Install Error Step 8

down

Joined: 2005-09-16
Posts: 11

Posted: Fri, 2005-09-16 12:49

I seem to have made the mistake of upgrading from alpha version of gallery. Anyways I have tried to upgrade many times with no luck. So i figured I would just do a clean install no problem. Well I have tried that many times as well each time deleting everything to do with gallery and recreating it per install directions. But I just can't seem to make it work. I have tried all versions of gallery 2 I have spent the last 12 hours trying to make it work with out error and am quiet frusterated at this time. Not much more details I can think of at this time other than the error on step 8 of the install not upgrade that was some other error. It repeats the error exactly as many times as I have pasted below. Please advise.

Notice: Only variable references should be returned by reference in /home/status/public_html/down/media/lib/adodb/adodb.inc.php on line 2847

valiant

Joined: 2003-01-04
Posts: 32509

Posted: Fri, 2005-09-16 13:29

FAQ: What information is required when I ask for help in the forums?

+ do you get any warnings in the system checks step of the installer?

+ i bet you run php 4.4.0 on freebsd. the above notice is proof that your php engine behaves abnormal. you need to recompile all php 3rd party extensions and probably even dependend libraries.

down

Joined: 2005-09-16
Posts: 11

Posted: Fri, 2005-09-16 13:44

No install warnings on system check everything is successful

Operating system Linux
Kernel version 2.4.21-32.0.1.ELsmp
Machine Type i686
Apache version 1.3.33 (Unix)
PHP version 4.4.0
MySQL version 4.1.13-standard

I have no way to recompile it's shared hosting. I can email them and ask them to do so but I need to make sure that's the real problem before I do so. They tend to get upset.

The thing is the alpha version installed and ran just fine. maybe I should down grade. sigh

--T.C. Morgan
CEO | Visionary | Designer
Personal Status Corporation
DOWN CLOTHING Division
http://downclothing.com

valiant

Joined: 2003-01-04
Posts: 32509

Posted: Fri, 2005-09-16 14:30

arg, the current forum search function sucks. don't find what i wrote 2 days ago.

the problem with this PHP Notice is the following:
We know that the corresponding code is 100% correct.
We discussed with some PHP (php.net) authors if our code is correct or what's wrong here.
The answer is that the code is correct and the only possibility is that not all PHP dependencies as e.g. 3rd party libraries have been recompiled for PHP 4.4.0 on thios server.
There's a note in the PHP 4.4.0 release announcement that you need to recompile everything.
We've seen these PHP Notices on maybe about 10 different servers now. The rest of our users doesn't have this problem.
E.g. I run PHP 4.4.0 on my test box with the highest error reporting level and I don't get these notices. The same on my winxp PHP 4.4.0 test box.

These PHP Notices aren't serious. After all, they are just notices. You can even suppress them by changing your error reporting level.
But the fact that they are there is a sign that something is wrong with your PHP engine.
And as long there is something wrong with your PHP, I don't thing it's a good idea to try to find the reason for your specific problem somewhere else.

down

Joined: 2005-09-16
Posts: 11

Posted: Fri, 2005-09-16 14:57

Ok I emailed my hosting provider and asked them to recompile all php 3rd party extensions and dependend libraries.
I will let you know the out come.

Thank you.

--T.C. Morgan
CEO | Visionary | Designer
Personal Status Corporation
DOWN CLOTHING Division
http://downclothing.com

down

Joined: 2005-09-16
Posts: 11

Posted: Fri, 2005-09-16 15:17

Well it looks like I am SOL. They are unwilling to recompile.

"PHP 4.4.0

No we will not recompile for this. Gallery has options to work around all things like this and I will not add special things for Gallery. I have Gallery running perfectly on about 10 of my sites, go through their FAQ and you can find the fixes.
Kris K.
Web Wide Media"

"PHP 4.4.0

BTW we have been running php 4.4.0 for about 3 months now. If you have suddenly started getting notices then something has changed in your config.
Kris K.
Web Wide Media"

So I guess I have to go back to the alpha version. LAME!!!

--T.C. Morgan
CEO | Visionary | Designer
Personal Status Corporation
DOWN CLOTHING Division
http://downclothing.com

down

Joined: 2005-09-16
Posts: 11

Posted: Fri, 2005-09-16 15:21

--T.C. Morgan
CEO | Visionary | Designer
Personal Status Corporation
DOWN CLOTHING Division
http://downclothing.com

down

Joined: 2005-09-16
Posts: 11

Posted: Fri, 2005-09-16 15:23

"PHP 4.4.0

Gallery has always thought their product was good enough to cause hosts to reconfigure their servers. Simply stated it is not. They force us to allow shell and exec to be executed by PHP which is more insecure than I care for. If they do not change their ways in the near future it won't run on our servers. I cannot keep opening holes for Gallery as they have already caused as many vulnerabilities as phpBB has in the last year. They are constantly causing servers to be more and more vulnerable. There will be a work around posted within the next couple of days for hosts I am sure, we will look. I run the RC versions on mine so that is why I haven't noticed. Typically I wait a couple of months to upgrade their software.
Kris K.
Web Wide Media"

