FEED import no working on 2003 Server

[transcom99]

We have installed the vivvo trial in a new win 2003 server, with the latest ph, mysql and isapi_rewrite for the mod_rewrite compatability. All installed fine with 5 green ticks, site comes up, all php extensions are there.

But, in the cms admin, entering feeds shows the logo, but have the label 0 Feeds , and no feeds show on the site.

We have re installed 3 times on a clean server, scoured the forums, knowledge base and everything else, would appreciate an answer to this then we ware all go.

Many Thanks

Bill:confused:

[northlandadv]

Bill, how many different feeds did you try? Also, you'd have to wait a few minutes before feeds show up.

[transcom99]

thanks for the fast reply.

Have had several feeds configured for most of the day, not one has appeared as of yet and have been working on this for hours now.

the site is www.henleytimes.co.uk and just to test Ive placed all these feeds within the classifieds / accomodation wanted sub category.

Regards

Bill

[northlandadv]

Well, if you've tried mulitple feeds, and you've correctly pasted the entire feed link in the Feed field, then it should work. If it's still not working I'd suggest opening a support ticket. There's no way to trouble shoot this without going into your Vivvo system.

[transcom99]

Thanks, I rasied a ticket last week but no one has responed yet, and the link that came back from their ticket generator doesnt seem to work.

Thks for your help anyway

Regards

bill

[northlandadv]

Hmm, that's not good. They may be having trouble with ticketing since it usually doesn't take long.

[gene999]

I just installed Vivvo & installed 6-7 feeds. I waited & waited for them to show. Maybe an hour. Then I noticed that my default time before they updated was 3 hours. I switched it to an hour, waited & there they were!
Gene

Hmm, that's not good. They may be having trouble with ticketing since it usually doesn't take long.

[northlandadv]

hee hee :)

[transcom99]

Hi, Ive now waited days (not hours) and still no feeds.

no response to the ticket yet either

Rgds
Bill

[jasmina]

We answered this via Support Helpdesk, so please check your email/ticket history.

[transcom99]

yep , you sure did, heres your answer, ironically the information you asked for was in the original ticket............

Ticket Ref: EMS-48044-193
Ticket Subject: Feeds / IIS / mod rewrite

Dear bill@xxx,

Can you please provide us necessary parameters for approach to your site manager (cPanel or some other control panel software you may use, like Plesk or Ensim) so we can check this problem you reported as soon as possible?

-----
Kind Regards,

Vivvo CMS Support Team
support@vivvo.net
www.vivvo.net

[transcom99]

Still nothing.... this isnt a very good start to what looked like a promising solution for our needs.

The vivvo advertising medium clearly states its windows applicable, yet this is clearly not the case, as the issue we have has appeared on three different clean server installations with identical results.

Please do not ask us to refer to the ISP or that they are at fault, we are the ISP...

Thank You

[northlandadv]

I doesn't sound to me like they're blaming the ISP, and I don't know anywhere where the Vivvo site says that Vivvo is Windows applicable. Not to say it shouldn't run on Windows, but it really seems like it could be a configuration issue if you're trying to run it on a Windows server. Most LAMP based software systems can be adapted to Windows, but they are not inherently meant to be run there and problems are to be expected. I would especially be concerned about your Apache and PHP config since these could cause many issues.

Also, understand that Vivvo tech support is in a very different time zone, so your/my daytime tech support is at a minimum.

[transcom99]

Thank you for your post.

The vivvo advertising materials categorically state that the software / scripts are windows compatible, thats why we chose it, and the only reason.

On the surface it looks like an excellent script with all the facilities we need.

However, we have now installed this on 3 different types of windows servers and the exact same problem exists on all three. We have installed the isapi_mod rewrite from Helicon (at half the cost of the scripts) and get all 5 green ticks during the install, the .htaccess and hdconf files are exactly as they should be, all permissions are correct.

All the php extensions are there, gd, prce, exif, and all others needed inclusing fopen / fwrite etc.

Guess the main issue is that if these scripts, made for windows compatibility, produce the same fault on all windows servers then it must be a common off the shelf response, thats all we are waiting for several days now.

Finally, vivvo has a +38 code making them based in serbia, the same time zone as us.

Thanks
Bill

[northlandadv]

I stand corrected on the time zone :)

But I still don't know where it states, categorically, that Vivvo is Windows compatible. That would be a strange thing to claim. MySQL and PHP, yes, but claiming that the script is compatible with an OS would be odd. These are the requirements posted on the Vivvo site:

* Website - You must have a website in order to install the software. The software does not run on your PC, it runs on the actual computer that hosts your web pages.
* PHP 4.3 or higher (5.0 and above recommended)
* MySQL 3.23 or higher (4.1 and above highly recommended)
* FTP Access - You will be transferring files from your local computer to your website, so you will need some kind of "File Transfer Protocol" software.
* Write Access - You must be able to make files and directories writable on your web server. If the software doesn't have write access it won't be able to update its data files.
* expat - PHP extension for XML parsing
* GD library - for image manipulation
* PCRE extension - regular expression library

Optional:

* Sendmail/SMTP - Mail server required for optional email notification functionality.
* mod_rewrite - Apache Web server module required for usage of Search Engine Friendly URLs.
* Zlib extension - compression library


I guess the only reason I bring this up is that it's SOOO likely a configuration issue, regardless of what OS you're running. I know you can't control write access on a Windows machine, so are the files writing correctly?

