Errors installing OJS 3.5.0-0

[swithun]

Describe the issue or problem

After following the install instructions for OJS 3.5.0-0, I try to access the front page and it is blank. In the apache error log, I can see entries like this:

[Mon Jun 23 16:55:06.558145 2025] [proxy_fcgi:error] [pid 2318577:tid 2318577] [client 138.251.143.134:58884] AH01071: Got error 'PHP message: PHP Fatal error: Uncaught Illuminate\\Encryption\\MissingAppKeyException: No application encryption key has been specified. in /home/cs2/ojs-3.5.0-0/lib/pkp/lib/vendor/laravel/framework/src/Illuminate/Encryption/EncryptionServiceProvider.php:83\nStack trace:\n#0 /home/cs2/ojs-3.5.0-0/lib/pkp/lib/vendor/laravel/framework/src/Illuminate/Support/helpers.php(399): Illuminate\\Encryption\\EncryptionServiceProvider->Illuminate\\Encryption\\{closure}()\n#1 /home/cs2/ojs-3.5.0-0/lib/pkp/lib/vendor/laravel/framework/src/Illuminate/Encryption/EncryptionServiceProvider.php(81): tap()\n#2 /home/cs2/ojs-3.5.0-0/lib/pkp/lib/vendor/laravel/framework/src/Illuminate/Encryption/EncryptionServiceProvider.php(64): Illuminate\\Encryption\\EncryptionServiceProvider->key()\n#3 /home/cs2/ojs-3.5.0-0/lib/pkp/lib/vendor/laravel/framework/src/Illuminate/Encryption/EncryptionServiceProvider.php(32): Illuminate\\Encryption\\EncryptionServiceProvider->parseKey()\n#4 /home/cs2/ojs-3.5.0-0/lib/pkp/lib/vendor/laravel/framework/src/...; PHP message: PHP Fatal error: Uncaught PDOException: SQLSTATE[42S22]: Column not found: 1054 Unknown column 'id' in 'WHERE' in /home/cs2/ojs-3.5.0-0/lib/pkp/lib/vendor/laravel/framework/src/Illuminate/Database/Connection.php:407\nStack trace:\n#0 /home/cs2/ojs-3.5.0-0/lib/pkp/lib/vendor/laravel/framework/src/Illuminate/Database/Connection.php(407): PDO->prepare()\n#1 /home/cs2/ojs-3.5.0-0/lib/pkp/lib/vendor/laravel/framework/src/Illuminate/Database/Connection.php(812): Illuminate\\Database\\Connection->Illuminate\\Database\\{closure}()\n#2 /home/cs2/ojs-3.5.0-0/lib/pkp/lib/vendor/laravel/framework/src/Illuminate/Database/Connection.php(779): Illuminate\\Database\\Connection->runQueryCallback()\n#3 /home/cs2/ojs-3.5.0-0/lib/pkp/lib/vendor/laravel/framework/src/Illuminate/Database/Connection.php(398): Illuminate\\Database\\Connection->run()\n#4 /home/cs2/ojs-3.5.0-0/lib/pkp/lib/vendor/laravel/framework/src/Illuminate/Database/Query/Builder.php(3106): Illuminate\\Database\\Connection->select()\n#5 /home/cs2/ojs-3.5....'

In my config.inc.php, I do have a line like:

app_key = "base64:....

But is that the app key which is apparently missing? Or is it an app key specific to the Laravel stuff in lib/pkp/lib/vendor/laravel?

Is the database error the real cause?

I’ve tried upgrading from 3.4, installing from a download and installing from GitHub and even running the tools/install.php script. And I get the above error each time.

This is on a Debian 12 server with PHP 8.2 and composer 2.7.2.

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

[touhidur]

Hi , can you please provide the full error log stack trace . It seems the the provided error log is incomplete . It feels like the error perhaps generated from elsewhere and bubble up to the app bootstrapping . Having the full error log will be very helpful if it is incomplete .

Also can you check your config.inc.php file to see if there is multiple entry of app_key ? or the current app_key being comment out like ; app_key = "base64:......" ? and it should be under the [general] section of config file .

As you have mentioned that you can see that there is an an entry like app_key with value and if that is not commented out , please run the command php lib/pkp/tools/appKey.php validate from you install path and share the details if there is any error .

Finally run the command php lib/pkp/tools/appKey.php generate --force to regenerate a new app key and force overwrite if there is any existing one to see if that resolve the issue .

Regards
Touhidur Rahman
PKP Dev Team

[swithun]

Thanks for the reply.

Tweaking the logging settings caused some other errors to appear - a missing PayPal plugin, which I thought was optional, and the host missing in the allowed_hosts setting. Resolving those errors solved the problem/s.

Your guess that the errors were somewhere else was correct. The app key validated, and an error in the SQL seemed implausible.

Thanks again.