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MT.CGI not running install - Blank Browser

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I'm installing MT on Windows 2k3 server running IIS 6.0 I have perl, php, and mysql working on the server. I also set up a cgi-bin that can run the scripts in the webiste. I can verify that the scripts are running by going to http://mydomainname.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-check.cgi. When I go there all systems are go except: GD, IO::Uncompress::Gunzip, IO::Compress::Gzip. I was getting a error on the top saying it couldn't find the config file, so I just created a mt-config.cgi file and left it in the folder. That made the error go away, but it hasn't affected the reason I'm here....which is: When I go to http://mydomainname.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt.cgi I don't get anything but a blank screen. Any ideas? I checked the event log on the server and I'm not getting anything that is relevant in there. I've never installed on a Windows server before, only Linux, so I'm not sure if I'm missing something simple. The only thing I need to mention is that the websites aren't located in inetpub. They are on the D drive for space reasons.

Reported on Movable Type 4.2

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  • The link isn't working and I couldn't find anything with the keywords in the end of the link. Can you repost the link?

  • Ok, well that got me one step forward. Now I'm getting:

    Movable Type
    An error occurred
    close Loading template 'start.tmpl' failed.

  • So I set up the mt-config.cgi manually by copying the mt-config.cgi-original and renaming it to mt-config.cgi. Then I had to add in a StaticFilePath into the file. Almost everything is working now. I'm getting a permission denied when trying to publish the site. I'm not sure what permission isn't set.

  • Smear could you tell me how you got this working. I am in the same predicament and the link http://wiki.movabletype.org/MT_Hosting_Quirks#Windows_servers

    doesnt work anymore.

    When i run mt.cgi i get an error about a complete set of headers and can go no further.
    Mt-check.cgi works fine.

  • Here is what I did from that link:

    Windows servers
    If you try and access mt.cgi and get "CGI Error. The specified CGI application misbehaved by not returning a complete set of HTTP headers" you need to fix it by doing the following:

    Open up all .cgi files in the root of your MT install and change 'lib' to the full pathname of your lib (which can be found by running mt-check.cgi which should run anyway). For example change:

    use lib $ENV{MT_HOME} ? "$ENV{MT_HOME}/lib" : 'lib';

    to

    use lib $ENV{MT_HOME} ? "$ENV{MT_HOME}/lib" : 'D:\www\sitename\cgi-bin\mt4\lib';

    -----------------------------------------------------

    I also remember messing around with the anonomous permissions. I think it was just the fix above though. If the fix above and manually creating the config file doesn't work try giving the anonomous iis account modify on the directories were mt is running. I posted a bunch of stuff wondering if this was a security risk and some people said yes, and others said no. Let me know if you need any help. This was a pain to get going on our IIS server compared to how easy it is in Linux. I remember there was a point where I almost put up a Linux server just to get around the issues I was having.

  • I'm having the same problem. W2k3, IIS 6.0, Perl, MySQL.
    The MT-check.cgi works fine. But when I try to do the mt.cgi i get the "CGI Error. The specified CGI application misbehaved by not returning a complete set of HTTP headers"
    Now I went through the .cgi files in my MT root directory
    C:\inetpub\wwwroot\mt and changed the lib file reference from 'lib' to 'c:\inetpub\wwwroot\mt\lib'
    No joy. Its gotta be something dumb, but I don't know what to look at.

    • default userpic

      On my MT-check.cgi report
      The Current Working Directory is C:/inetpub/wwwroot
      The MT home directory is C:\inetpub\wwwroot\mt

      Should they be the same?
      And if so how do I make that happen

      • default userpic

        Ok, changed the mt-config.cgi to reflect correct URL for both the CGIpath and Static path.
        Moved MT-Static to its correct place in Inetpub\wwwroot
        Now I get the create user, but then it crashes on what should be the create database page with a 403.1 error.

  • There seems to be a mixture of IIS based errors here, and I am not sure of the status of all of them, but I will throw in my 2p as someone who has hosted MT on Windows for years with fairly few problems.

    You need to remember to make sure not only IUSR but also IWAM have access to write, best bet is to add the IIS_WPG group to your permissions, that should include both. (as long as you haven't changed the annonymous user for the site and the identity for the application pool).

    You DO NOT need to change references to lib folders anywhere, or MT_HOME, if anything that is likely to make it worse, the default install files will work fine if the rest of your IIS and Perl structure is correct.

    Make sure you use ppm to keep all your perl modules up to date, I can give you a list of repositories that contain good windows binaries if that helps.

    If I were you, I'd keep my sites OUTSIDE of inetpub, preferably on a different drive, it makes it easier to set permissions without any inheritance from the defaults in that folder.

    You may need to change the identity of the application pool, the default is Network Service I believe, so you're best off creating a new app pool and setting it to use IWAM_SERVERNAME, check your new app pool is set to only use 1 worker process.

    Let me know if any of these tricks work.

  • Forget it. Got Blogengine.net
    Setup was a breeze. Much better documentation.
    Behaves much better with IIS (so far)

  • Where's the fighter in ya? Oh, well... I can say that in my experience Moveable type on a linux server has been nothing but easy, however getting it working correctly on Windows was a PITA for me. I almost put up a Linux server just to host the website I was working on.

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