Installing Joomla 2.5.6

[Duff-Man]

Hi everyone

I'm starting up a small website for PC hardware news & reviews. To do this I've decided to create a Joomla template and installed Joomla on my own Web Server, for now just to try it out. I'm using IIS, PHP 5.2.17 and MySQL 5.5. After loading the Joomla pre-installation check page, I got the following error

Database Support : No
()

Which is strange as I've already created a new MySQl database, user and granted all privileges to that user. After a quick Google search : http://forum.joomla.org/viewtopic.php?f=236&t=277540 many people who've encountered the same problem have had to change the php.ini file found in the folder where you've installed PHP , however this tutorial is for people using Apache whereas I'm currently using IIS. Any advice on how to correct the Database Support error?

Thanks in advance,
Duff-Man

[Dean]

Hi everyone

I'm starting up a small website for PC hardware news & reviews. To do this I've decided to create a Joomla template and installed Joomla on my own Web Server, for now just to try it out. I'm using IIS, PHP 5.2.17 and MySQL 5.5. After loading the Joomla pre-installation check page, I got the following error

Database Support : No
()

Which is strange as I've already created a new MySQl database, user and granted all privileges to that user. After a quick Google search : http://forum.joomla.org/viewtopic.php?f=236&t=277540 many people who've encountered the same problem have had to change the php.ini file found in the folder where you've installed PHP , however this tutorial is for people using Apache whereas I'm currently using IIS. Any advice on how to correct the Database Support error?

Thanks in advance,
Duff-Man

I've never used Joomla on a Windows Server... never seen it happen either. Guess that's why all the support is for Apache.

[Duff-Man]

I've never used Joomla on a Windows Server... never seen it happen either. Guess that's why all the support is for Apache.

But Joomla should be able to run on IIS as PHP runs perfectly on IIS, only problem is that there are very few people using Joomla with IIS so there is very little support/topics on how to fix errors.

[GarethC]

I've installed joomla on an IIS server, and it works fine. Only issue I had with the sql server is that I had to give the server's IP, instead of just using localhost. For some reason they're not located on the same server.

I'm also moving the website to a linux server due to issues with the "Search Engine Optimisation" function not working nicely on IIS.

[Duff-Man]

I've installed joomla on an IIS server, and it works fine. Only issue I had with the sql server is that I had to give the server's IP, instead of just using localhost. For some reason they're not located on the same server.

I'm also moving the website to a linux server due to issues with the "Search Engine Optimisation" function not working nicely on IIS.

Good to hear another person using Joomla on IIS Have you experienced any problems with Database support or do you know of any other issues, besides the SEO, that would be good to know about when using Joomla on IIS?

[Duff-Man]

Still haven't fixed the problem, decided to do a clean install, and try again. If that doesn't work I'll try Apache.

*Off-topic a bit, but I've come up with the name for the site - Techno Savvy, do you think its good or should I go back to the drawing board? Also what would you like to see in the site. Basically what I will do is offer a news service for the latest tech/gadgets and games, guides, benchmarks (possibly), a forum (possibly sometime down the line but not immediately) and a download archive for drivers, utilities and gaming mods.

[nic777]

If Joomla is not seeing Database Support it probably means that the PHP installed does not have mysql support enabled. I don't know IIS so best to do a file search for php.ini to see if you can find it and then enable the module.

[shah]

The easiest and in my opinion the best way to do local Joomla development on a Windows machine is to install WAMP - http://www.wampserver.com/en/

It gives you a fully configured Apache runtime with MySQL and PHP installed and configured.

[Duff-Man]

The easiest and in my opinion the best way to do local Joomla development on a Windows machine is to install WAMP - http://www.wampserver.com/en/

It gives you a fully configured Apache runtime with MySQL and PHP installed and configured.

I did a clean install of Windows again, with WAMP and got some MSVCR100.dll error saying that it couldn't locate the .dll file. I downloaded and installed all the Visual C++ Redistributable Packages (x64) (2005, 2008 and 2010) and then re-installed WAMP, and it worked perfectly. Then I loaded the Joomla installation page and all the necessities were checked green

[Duff-Man]

Okay, I've installed Joomla now, but I'm having trouble installing my template, whenever I try and upload the .zip file nothing will happen, it would either stay blank or give an error saying "There was an error uploading this file to the server" are there any possible reasons to explain why this is happening?

[nic777]

Write permissions to upload and/or templates folder

Okay, I've installed Joomla now, but I'm having trouble installing my template, whenever I try and upload the .zip file nothing will happen, it would either stay blank or give an error saying "There was an error uploading this file to the server" are there any possible reasons to explain why this is happening?

[Duff-Man]

Write permissions to upload and/or templates folder

Thanks for the reply, but instead of using the upload method I installed the template from the directory, just one other question, on my home page, I keep on getting error messages all over the page all showing the same error :

"(!)SCREAM: Error suppression ignored for:
(!)Strict Standard: only variables should be assigned by reference in C:\WAMP\www\templates\mytemplate\config.php on line 13"

Has anyone experienced this kind of problem before and does anyone know how to fix it?

[Duff-Man]

Thanks for the reply, but instead of using the upload method I installed the template from the directory, just one other question, on my home page, I keep on getting error messages all over the page all showing the same error :

"(!)SCREAM: Error suppression ignored for:
(!)Strict Standard: only variables should be assigned by reference in C:\WAMP\www\templates\mytemplate\config.php on line 13"

Has anyone experienced this kind of problem before and does anyone know how to fix it?

Disable error reporting and those errors went away, now hopefully final question, how to set a template as default in Joomla 2.5.6, I know how to set the styles under the "Template Manager" as default but how do you set the template as default?

[GarethC]

Setting the style is setting the template.

Joomla 2.5 let's you select two default templates. One for the front end and one for the backend.

From the template manager, the templates with a start next to them are the current default templates, click the start of a different template to set that one as the default

[Mark A]

Mate, do yourself a favour and get as far away as possible from an IIS server if you're building a Joomla website.

Really, you will save yourself from a world of frustration and wasted time.

We have built a number of Joomla sites, on both IIS, Apache and Nginx hosts. It just doesn't play well with IIS.

When the time comes for you to turn on search engine friendly URLs and you're still on IIS - I expect you'll be back here cursing the very existence of IIS servers.

Out of idle interest - I assume you're using a premium template? Where did you get it from? I would check out either Yootheme and their WARP framework, or RocketTheme and their Gantry Framework + templates.

If you are interested, I've written a six-part series entitled Joomla vs Wordpress 2012 for Sitepoint.com, of which 3 have been published thus far. You can see the first part here: http://www.sitepoint.com/wordpress-v...nt-structures/ It might be of assistance to you as you start creating a new site.

Feel free to give me a shout via PM if you're stuck with something.