--T.C. Morgan
CEO | Visionary | Designer
Personal Status Corporation
DOWN CLOTHING Division
http://downclothing.com

down

Joined: 2005-09-16
Posts: 11

Posted: Fri, 2005-09-16 15:24

"PHP 4.4.0

Gallery has always thought their product was good enough to cause hosts to reconfigure their servers. Simply stated it is not. They force us to allow shell and exec to be executed by PHP which is more insecure than I care for. If they do not change their ways in the near future it won't run on our servers. I cannot keep opening holes for Gallery as they have already caused as many vulnerabilities as phpBB has in the last year. They are constantly causing servers to be more and more vulnerable. There will be a work around posted within the next couple of days for hosts I am sure, we will look. I run the RC versions on mine so that is why I haven't noticed. Typically I wait a couple of months to upgrade their software.
Kris K.
Web Wide Media"

"PHP 4.4.0

http://dev.tikiwiki.org/tiki-view_tracker_item.php?trackerId=5&itemId=333
From wha tyou posted, they stated it will work but they think there are otehr problems. Tell them to visit

http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=41807.0

and also

http://dev.tikiwiki.org/tiki-view_tracker_item.php?trackerId=5&itemId=333

Very similiar problems and it looks to me, the same cause. Which means it's their code, not us.
Cory D.
Web Wide Media"

--T.C. Morgan
CEO | Visionary | Designer
Personal Status Corporation
DOWN CLOTHING Division
http://downclothing.com

down

Joined: 2005-09-16
Posts: 11

Posted: Fri, 2005-09-16 15:45

Ok cool you guys just have to fix one char. Everything works fine now. No recompile needed as my hosting provider had said.

on line 2843 you should see the following.

function &FetchRow()

This needs to be editted so that the "&" is striped off. It is shown below including a few other lines of code so that you know exactly what to edit.

/**

* Fetch a row, returning false if no more rows.
* This is PEAR DB compat mode.
*
* @return false or array containing the current record
* /

function FetchRow()
{
if ($this->EOF) {
$false = false;
return $false;
}
$arr = $this->fields;
$this->_currentRow++;
if (!$this->_fetch()) $this->EOF = true;
return $arr;
}

--T.C. Morgan
CEO | Visionary | Designer
Personal Status Corporation
DOWN CLOTHING Division
http://downclothing.com

valiant

Joined: 2003-01-04
Posts: 32509

Posted: Fri, 2005-09-16 15:50

In response to this kind email...

Gallery 1.x was never designed to be the successfull photo sharing application it has become. It evolved, much like phpbb, and needed a lot of patches.
Gallery 2 on the other hand was designed with a few goals, see: http://codex.gallery2.org/index.php/Gallery2:Developer%27s_Guide
And Gallery 2 has also a great record for security. There was one reported exploit in the past year and it was fixed before it was publicly announced. Gallery 1 and Gallery 2 don't share code, it's a complete redesign with security in mind.
Recommendation:
A secure shared webhosting should use php-fastcgi combined with suexec.

The links from the email point to the right problem, but the solution is incorrect.
Using references in PHP is perfectly ok, as long as one uses them right.
In this case, we have a function that returns-by-reference, that is, it returns a reference to a variable instead of a variable itself.
Notice: Only variable references should be returned by reference in /home/status/public_html/down/media/lib/adodb/adodb.inc.php on line 2847
this is:

	function &FetchRow()
	{
		if ($this->EOF) {
			$false = false;
			return $false;
		}
		$arr = $this->fields;
		$this->_currentRow++;
		if (!$this->_fetch()) $this->EOF = true;
		return $arr;
	}

The author of adodb decided that it is a good idea to use references here. References often speed up the application if used correctly. Sometimes you even need to use references to make a program work.
However, let's look at this function.
Line 2847 is return $false; $false is a variable, hence the code is correct.
No, you shouldn't write return &$false; in php, this code is correct. Period.

And no, removing the leading & from the function name is not the solution. The code is correct, it intends return-by-reference. If you remove the leading &, it will behave differently. Maybe it will work in this case (most probably), but the point is, the code is correct. And we will not change it since it's a 3rd party library (adodb) and this library is used by a whole lot of other PHP projects. We want to keep using the default version of this library.

It works on most servers with PHP 4.4.0, it generates these (incorrect) PHP Notices on some.
We discussed this with the authors of PHP and the code is indeed correct and they say, they suspect the problematic PHP 4.4.0 installs probably are still using old 3rd party PHP extensions.

down

Joined: 2005-09-16
Posts: 11

Posted: Fri, 2005-09-16 16:09

"PHP 4.4.0

They still aren't understanding or are just trying to confuse the issue. Nowhere did i sa add &$false.

