Installing Joomla on Verio VPS - Template Install Problems

So I had just finished installing Joomla on my server and wanted to play around with a few templates. Unfortunately, Joomla didn't want to cooperate for some time. I ran into two main problems:

"The installer cannot continue until Zlib is installed"

The trick to fixing this was SSHing into my server and installed PHP5 WITH the Zlib mod. To do that you can enter the following commands:

enter login information etc

su root

vinstall php5

(scroll down to the bottom of the list it gives you to "Zlib" and hit
spacebar - this will put an asterisk next to the mod - then just hit enter and
you should be done)

The next problem I encountered was a failure to install because "Failed to Move Files". To fix this, all you must do is give the tmp folder write permissions and you are good to go on this part. Unfortunately, I got one more error but along with a Successful Install - it wouldn't copy over the language files to the admin/en-GB and the language/en-GB folders so I did those manually. However, I am sure you could just give those folders better permissions too.

Hope this helps and remember to please vote on the poll next to this to say it helped you!

Installing Joomla on Verio VPS - Blank Page

So it has been a while since I did a Joomla install on my new server because I took a break from doing web stuff for a while. However, I came back and decided to put the new Joomla on another one of my sites. As always, I ran into a couple of errors during the install.

I was getting a combination of blank pages and also the bad xml response error. After trying a couple of installs I noticed that my problem was coming from the configuration.php file. What solved not only the Install Sample Data problem and a few blank page problems I was having (I would be about to hit the "Finish" page and then I would get a blank page instead of the finish page), was deleting the configuration file and doing the entire install, then copying the configuration.php code that they give you on the final step and creating the file.

That worked very well and I successfully went through a full install with no MySQL or blank page errors.

Hope that helps - remember to vote on the side bar here if one of my posts has helped you!

Joomla error: the xml response that was returned from the server is invalid

During the process of trying to install Joomla 1.5, I like many other people, continued to get the error:

error: the xml response that was returned from the server is invalid

Others were discussing the topic on the Joomla forum:
http://forum.joomla.org/viewtopic.php?f=429&t=265877

but nothing really helped me from there. After trying to run the SQL myself through PHPMyAdmin I gave up with that and went to try another install (this would be my 3rd or 4th). When I got the the part of the configuration for install, the only thing that I did differently was I changed the advanced setting on the Database Config page to the non-default radio button. Instead of backing up old Joomla tables I selected to Drop them or something - this was a fresh install so I figured it wouldn't matter.

Then voila, Sample Data Installed Successfully on the next page.

The other option that I was going to look into was something about PHP's ctype being enabled or not. Some people were getting a similar error for Drupal and enabling ctype was a solution I think. However, the process to do this involved recompiling PHP which I didn't want to mess with.

Hope part 1 helps you!

John

My New Verio VPS Server

I decided to switch over to a VPS for various reasons.
For one, I had about 3 or 4 shared hosting accounts and it would be more economical to just get one VPS server and then also have the option of subhosting to pay for some of the costs.

Secondly, I had always heard people say that I would get a lot better performance if I had a VPS server. I was somewhat skeptical because everyone always wants you to upgrade. However, I must say that after upgrading I have already noticed a significant increase in loading speeds. On my Shared Hosting account I was running a Joomla system and vBulletin System. The vBulletin loaded with decent timing but I would often set my vBulletin or Joomla as my homepage and it would drive me crazy when they didn't load fairly quickly. I would then immediately test Google to see if it was my internet and it rarely was. I was finally convinced to take everyone's advice and upgrade to the VPS. So far it has completely lived up to my expectations. Both my Joomla and vBulletin load MUCH quicker and I also have been learning how to harness the power of Shell and have been able to get mod_deflate working to compress my files and speed things up even more.

I signed up for the VPS v3 Basic Package which costs about $86/month.

I will type up the problems that I run into and the things I learn as I learn them and hopefully it will help others who are working on similar projects as I am.

-John