Not a bug Missing config.php returns error message about data folder

[Marcus]

When the config.php is missing at all, a 302 http redirect to install/index.php?install/ appears with http code 200 whether the data folder is writeable or whether the data folder exists at all. To be honest, the data folder is in fact gone. It is not needed with my setup.

But I would love to see some other error message like "the configuration file is missing or I can not read it" and tell the client that the actual web page is not only a redirected 200, but there's a server error and the audience is not getting what it wanted in the first place (a forum page). Maybe "Internal Error 500" [The server encountered an unexpected condition which prevented it from fulfilling the request].

 

[Marcus]

When the server finally is done creating the configuration file, and the end user reloads the page (install/index.php?install) he gets in the first place, there appears an error message "You have already completed installation. If you wish to reinstall, please delete the file internal_data/install-lock.php." with two links to xenforo.com, and none to the actual forum.

 

[Chris D]

A missing config.php file makes the installer assume there is no existing installation so the first step would be to create a config file. There's no need to show an error about a missing config file because if you haven't got one then you need to create one. If an error message was shown, that would be prevented.

You're getting an error message about your data folder being missing because your data folder is missing. Whether you need it or not, we expect one to be there because one is needed for XF to operate (unless customisations are made).

And, then your second post warning you that the installation exists is perfectly expected. It's a security measure to prevent accidental deletion of an existing board. The fact that there's no links to the actual forum doesn't seem like a big issue to me.

I can't see anything here that would need to be fixed.

 

[Marcus]

Thanks for your detailled reply Chris!

I have a private developer forum and a production forum and each have different settings within the configuration file. Whenever the load goes up at the production server, a new production server is started without a configuration file. You are perfectly right about the configuration file. If there is none, there indeed should be created a new one. This configuration file is only created after the server is up and running and the rest of xenforos files are done copied over. In the mean time, a user could see that error - I got that prevented now with a new load balancer health check setup. The configuration file is created dynamicly according to the server environment (development / production) as it differs between debug mode (on the developer server) and no debug mode etc.