TIP: "Not set; Unwritable" - full solution!
Posted: Wed Feb 01, 2006 4:57 am
Hello folks!
So even I - an "old" PostNuker decided to check out Joomla (unimpressed by the number of Joomla code downloads a day - 6 times lower than PostNuke, but impressed by number of postings in this forum for only 4 months!).
So I put it on my home Windows XP buldozer (SP2 + all latest and gratest patches), PHP 4.3.9, Apache 2.0.54 and MySQL 3.23.49.
And I got the (now) "famous" Not set; Unwritable error for Session save path !
Here is how to fix it (no matter if yiu are running Windows or any other lower calss OS
):
1) if your Apache is version 2 or greater, make sure the setting PHPIniDir in Apache's httpd.conf is pointing to your PHP.INI file!
This very easily omissed since there is no such setting - PHPIniDir - in older Apache versions. On top, by defaullt it points somewhere else, e.g. for Windows install is set to c:/php (if still problem - surround it by quot.marks, but works OK for PHP 4.3.9).
Do not get confused that your PHP.INI is OK - Apache 2.x will work even if there is no PHP.INI at the location this setting points to!!!
2) as pointed in other posts here:
a) make sure you a have a "temp" directory (any directory will work, not necessary to be called "temp"), which has "write" permissions for the Apache server process (for Windows, by default this is the SYSTEM account).
For example, if you are on Windows, let's say you choose this temp directory to be the one that is present on every Windows XP/2000/2003 system: c:\windows\temp (replace "c:\windows" if installed in other directory)
b) in PHP.INI, set the following
(yes, Apache 2.x doesn't require it to be surrounded by quot.marks as long as the path has no spaces)
c) restart Apache: this is critical - the changes won't take effect if not done
I guess with the above you can solve all "Not set; Unwritable" problems during Joomla installation, no matter what setting is concerned.
So even I - an "old" PostNuker decided to check out Joomla (unimpressed by the number of Joomla code downloads a day - 6 times lower than PostNuke, but impressed by number of postings in this forum for only 4 months!).
So I put it on my home Windows XP buldozer (SP2 + all latest and gratest patches), PHP 4.3.9, Apache 2.0.54 and MySQL 3.23.49.
And I got the (now) "famous" Not set; Unwritable error for Session save path !
Here is how to fix it (no matter if yiu are running Windows or any other lower calss OS
):1) if your Apache is version 2 or greater, make sure the setting PHPIniDir in Apache's httpd.conf is pointing to your PHP.INI file!
This very easily omissed since there is no such setting - PHPIniDir - in older Apache versions. On top, by defaullt it points somewhere else, e.g. for Windows install is set to c:/php (if still problem - surround it by quot.marks, but works OK for PHP 4.3.9).
Do not get confused that your PHP.INI is OK - Apache 2.x will work even if there is no PHP.INI at the location this setting points to!!!
2) as pointed in other posts here:
a) make sure you a have a "temp" directory (any directory will work, not necessary to be called "temp"), which has "write" permissions for the Apache server process (for Windows, by default this is the SYSTEM account).
For example, if you are on Windows, let's say you choose this temp directory to be the one that is present on every Windows XP/2000/2003 system: c:\windows\temp (replace "c:\windows" if installed in other directory)
b) in PHP.INI, set the following
Code: Select all
session.save_path = c:\windows\temp(yes, Apache 2.x doesn't require it to be surrounded by quot.marks as long as the path has no spaces)
c) restart Apache: this is critical - the changes won't take effect if not done
I guess with the above you can solve all "Not set; Unwritable" problems during Joomla installation, no matter what setting is concerned.