The problem is with the code that they use not being compatible with php 4.4.0's error reporting which is more in depth and strict. Other programs which needed the same change done work fine including a SMF forum that does over 60gigs of traffic per month on one of our machines (a seperate one from yours but setup the same). We run many sites and none of them are having issues relating to PHP.
Cory D.
Web Wide Media"

--T.C. Morgan
CEO | Visionary | Designer
Personal Status Corporation
DOWN CLOTHING Division
http://downclothing.com

valiant

Joined: 2003-01-04
Posts: 32509

Posted: Fri, 2005-09-16 16:34

My last answer was very comprehensive in the sense that I not only answered their email in a detailed way, I tried to already answer questions or suggestions you might have.
Hence I said "return &$false;" wouldn't solve the problem either. That was just a remark.

But the rest of my answer described the problem explicitely and very detailed. Obviously you are ignoring my explanations.
Yes, the code works if you change the function to return-by-value instead of return-by-reference.
But:
The code is correct as it is. This very function, is correct. Approved not only by us, but by the authors / creators of PHP too.
Just because your PHP installation doesn't behave correctly, we don't have to change our code. Fixing your PHP installation seems like the far more obvious choice.

btw: This is a funny way to discuss. Having someone to forward the messages

down

Joined: 2005-09-16
Posts: 11

Posted: Fri, 2005-09-16 16:44

Yes, I didn't realize it was going to turn into such an issue. I really don't want to be in the middle of this. I just wanted gallery to work. I have used the work around and it's working. I will direct them to this thread so you can work things out, with out me.

Thank you for your responses. good day.

--T.C. Morgan
CEO | Visionary | Designer
Personal Status Corporation
DOWN CLOTHING Division
http://downclothing.com

valiant

Joined: 2003-01-04
Posts: 32509

Posted: Fri, 2005-09-16 19:31

I've got good news.

Since you brought this issue up again, I contacted the PHP devs again and got finally a satisfying answer!

Read the last message (bottom) of this page:
http://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=34009

Zend Optimizer is bugged.
I can understand that deactivating the Zend Optimizer might not be a satisfying resolution for your webhost since they'll lose some performance. But the Zend Optimizer has a quite a record of bugs. So, this isn't suprising.
Also the explanation from the PHP dev makes absolutely sense.

I'll contact Zend. Meanwhile I'd recommend you turn off this Optimizer (it's not very efficient anyway compared to the Zend Performance Suit or other PHP accelerators).

andren

Joined: 2005-09-24
Posts: 3

Posted: Sat, 2005-09-24 02:57

Hello,

just wanted to ask if this issue has been resolved. Getting the same error, but need Zend.

Thanks,
-andre

down

Joined: 2005-09-16
Posts: 11

Posted: Sat, 2005-09-24 03:31

We just did the & work around. Everything works fine so far.

--T.C. Morgan
CEO | Visionary | Designer
Personal Status Corporation
DOWN CLOTHING Division
http://downclothing.com

andren

Joined: 2005-09-24
Posts: 3

Posted: Sat, 2005-09-24 03:42

Thanks, down, think I'll try that then.

valiant

Joined: 2003-01-04
Posts: 32509

Posted: Sat, 2005-09-24 08:58

"Zend Engine" and "Zend Optimizer" are not the same. PHP == Zend Engine, everyone who uses PHP, uses the Zend Engine. That's ok.
Zend Optimizer is another product which always had a few bugs and made PHP slightly faster by compiling the PHP code more aggressively.
What we recommend: Do not use the Zend Optimizer in conjunction with PHP 4.4.0 since the Zend Optimizer has a related (references) bug.

andren

Joined: 2005-09-24
Posts: 3

Posted: Sat, 2005-09-24 15:40

valiant, thanks - but belive it or not some software needs the Zend Optimizer...so we need to have it on the server.
Thank you anyway, we'll try to cope.

valiant

Joined: 2003-01-04
Posts: 32509

Posted: Thu, 2005-10-13 13:51

another php user has found out that you can mitigate this bug (a temporary workaround until they publish a fix):

Quote:

Author: Mark Scott
Date: 13/10/2005 15:31

I've found that removing optimization pass 1 removes the notices caused by optimizing away the variable that should be referenced and returned.

In php.ini replace:
zend_optimizer.optimization_level=15
with:
zend_optimizer.optimization_level=14

Webmeister

Joined: 2005-10-18
Posts: 5

Posted: Tue, 2005-10-18 14:16

I am on a shared hosting provider... how can I get this to work? I see that you have

Quote:

Author: Mark Scott
Date: 13/10/2005 15:31

I've found that removing optimization pass 1 removes the notices caused by optimizing away the variable that should be referenced and returned.

