Hello to the Silverstripe Community

I looked into Silverstripe as it appears to the best CMS I can find. However, I have now spent over 25 hrs reading support forms, deleting and re-installing the files, editing code, contacting my host provider, reading through .php files etc.

I either get:

Internal Server Error
A Blank Screen
asked to download install.php
A Large headache

The closest I have come to an install is "Building Database Schema..."

I have ensured with my web provider that the server meets all the requirements. All the fields are GREEN on the install.php, and the database info checks out.

The only issue is that the installer says that it cannot determine with webserver I am running, and that it can't tell if mod_rewrite is installed. The server config has the following:

<DIRECTORY /hsphere/local/home/mydomainnamehere>
OPTIONS Indexes ExecCGI FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride All
</DIRECTORY>

1. I would love to know which FILES to delete/rewrite manually so that I can try to re-install without deleting all 8.0MB and 2,500 or so files (very time and resource consuming).

2. I would love to see a better install documentation that doesn't just say click and it is installed (I wish it worked like magic).

I really hope this isn't a typical problem, as I chose to use a CMS so that I didn't have to dig out all my computer science textbooks from 10 years ago.

Thanks for your time and any insight that you can provide.

do you have mod_rewrite on? is this on a shared host?, did you upload the .htaccess, that sometimes doesn't go through the FTP nicely.

1. I would love to know which FILES to delete/rewrite manually so that I can try to re-install without deleting all 8.0MB and 2,500 or so files (very time and resource consuming).

The only files that change during the installation process are the php files in the root directory (such as install.php - these are only deleted if you click 'delete files' at the end of the installation process), the .htaccess file in the root directory and the _config.php file in 'mysite'.

If you got to the screen that said 'building database schema' then it should be working, but feel free to post more info and we can help out. I'm particularly interested to know what happened after it said it was building the database.

2. I would love to see a better install documentation that doesn't just say click and it is installed (I wish it worked like magic).

Pretty much all the information you should need is linked to from http://doc.silverstripe.com/doku.php?id=installation. Most important is to make sure you meet all the requirements outlined here: http://doc.silverstripe.com/doku.php?id=server-requirements.

If it isn't covered there, then it is very likely that there is something unusual about your particular configuration, in which case the forum is going to be your best bet.

An additional page that describes what the installer does might be useful, but I doubt it would make troubleshooting much easier - installer issues are almost always server configuration problems rather than problems with the installer itself.

It sounds like the one click install is being subverted through problems with your environment. We'd love to learn more about what they are so that the installer can proactively deal with them. I thank you for any further perseverance you can make...