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Hi im new to this and ive seen a batch of similair posts so i hope my questions wont seem too annoying..

ive read the pdf documentation doing my best to not go in cock handed but still have got stuck!

ive been working on a joomla 1.5 site on my local host with xxamp - its time for me to get it onto hostgator - i saw the great reviews for joomlapack - in installed and backed up the site all ok - i ftp'd the kickstart.php and backup zip to the public html folder on hostgator ok.

i was able to navigate to the kickstart.php (v2.1.1)and hit the big green button which started up the joomla pack installer (v3)but when i get to the database section i get 'cannot connect to mysql' message - after referrign to the FAQ in the pdf document ive tried every setting i can think of including going into cpanel and creating a database and user but im stuck.

My question is did i need to edit the kickstart.php with the database details BEFORE i ftp'd it? currently it has the localhost details from my pc...there is a secion in the documentation pg 72 re automatic mode that suggests i should..

what can i do to repair the situation now?

how can i initiate the joomlapack installer on the server without going back to kickstart.php and have it unzip the files again (i assume they overwrite the existing ones?)

if worse comes to worse how can i remove the files ive uploaded so i can start from scratch - has kickstart altered the htacess file etc..?

any help greatly appreciated!!

wow! even with the best documentation and coolest applications you developers should never underestimate the ability of a noob (like me) to make a complete hash of it!! :)

well ive fixed it and had one of those interesting evenings staying up past midnight staring at my laptop and wondering what i was doing wrong.

simply - i didnt understand how to make a mysql database in cpanel and didnt realise i needed to do this before i started everything else.

to answer my own questions (and please correct me if im still wrong so others dont get confused)i needed to create a joomla15 mysql database, user and password in cpanel before i began the kickstart process. I had created umpteen mysql databases and users and added the users to the databses etc..but hadnt created them with mysql wizard - which is all i had to do..

and no its not neccessary to edit the kickstart.php unless you want to enable automatic mode. You should just need to upload kickstart and the back up file to your directory - browse to yoursite/kickstart.php - press the green button and install joomla.

finnally - hostagtor tek support assured me the only file that should be in the public_html folder by default is the default.html and everything else is safe to delete from the file manager meaning i was able to start from scratch and not worry about what should be there and what i put there incorrectly.

seems my learning process isnt over yet ;)

the front page of the site is as it should be and as it looks on my local host but if i go to any page or link other than the homepage i lost the css and its just text on white background or i get
an error 404 component not found message so i have messed up the DB somehow?

perhaps because i deleted the installation folder before returning to kickstart to complete??

You have correctly solved the database problem. HostGator is a little different in the way they create the user separately from the database. I think it is more common for the database and user to have the same name and be created in one step. HostGator's method has some advantages, but I'll bet they take a lot of support calls. It took me a while to figure it out last month. :D

Your lack of css sounds like a $live_site problem. In your configuration.php file, check for a $live_site variable, it should be missing, blank or point to the correct site address. An incorrect address will cause what you are describing (the no css part, not the 404 part).

The 404 error could be SEF settings. I don't think I've seen $live_site cause that. Try turning off SEF and see if that solves the problem.

Dale

DLB thou art a genius! everything checked out but i changed the var $sef = '0'; from 1 to 0 and now everything works = the css and error 404 issues all gone.

Strangely there was a bug on the local host where if i clicked on the archive module it pointed to one of the uncategorized articles im using as static pages - now its on the server it works properly.

dont really understand it all but its awesome stuff!

thanks for the help!!

I don't very often get accused of being a genius. :lol: I can't think what could be wrong with the archive files, there is no path involved there that would change when you moved the site. Internally, the program would be using the category numbers, not the names. You could compare the numbers on the live site vs. the restored site. It would be really scary if they didn't match though.

For the SEF settings on the restored site, look at the cache if you are using a component and the .htaccess file.

Dale