phplist installation

[britbob]

Hi,

I`ve decided to use phplist for our monthly newsletter requirements. Even though I`ve never used I`m sure I`ll find my way around!

Anyway, I installed it as per instructions chose a password and entered the email details.

Installation complete.........

I access the admin area, where I find I cannot login. I use the password I setup with, also the password that is suggested in default, used the default username, but nothing works. It rejects them all.

I hope I can get this working, as I am due to release a newsletter on Novemeber 1st, and need to find out whether phplist is what I am after.

Anyone else have these initial problems?

[Stef]

Bob,

I've never used it before. Just tried the installation and I could not reproduce the problem on my server.
I don't see any 'default username or password' as you say... Just enter a username and password of your choice. This worked fine for me.
What happens if you use the 'email lost password' option you can find at the login screen?
Did you try to reinstall? First go to Fantastico and choose to remove PHPList, then try again.

Stef.

[britbob]

Support suggested I just wipe it completely including the mysql DB and reinstall it.

Done just that and it works fine, now I just need to figure out how to use the damn thing. Holy cow, it looks way too complicated for what I need

I just need something to get our newsletter thing off the ground again. My previous hosts had a great newsletter tool, which saved having to set complicated lists like this one.

I may search the net for something easier for simple people like me to use!!

[bheka]

What's complicated .. the interface, configs or does it just have a lot of options.

I will be looking at something simimlar in the near future and it would help a great deal if you shared your expiriences.

[britbob]

By saying complicated I mean, that I`m not very computer savvy!!! On my previous hosts they had a newletter tool already installed, it was easy to setup, they had newsletter templates to use. In fact within about 6 clicks, the whole thing was setup.

I guess it`s my fault, I`m either too lazy or too impatient to read the instructions on using such software. But, all these options that I noticed I doubt I will use any. I just need to something where I can create a newletter (preferably html) and distribute once a month. Obviously, also a system where my members/visitors can subscribe to this.

[bheka]

gotcha Bob ... i also tend to do that from time to time ... try using the device without reading the manual.

[Stef]

Bob,

you don't have to stick with the Fantastico scripts. If you find another, easier to use, script (you could check http://www.hotscripts.com/) you can install that one.
One of our users mentioned SimpleMail. Maybe you can try that one. Installation is not that hard if you follow the instructions carefully.

Stef.

[marlies63]

I've installed phplist, but the admin page is blank. What now?? I've searched on the phplist forums and tried one tip, to comment out a certain line in the init.php file, but that didn't help. No one seems to know another solution but to install an older version. I'm totally new to this list so I was happy to find it in Fantastico for (I hoped) easy installation and configuration :/

Maybe someone here has an idea what's wrong??

[Stef]

Hi Marlies,

is this what you tried: "commenting out the following line from the lists/admin/init.php file: $handlers = ob_list_handlers();" (cfr. http://mantis.tincan.co.uk/view.php?id=4159) ?

Stef.

[marlies63]

hey Stef!

yes that's exactly it (only that I created a folder called list, not lists), that line now says

# $handlers = ob_list_handlers();

but unfortunately no change...... still a blank at
http://intoeternity.net/list/admin/

[Stef]

Marlies,

in your list/admin/index.php there should be a line like "print '<!-- using ../config/config.php -->'."\n"".
Can you remove this line completely (maybe make a backup copy of the file first so you can go back) and then try again?

Stef.

[marlies63]

i removed the whole line
print '<!-- using ../config/config.php -->'."\n"; (so including the ; at the end, that's needed, no?)

still see a blank page, just that line has gone in the source (of course)

[Stef]

OK (or rather not), I based myself on other posts, cause I have an older phplist version installed. I will try to install this latest version myself and let you know.
You can put that line back if you want, but it's not necessary though.

Stef.

[marlies63]

oki, thanks for your efforts so far!

