Lifehacker article installation help

Tiny Tiny RSS Support
1

Describe the problem you’re having:

I can’t figure out how to follow these instructions on installing TT-RSS.

If possible include steps to reproduce the problem:

Trying to follow the Lifehacker installation guide on Windows 10 using Dreamhost and phpMyAdmin.

tt-rss version (including git commit id):

75e765aa00 v. 18.8. as far as I know

Platform (i.e. Linux distro, PHP, PostgreSQL, etc) versions:

I have no idea… I thinbk PHP?

!!!Please provide any additional information below:!!!

Hi all,

This will probably sound like a stupid post but Iäm just completely lost. I’m tying to follow this Lifehacker guide on how to install TT-RSS, but I can’t get past steps 2 or 3 (not sure where I’m getting stuck exactly).

At step 3 where I try and upload the file config.php,phpMyAdmin gives the following error:

Static analysis:

4 errors were found during analysis.

  1. Unexpected character. (near “?” at position 1)
  2. Unexpected beginning of statement. (near “?” at position 1)
  3. Unexpected beginning of statement. (near “php” at position 2)
  4. Unrecognized statement type. (near “Database” at position 62)

SQL query:

<?php // ******************************************* // *** Database configuration (important!) *** // ******************************************* define(‘DB_TYPE’, “mysql”)

MySQL said: Documentation

#1064 - You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near '<?php // ******************************************* // *** Database configura' at line 1

However these “unexpected” characters seem to match the screenshot in the article. I edited the file using on the [Windows 10] desktop using Notepad if that helps.

I’m using a shared hosting plan with Dreamhost, which uses phpMyAdmin. I’ve built a tonne of self-hosted Worspress sites in the past so I thought I would have some understanding of what’s going on but I guess I’m really in over my head haha. I realise this isn’t much information to help someone with, but I’m hoping that Iäve just missed something really obvious that’s diagnosable despite me not being able to explain what the hell I’m doing haha.

Thanks in advance for your time :slight_smile:
Zac

2

You are following an article from 5 years ago. Have you tried using the official Installation Guide: https://git.tt-rss.org/fox/tt-rss/wiki/InstallationNotes?

3

op is feeding config.php to mysql, not sure if the guide is at fault here

4

@ttrssnoob,

Don’t copy/paste from web sites (if that’s what you’re doing), sometimes things like straight quotes get converted converted to curly quotes and that breaks things.

  1. I’d start over. Erase what you have.
  2. Git pull to the directory you want (e.g. tt-rss)
  3. Make the tt-rss directory writable by the web user.
  4. Make the cache, feed-icons, and lock directories (recursive… sub-directories too) writable by the web user.
  5. Visit your domain where you host the TT-RSS and follow the on-screen instructions.

At this point TT-RSS should be able to create the config.php file for you. You’ll still need to setup a cron job to update feeds.

5

You don’t upload the config.php using phpMyAdmin.

6

Yeah, I am seriously confused at how you managed to think you had to upload the config.php file through phpMyAdmin. I’d suggest you do some more research on how basic web servers work because that will never work.
phpMyAdmin is used to administer MySQL, the database, the config file is not a part of the database.
Suggest re-reading the guide and looking at help guides from your webhost on how to use their platform. Something like using a file manager? or “how do I edit my website, or upload files to my website?”

But Yes looking at a Not 5 years old guide may be a good place to start, but if you don’t understand the basics of how to administer your site then you’re going to have a hard time, this isn’t “website setup 101” guides assume you know the basics on how to use your web platform of choice, since there are so many out there it’s impossible to tell you how to use yours.

7

Why on earth would you do that?

8

Thanks everyone for the advice! It’s been a learning experience haha. I don’t have a computer so I’ve been doing this in my spare time at the library, hence the delay.

Anyway I downloaded the Github repository to my local machine and upload files to the server using FTP. Everything appears in both FileZilla and the browser-based FTP that DreamHost provides. However I get the following error when I try to access mysite.org/tt-rss/install :

Not Found

The requested URL /tt-rss/install was not found on this server.

Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.

Same question again… am I missing something kind of obvious?

Thanks for the patience hahaha

9

Yes. Read the web server logs and fix whatever error that is detailed there.

10

It really sounds like you’re not putting things in the document root. I haven’t used DreamHost in eons so I don’t know what to tell you. You should create an index.html file with Hello World in it. Then get that file to load from your domain. That’s the first step and it’s not something we here can help you with, but once you know the server is serving the files you can move on to something more complex.

e: Also, what’s with uploading the git folder via FTP? DreamHost provides SSH access, just shell in and git pull directly on the server. It’s faster and less error prone.

11

Finally sorted it out and have my site up and running. Appreciate the help from everyone… my problem turned out to be something different all together but I learned a lot along the way thanks to your advice!