In php.ini replace:
zend_optimizer.optimization_level=15
with:
zend_optimizer.optimization_level=14

However I do not seem to have access to it from my shell account. Is there a way to do this in a script on my account?

Thanks

valiant

Joined: 2003-01-04
Posts: 32509

Posted: Tue, 2005-10-18 14:28

usually, you don't have access to php.ini on a shared webhosting plan.

but it's definitely worth notifying your webhost administrators about this issue.
they can either change their php version or disable optimization pass 1 of the zend optimizer.

Webmeister

Joined: 2005-10-18
Posts: 5

Posted: Tue, 2005-10-18 14:51

They tend not to respond to tech support requests.... are there any other suggestions that you can give me to get arround this problem... They have Fantastico on the server and it can install Gallery2 for me... however, when I upload my images it trys to make 92x92 and all I get is a broken image icon. I try to get it to make 3 diffrent sizes and it does not just a full size, and multiple 92x92...

valiant

Joined: 2003-01-04
Posts: 32509

Posted: Tue, 2005-10-18 14:58

you can still change the webhost...

for starters, you can get rid of the php notice / warnings. but this just suppresses the message, the problem is still there.

in main.php right after the line
<?
add:
error_reporting(error_reporting() &~ (E_NOTICE | E_WARNING));

this will suppress all notices and warnings.
reupload an image to see if it works.
if it still doesn't work, open a new forum topic, since then it wouldn't be related to this topic.

jgrabert

Joined: 2005-05-15
Posts: 7

Posted: Tue, 2005-10-25 07:17

I tried the & deletion fix and while it fixed the adodb problem, I have a problem where it says the same thing about gallery/modules/core/classes/GalleryDataCache.class, I'm not sure how to fix it, as I can't modify that file (or, at least I don't know how I can.) I tried to modify main.php and it didn't do anything. I am in the middle of asking my host what is up, so hopefully they can figure something out!

valiant

Joined: 2003-01-04
Posts: 32509

Posted: Tue, 2005-10-25 11:28

the "& deletion" is not a fix.
you can use the hack from my last post (error_reportin) to suppress all warnings. but don't ask for support if your G2 doesn't work correctly. the first thing we'll ask you to do if it doesn't work correctly is to disable the zend optimization level 1.

Dr. Fre

Joined: 2005-11-11
Posts: 11

Posted: Wed, 2005-11-23 17:56

Hi,

Maybe someone can confirm this but, if you don't run your own webserver or have sufficient access, adding the following line to the root .htaccess file should work right?

php_value zend_optimizer.optimization_level 14

Regards to all,

G.

samlewit

Joined: 2002-10-12
Posts: 37

Posted: Tue, 2005-11-29 06:46

Galeara: I tried putting that phrase in my .htaccess and there was absolutely no change. Still getting the warning all over the place. Will try the trick above to at least supress the warnings.

dotnature

Joined: 2005-10-26
Posts: 224

Posted: Thu, 2005-12-15 03:57

This is a pesky little situation, Ive been testing gallery out a lot lately everything was fine, just did a new reinstall tonight and got this error, kinda weird since it has worked fine before on same host, I only got the error during install on step7-9 I thought id check out a solution during the install but since I dont have access to php.ini or zend I continued with the install with the errors flying around, after it finished luckily the errors stopped, weirdness.

valiant

Joined: 2003-01-04
Posts: 32509

Posted: Thu, 2005-12-15 06:27

probably, your webhost updated php since your original g2 installation. this would explain it.

jmarkantes

Joined: 2005-09-10
Posts: 1

Posted: Thu, 2006-05-04 19:52

You might have to wrap that line in a conditional. This is what's working for me, modified from my drupal .htaccess file:

<IfModule mod_php4.c>
php_value zend_optimizer.optimization_level 14
</IfModule>
# PHP 4, Apache 2
<IfModule sapi_apache2.c>
php_value zend_optimizer.optimization_level 14
</IfModule>
# PHP 5, Apache 1 and 2
<IfModule mod_php5.c>
php_value zend_optimizer.optimization_level 14
</IfModule>

That works for me, no more install errors, and no more pages of "Only variable references should be returned by reference" notices.

Good luck,
J
(replying to this old thread in case anyone searches on it again in the future.)

jamirae

Joined: 2002-09-04
Posts: 5

Posted: Mon, 2006-09-04 21:32

argh! this doesn't work for me... any of the options listed.

guess I need to email the ISP as I'm on a shared hosting plan.
I even followed the instructions here for suppressing the errors and that didnt work. weird.

http://codex.gallery2.org/index.php/Gallery2:FAQ#I_get_.22Notice:_Only_variable_references_should_be_returned_by_reference_in_.22.2C_what.27s_wrong.3F

Install Error Step 8

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