[Stef]

I've been able to install phplist 2.10.1 through Fantastico on my server without any problems. No blank page.
Is this the same phplist version in your Fantastico?
Maybe there are some differences in the php config between our servers that is causing the problem. I think best thing to do now is open a support ticket and ask them to take a look at this. You can refer to this thread if you want.
If you don't have 2.10.1 in your Fantastico, ask support to upgrade.

Good luck and please give an update later,
Stef.

[marlies63]

I have that same version in my Fantastico. I'm gonna get some sleep first (it's past midnight here in Holland ) and tomorrow I'll first try to remove and install it again (ya never know) and if that won't work I'll open a support ticket and keep you posted here.

thanks! xox

[marlies63]

no real news yet.....

I removed and installed again (this time in "lists" as it's often used in examples), no luck. I registered and opened a support ticket with brief info and I refered to this thread. Apparently that was not enough info, I was asked to provide the exact domain name for them to be able to assist me further. The ticket said "resolved" (and I was like "no it's not! " )

Of course I replied and put all the domain, path, account and problem/tried solutions info in it I could think of, so I hope they can look into it now

[Stef]

Any results yet?

Stef.

[marlies63]

oops! forgot to post it here!

they also asked for my cpanel login details and later on my account setup wishes, so they could install it on their end, which they did and they ran into the same thing. But they also fixed it:

from Tim Greer (Oct.31st):

I was able to go through the code to debug it and find out where the problem lies and fix it. It was requiring a pear php lib file and was not properly dealing with the error of not locating it. I've synced the two system's php lib directories into one location so it can find the proper files. It was using an older, invalid path. This is now displaying the appropriate pages.

then I asked if each installation needs this manual intervention he said:

This is fixed globally, and not done per installation, so it should work. If you find there's any further problems, you can try commenting out that line in the init.php file, but I don't think it relates to the problem you were having. If you find you need to comment it out to work still, that should fix it, but let me know

I didn't have to comment it out, it looks fine now. I changed a few settings but didn't have the time to further configure and try the list.

thanks to the support guys for fast replies (faster than mine )

[Stef]

Ok, thanks for the update and good luck with the configuration.

Bye,
Stef.

[marlies63]

I've managed to set up a list and sent out a message yesterday. I configured the config file as described in the Throttle How To thread. I overlooked it didn't actually set any throttle thingie, just that you don't send out more than 180 mails/hour. Nice, now I have sent 155 (luckily a small list) in little over 1 sec. Hopefully it didn't cause much trouble......

this was what I had, from the Throttle How To thread:

# define the amount of emails you want to send per period. If 0, batch processing
# is disabled
define("MAILQUEUE_BATCH_SIZE",180);

# define the length of one batch processing period, in seconds (3600 is an hour)
define("MAILQUEUE_BATCH_PERIOD",3600);

I think I've spent hours reading over all those throttling etc threads, here as well as on the phplist forum. It's pretty confusing I can tell ya. Lots talk about cron jobs which I don't think I need, I'm not sure what they do. Lots of talk about older versions that seem to have other lines in the config file.

As a result I've now come up with this, I'd appreciate if someone can say whether I'm doing it right or not!

# define the amount of emails you want to send per period. If 0, batch processing
# is disabled
define("MAILQUEUE_BATCH_SIZE",0);

# define the length of one batch processing period, in seconds (3600 is an hour)
define("MAILQUEUE_BATCH_PERIOD",3600);

# to avoid overloading the server that sends your email, you can add a little delay
# between messages that will spread the load of sending
# you will need to find a good value for your own server
# value is in seconds (or you can play with the autothrottle below)
define('MAILQUEUE_THROTTLE',20);

I saw somewhere if I throttle I have to disable the batch size, so put it on 0. Another thing that's pretty contradicting is that in the email policy it says to set throttling at least 6 seconds - what about the 200 limit? If I'm not allowed to send out over 200 mails/hour, I have to set it at 18 seconds at least. I put 20 to be on the safe side. Just in case the list grows a lot in the future, it will be nice to know whether that 200 limit applies or not