also known as phpsuexec). You need to edit the file ‘/lists/.htaccess’ delete or comment out (with a #) the line about ‘php_flag magic_quotes_gpc’. e.g. # php_flag magic_quotes_gpc on

Deleted the entire /lists directory on server and re-loaded the backup of /lists I had made to the HDD. Somehow, I’m missing some files.

What’s weird is that the documentation says “ie, your /lists folder” but doesn’t specifically say to just copy the files up from within public_html. Not sure what files it’s looking at to discern needing an upgrade — the upgrade button should be an automatic pick, I think.

Hopefully the backup restores me back so I can access the data. If that works, then I’m going to post to the PHPList forum and go from there. Also going to go through www.lynda.com course on Intro to XTML and HTML — needing a basics course on managing HTML.

I just installed phpList, but sending my first messages fails. Why can’t I send any message?
Please check if phpList is still running in Test mode. In config.php check your value for this constant (0 is off, 1 is on): define (“TEST”,0); . See also Preflight Checklist.

My list has grown a little and now all my subscribers disappeared
When you reach a certain limit, phpList will stop listing your subscribers when you load the page. You will need to add some text in the search box to find the subscribers you are looking for. If you still want to see all you can search for % (just the percentage sign).

About Paul

CERT Coordinator, Ham Radio Operator, GTD Fan; Photographer; Domino/Notes Administrator
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