Anyone else have problems upgrading WPMu 2.6 with subdirectories?

I’ve been upgrading a number of different WPMu installations. And while the upgrades I did for WPMu 2.6 installations that ran on dynamic subdomains went smoothly, two installations I upgraded that run on subdirectories (a result of them being hosted on shared hosting that would do dynamic subdomains) ran into problems. The upgrade seemed to go fine, but when I tried to login into a blog other than the main blog (or even login as another user) it simply remains on the login screen that redirects to itself for all blogs except main.

I did a quick search and found this forum thread which suggests I’m not alone with this issue. I deleted all my plugins and mu-plugins,  cleared the cache and threw out the cookies. I even spent some time in the wp-config file, and double checked my .htaccess settings, all to no avail.  I’m sure a fix is forthcoming, or at least a hack, but until then I would perhap hold off on upgrading to WPMu 2.6 if you are using subdirectorties. I make this post because after the pollyanna screencast about upgrading to WPMu 2.6 I posted previously, I want to make clear that the upgrade was only tested with dynamic subdomains, not subdirectories.

Update: I found a fix for these issues as they were occurring for me, I’m not sure they will work for everyone, but they worked for my two installs with subdirectories.

What I did was create a new blank database and deleted the wp-config and .htaccess files.  Then loaded WPMu 2.6 as if it were a new install and once I was done, I simply pointed the wp-config file to the pre-exiting database with all my tables and whatnot in it. This worked like a charm for me.

I’m going to go out on a limb here a say it was the creation of a new .htaccess file and wp-config file for 2.6 that did the magic, but I’m not certain of this, all I know is that it worked.

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13 Responses to Anyone else have problems upgrading WPMu 2.6 with subdirectories?

  1. Thanks a lot for the advice.

  2. Andrea says:

    Well, I’ve noticed the increasing amount of people with the issues, but no one’s filed a trac ticket yet.

  3. Reverend says:

    @Andrea,

    Any ideas? It seems somewhat odd, especially since 1.5.1 worked fine. Perhaps it is an issue with the new salt keys? But, then again, I am just grasping at straws here. Hopefully this afternoon I’ll have some more time to troubleshoot the issue further and experiment, if it’s a no go, I guess I’ll be reverting back to 1.5.1 for the time being.

  4. Joe says:

    I don’t have any information to solve the problem, just the ever-annoying “it worked fine for me.” We’re using subdirectories, and although we don’t have many yet, they’re all working fine and logging in fine after the upgrade.

    If we could figure out the difference between our installation and yours, we might actually have a clue.

  5. Reverend says:

    Joe,

    Thanks for weighing in here, I was beginning to think this was the case for all WPMu 2.6 installs with subdirectories –silly me. I love to generalize the whole from my two installs 😉

    I actually found a fix, and updated the post with the details. I think the problem had something to do with creating clean .htaccess and wp-config files. Often I just overwrite the core files (save wp-content folder), and leave these two files in. And while I have been updating the wp-config in recent upgrades because of the salt_key stuff, I usually leave the .htaccess file alone. That may have been the culprit this time around.

    However, I can’t confirm that much beyond my own experience, which I do love to generalize for the world, as you now know, but I’m trying not to assume this anymore. In other words, I’m growing up.

  6. Joe says:

    Aha–well, I can’t be positive that that’s the reason, but I did use the htaccess and wp-config from the downloaded installation–deleting my old ones, rather than overwriting.

    (But I am having trouble getting per-user theme plugin to work right. Haven’t had been able to fiddle with it much, but the first try was unsuccessful. It’s on my to-do list!)

  7. Reverend says:

    Joe,

    Yeah, that kinda confirms my hunch. it is strange, because I didn’t change the.htaccess file for the dynamic subdomains install, and that worked fine –who knows?

    As for Userthemes, let me know your issues, I think I can work you through it.

  8. Russ says:

    Thanks for the heads up, Jim. After the problems we had with the last upgrade to 2.5 – namely a bunch of blogs’ pages being changed to posts – I’m reluctant to do another until WPMu fixes their upgrade issues. This is really helpful, though.

  9. edutiao says:

    “once I was done, I simply pointed the wp-config file to the pre-exiting database with all my tables and whatnot in it.”

    Hum… how did you do that? i’m having this exact same prob after upgrading from 1.5.2 to 2.7… i tried everything, wp-conf, cleaning the dbase, resetting dbase user and privileges, re-installing(numerous times), and still i can’t get past the main blog! it’s so frustrating…

  10. Reverend says:

    Hey edutiao,

    So, you have the following stuff filled out in the wp-config.php file correctly:

    // ** MySQL settings ** //
    define(‘DB_NAME’, ‘your_datasbase_name’); // The name of the database
    define(‘DB_USER’, ‘your_database_username’); // Your MySQL username
    define(‘DB_PASSWORD’, ‘passowrd’); // …and password
    define(‘DB_HOST’, ‘localhost’); // 99% chance you won’t need to change this value
    define(‘DB_CHARSET’, ‘utf8’);
    define(‘DB_COLLATE’, ”);
    define(‘VHOST’, ‘yes’);
    $base = ‘/’;

    Keep i mind the $base and VHOST settings may be different depending on your setup, but from your comment, it sound like you are actually getting to a blog, which means the wp-config.php stuff is right, did you delete your .htaccess file and let that re-create itself? You may want to try deleting both the wp-config and .htaccess files and putting in a fresh wp-config file. If this is redundant tell me, I’ll try and think harder 🙂

    Also, a link to you install might be useful as well.

  11. edutiao says:

    Just downgraded to 2.6 to get it up again. *sigh* Think i’ll wait a while before trying to upgrade again.

    Cheers

  12. edutiao says:

    wow! this last comment went right in… i had posted a big reply a couple hours ago and thought it had gone to moderation! 🙁 well, short version, /blogs/ worked fine, but the subs didn’t, /blogs/edutiao etc: they showed what seemed to be a “page” of the main blog. wp-conf and htacc were ok, as far as i could tell. Also i couldn’t log as an user, but could as admin.

    Will keep you posted on future tries.

    Cheers!

  13. Reverend says:

    edutaio,

    Sorry about that, I don;t see your previous comment in the moderation queue. Hope Akismet isn’t freaking out on me. Sorry to hear you had to downgrade as well, that is a bummer, keep me posted because I am kinda stumped.

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