Installing OJS the manual way - creating the database option / blank page

Software Support
1

Hi
We wish to install OJS from scratch using the manual method, so we have been following the readme guide that’s posted below.
https://pkp.sfu.ca/ojs/README

We have carried out the instructions but are currently getting a blank page.
I have been searching within the forum and I think, instead of getting a blank page, we should be seeing the web-based database creation option, alongwith configuration fields that completes the install process. See step 4 of the manual readme guide (above link).

This forum post is the main one that makes me think this is the case, as the response refers to the web based database creation:
https://docs.pkp.sfu.ca/faq/en/installing-upgrading

Could somebody please confirm if we should be seeing a webpage to continue the install of the database at step 4.

And also, as part of the manual way of installing, should we be using composer to initialise dependencies, as you need to do when cloning from git, or do we leave this out when installing manually?

Many thanks
Jamie

2

Hi @Jamie_Milne

Have you checked your webserver error log file and/or your browser console log? These two resources might show you some useful info regarding the blank page.

Also, is your webserver set to serve PHP and connect to a SQL database? Is your database currently running and accepting connections?

There is some paths to follow, but knowing if your error log show something may optimize the process.

Best,
Israel

3

Thanks Israel for the reply and helpful suggestions. Regarding the database, we do not have any database setup as it’s a fresh install, instead of seeing the blank page, I was anticipating to see a web setup page with a checkbox that sets up the database from scratch.

The webserver is running 18.04 Ubuntu, Apache with the required php module and Php 7.3 so i’m happy that’s setup ok.

I will investiaget the console log and apache logs, but am i right in thinking I should be seeing a web setup page at some stage during the manual install process?

4

Hi Israel,
Since last messaging I have it working locally on my windows machine, that’s running PHP 8.0.14

I’m trying to get it to run in a WSL2 instance, I had a few issues to start which was the fact I was adding php extensions for php-xml, php-mbstring, php-mysql, but there were downloading for php8.1, but I was running the latest Php. Since downgrading to Php8.1 these extensions installed fine (php8.1-xml, etc)

However, I have a new issue (see below) which is i keep getting deprecated warnings on the install page. I do not get this with php version 8.0.14, I have googled and it’s a change made to Php in version 8.1 .

I think I can turn these off, or go through the code manually and add ?? to deal with a null being passed as a parameter to the respective functions. But I won’t be touching the code.

Is this something I can log as an issue with the Php version?

Screenshot:
image

5

Hi @Jamie_Milne ,

Definitely, you can log it as an issue, but please notice that @asmecher has posted earlier this year that OJS3.4 should be compatible with PHP 81.:

Best,
Israel

6

Hi all,

We’re considering back-porting PHP8.1 support to OJS 3.3.x, but haven’t done so yet – it involves a lot of minor changes, so the likelihood of causing a regression in a stable version is higher than I’d like. Please stick with PHP 7.x or 8.0 for now.

Regards,
Alec Smecher
Public Knowledge Project Team