Perl scripts stopped working entirely - ticket #146414

[stomptokyo]

My ikonboard went down recently, and though I initially thought it was due to quota issues, I now discover that no perl scripts are working on my account at all.

Looking at the server error logs, I see the error:

failed to open log file
fopen: Permission denied
[Wed Nov 12 23:03:46 2003] [error] [client 69.36.160.205] Premature end of script headers: /www/badmovieplanet/cgi-bin/ib3/ikonboard.cgi


Which a quick google search tells me that the path to perl is probably wrong. I haven't, however, changed the path in any of these scripts, which is /usr/bin/perl.

I notice that some of the pre-installed scripts have /usr/local/bin/perl, so I tried that, to no avail.

Ikonboard ships with a perl test script, which returns the same 500 error. Here are links to two such scripts, identical except for the path. Perl_test uses #!/usr/local/bin/perl, and perl_test2 uses #!/usr/bin/perl.

http://www.badmovieplanet.com/cgi-bin/perl_test.cgi

http://www.badmovieplanet.com/cgi-bin/perl_test2.cgi

and here's the ikonboard itself:

http://www.badmovieplanet.com/cgi-bin/ib3/ikonboard.cgi

I have, of course, set the permissions on all scripts to 755.

Does anyone have insight on why my perl scripts suddenly stopped working? My contact with the westhost support folks so far has been only "We found this in your error log," which was something I knew already.

(By the way, this also affects my Westhost 1.0 control panel, which returns the same 500 error.)

Thanks so much for any help you can offer.

[wildjokerdesign]

You might want to check via your Site Manager that Perl is still installed on the account. It is under Site Applications > Development. Even if it is you may try removeing it and reinstalling it. Since the error mentions failed to open log file you may try to track down what log file and see if it is present. The paths should not matter since WestHost set old accounts to use both. Have you removed anything in your directory recently?

Really sounds like WestHost will have to give you help but keep us informed maybe we will see something. The above stuff is pretty basic it but it is where I would start. You may have already done them.

[stomptokyo]

You might want to check via your Site Manager that Perl is still installed on the account.

Still using westhost 1.0, so there's no Site Manager to check.

Since the error mentions failed to open log file you may try to track down what log file and see if it is present.

I'm assuming that it's a log file related to perl itself, as the name of the log isn't specified.

Thanks for the check on those details. You may be right, I may simply be waiting on Westhost for a fix. But I gotta get those feelers out there -- the longer the board is down, the more likely it is my users will just move on. . . .

[stomptokyo]

Turns out it was something wrong with the server after all. Perl scripts are up and running again! Thanks!

[wildjokerdesign]

Good to hear... glad you are back up. When you migrate to 2.0 if you have any problems navigateing the new system let us know. It's Great but can be a maze. :)