What might help would be for you to post (or PM) your PHP.ini config so it can be compared to a working version. What do you think?

[boccio]

@transcom99: Vivvo does work on Win servers, indeed, but it occasionally happens that few glitches pop-out here and there. In your particular case, News Feed importer plug-in is being problematic most probably due to pseudo-cron execution (fetching news in time interval) that for some reason doesn't work on your particular VNC Server.

These kind of issues are being handled by senior technical support analyst whos queue has a slightly longer turn around time for responses, as the tickets tend to require more in depth evaluation and testing.

[transcom99]

Many thanks for your answer.

Agreed, I see no reason why it shouldnt work, its just one very small area and as you suggest I suspect its a cron issue, apart from that it zooms along and all other features work flawlessly.

It does seem to be a 'windows' specific problem, we have loaded it on 3 different server hardware and software types with the same results.

Ill just hang on for the answer, the support seems switched on

Cheers
bill

[northlandadv]

Good to hear there's a resolution at hand. As I woke up this morning, I thought "cron" so it was funny to see it posted here. I'm sure it will be fixed, Bill.

[transcom99]

ok, Im now beginning to lose my rag with this software, we still havent heard one single word from support on the windows server issue, so, we bit the bullet and installed it on linux.

We used centos, php5, mysql5 and after all day messing around (were not a linux ISP at all) , it loaded, and on a new IBM server.

Now we have yet another problem, the home page comes up but all the other pages , ie, general, news ect show as ie, /general/index1.html not found on this server.

On top of this everytime we go back to the installer the licence is invalid, we now have 5 on line !!

What on earth is going on...

:mad::mad::mad::mad:
Bill

[northlandadv]

Hi Bill..

For the linux, definitely an htaccess issue, and very common. Go to your preferences > layout and modules > Enable friendly URL and turn it off. If your pages suddently start working, it's the htaccess file.

Common issues are:
1. No file present
2. File was altered by a text editor and is not formatted correcty for NIX
3. No period before filename

[transcom99]

hi, yep, im still up working on this :

1. The .htaccess file is in the root
2. It does have a period before it .htaccess
3. it is enabled in the httpd.conf file (module loaded)
4. doing your test did bring the pages up

Ive also noticed that when adding a feed this time, it doesnt appear as an added feed but says it has been added at the top of the page... gets stranger

Could this .htaccess thing be a config issue with the apache deafult host and virtualk host settings, sorry to be a pain but never used linux before, just want this thing to work !

Cheers

Bill

[northlandadv]

Yes it certainly can be an Apache issue. The htaccess file, in this case, is taking advantage of the mod_rewrite module to redirect page requests. Since Vivvo has no actual pages, the mod_rewrite function essentially translates a stored database entry for a dynamic page, and "converts", on the fly, it to a page that looks like HTML to a browser. This is just to trick the browsers and spiders into thinking there's a static page there, but there is never actually a page.

Sorry you're having such trouble with this, but I'm sure it's due to a config issue. I have installed Vivvo many many times on several linux machines, and the only trouble I ever had was due to the htaccess file. In my case it was missing on my first try :)

RE: the feed adding issue; I've run into this when the feed URL is not correctly formatted. You need to make absolutely sure it's a good feed before you test with it, or you'll just pull your hair out. Use a major feed like a yahoo, etc.

Hope this helps..

[northlandadv]

Try this htaccess file. To make SURE there is no alteration of the file by Windows, you should upload the archive via FTP first.

Then log in to the shell:

1. navigate to the directory (Enter: cd /var/www/vhosts/www.yoursite.com/httpdocs) or whatever your structure is.

2. Enter: unzip htaccess.zip

3. This will put the htaccess file into your directory without any possibility of Windows touching it.

[transcom99]

Many thanks for the file, did exactly that, restarted httpd, afraid its still the same, 404 errors

Rgds

Bill

[northlandadv]

If that's the case, then it's an issue with Apache. If Vivvo works, except for the 404's, and we've got a good htaccess file, look to Apache.

[transcom99]

oki doki, Im looking !

do you have a running httpd.conf file I can compare ?

Cheers

Bill

[northlandadv]

I'll pm you

[transcom99]

Thanks for sending me the httpd.conf file, have cross checked it and its almost identical.

As for the IIS issue, support have now come back and said they are unable to offer a solution to the feed problem, this is on the 4 versions of windows server we tried it on.

As for the Linux, seems we are at a loss on that too, the .htaccess mod_rewrite does not work, and neither do the feeds and all the great support we have been receiving from the group hasnt helped so far.

If there is a true expert out there, you are welcome to have SSH access to sort this out if necessary.

Thanks

Bill

[northlandadv]

This is really mystifying, Bill. I've never had this kind of trouble with Vivvo. If the mod_rewrite doesn't work then it MUST be an apache or htaccess issue.

Have you also downloaded, from Vivvo, a freshly zipped copy of all the site files? Then uploaded the zip to the linux server and unzipped there? There's the possibility that some files were corrupted in the transfer.

[transcom99]

Hi,

yep, it is a mystery, however Ive disabled the friendly URL's in the preferences and the site seems to work fine.

As for the feeds, think there is still an issue on this.

Virtually all of the feeds that I enter in the plugin arnt accepted, some of the google ones are fine, but cant use any of the yahoo, reuters etc.

Is there a specific format the feed link should be in or a specific parameter, or maybe there is a permission issue on the plugin itself

Ill get there !

Cheers
Bill

[northlandadv]

I've started posting to your new thread..