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[TheJanitor]

Longtime Calendarscript user, licensed long, long ago. This script has seen OS upgrade after OS upgrade, and has performed flawlessly - until Mandriva Linux 10 and 2006...

I suspect it has something to do with the Apache configuration as the system worked fine up until a RAID array failure caused me to upgrade the OS (interestingly, from Mandriva 10 to 2006.0). In any case, none of the stored events show, and the calendar_admin script yields only the "Calendar Administration : Main Menu" header, to the right of which is <TD BGCOLOR="#EEEEEE" and nothing else.

Checked the permissions, they are fine, which is intuitive - why would they have changed due to an OS upgrade? No errors in the APACHE server error log (most frustrating!), and debug.pl tells me my problems are all in my imagination.

Tried it both with manually setting $BASE_DIR and without to no avail. Finally, I'm my own ISP - this is on a box in my basement.

To ensure that it wasn't an issue relative to data loss due to the RAID array problem earlier, I did a fresh install in another directory on this box, as well as in the main cgi-bin directory of another box running Mandriva Linux 10 - same failure in each case.

The Mandriva 10 box is running Apache-AdvancedExtranetServer/2.0.50 (Mandrakelinux/7mdk) mod_perl/1.99_16 Perl/v5.8.5 mod_ssl/2.0.50 OpenSSL/0.9.7c PHP/4.3.8

The Mandriva 2006.0 box is running Apache/2.0.54 (Mandriva Linux/PREFORK-13mdk)
 
I installed it again by replicating the original install on a really old box (Mandrake 7.2) and it appears to run OK, though the events in some of the calendars won't display (which, I suspect, was due to having approved additions into the calendars while this problem existed, but before it was recongnized.) This box is running Apache/1.3.9 (NetRevolution Advanced Extranet Server/Linux-Mandrake) mod_perl/1.21

"Add events" seems to work, presenting the event for approval. Playing around with the menus (login, go to "edit events, select "Approve Pending Events" from dropdown...), I can approve an event, and they go into the relevant calendars' events.txt file.

The calendar takes an incredible amount of time to load, and then... Nada. Oddly enough, though, I just entered an event using the admin account , and that (and only that...) event shows on the calendar.

Don't know what other info I can provide. This has me totally flummoxed. Any/all help appreciated - espectially any that gets this system back online.

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Pat Babcock
janitor at hbd dot org

[DanO]

** No errors in the APACHE server error log **

Have you tired running the script from the command line to see what error(s) Perl reports?

Dan O.

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[TheJanitor]

Thanks for the reply!

Yes. Manually running the scripts each indicate that I need to manually set the $BASE_DIR variable, which I have done to no avail as indicated above.

Explicitly, setting the variable manually and then running from the command line eliminated the "You need to set..." error and generates the page to console as expected, but I still do not get a usable admin main menu page when running form a browser (IE6, BTW), and the calendars don't display any of the events, except that one I just entered as admin.

Is there an explicit list of server requirements somewhere I can go through and ensure my Apache and Perl configurations are compatible? Some dangblasted thing is interfering. Only explanation I can come up with since the Calendarscript wasn't tampered witrh during the OS upgrade.

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Pat Babcock
janitor at hbd dot org

[TheJanitor]

Just as a note, it is now April, and I'm no closer to resolving this issue...

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Pat Babcock
janitor at hbd dot org

[musicvid]

This script still runs flawlessly on Apache, I have no clue what Mandriva is or what it is supposed to do, but maybe you could cut through the layers of "in-between" to find the answer. Just a thought.

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[TheJanitor]

Mandriva=Mandrake Linux. It's a linux distribution. I'm still not entirely sure what they've done in the distro (or what I may have done in my install on TWO separate machines) to cause this. I've a suspicion that it's with the PERL install, but haven't bad a lot of debug time to spend on it. Since Mandrake is a popular distro, either Calendarscript isn't as popular as I thought it was, or it is a "mine only" problem.

I've been using Calendarscript since the stone ages, and it has served me well - it was well worth the money. But it looks like that particular show is over...

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Pat Babcock
janitor at hbd dot org

[TheJanitor]

POST MORTEM REDUX:

After many long months of inactivity, I stumbled upon the cause of my calendarscript failure: McAfee Privacy Service. When one of my users told me that the calendar was working fine for him, I logged in from work, and the calendar was fine. Went home, and no go. Noodled around with what else might have changed at about the same time as the crash, but drew blanks. Finally, I just started disabling thing one at a time and Bingo! Disabling McAfee Privacy Service cleared the issue up. I'm betting it is a cookie issue, but haven't made any attempts to debug further.

So, in short, if you find that calendars are coughing up a half line of html and nothing more, add that website to the "Allowed" list of any web filtering software you may be using. It is *NOT* a Calendarscript failure - the patient never really expired, Doctor. We simply lost it...

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Pat Babcock
janitor at hbd dot org