Apologies - more from the institute of stupid questions - AKA, "I should be able to sort this, but I can't"

With thanks to @acrylian for his assistance with https://forum.zenphoto.org/discussion/1411239/view-album-only-when-not-logged-in#latest

As noted in that post - I'm moving host (for more space) before moving to version 1.6.4 and will treat as two different tasks - complete one before starting the other.

So...

Download old site (including the recently "backed up" backup folder) to local hard drive.

Upload selected parts to the new site (guidance in https://www.zenphoto.org/news/moving-and-changing-existing-installations/#--moving-to-a-new-server) - rename files in zenphoto/zp-core/setup/ to remove the .xxx extension

Swing the DNS to point to the new server...

Browse to ../zenphoto/zp-core/setup.php

Result - zero - zilch - nada. "View Source" is blank (normally caused by a PHP fail, but it's the old code?) Pause to check DNS settings, write a dummy "home.html" to the new server and check I can view that, OK.

After selectively adding "Echo 'I got this xxx far' ;" to /zenphoto/zp-core/setup.php, then /zenphoto/zp-core/admin-globals then /zenphoto/zp-core/functions/functions-basic.php the last file started but never terminated.

then I took a break and realised that setup (despite no std output) had written pretty much what I expected to the "setup.log" file -

Zenphoto Setup v1.6.1a : Thu, 08 Aug 2024 08:41:57 +0000
Query error: MySQLi not connected
Pass: Installing Zenphoto v1.6.1a
Warn: zp-data security [is compromised] Zenphoto suggests you make the sensitive files in the zp-data folder accessable by owner only (permissions = 0600). The file permissions for setup.log are 0644 which may allow unauthorized access.
Pass: SSL connection
Pass: Apache
...
Pass: PHP mysqli support for configured Database
Pass: PHP pdo_mysql support

But if I can't get this to Std Out / the web page I can't fill in the fields for MySQLi, nor accept the other risks and ultimately can't get admin access and fix them...

Thanks for your patience

Adrian

The best is actually to install 1.6.1a (in this case 1.6.1 as there is no fixed 1.6.1a release) freshly on the new host. Then follow the guide you referenced by using the database backup (via our plugin) to import the data after the albums folder has been copied.

You have to fill in the mysql data within the config file within zp-data because you only get the form on a fresh install once (to prohibit anyone from the outside entering anything). Since you probably copied the old config file, too, this is not a fresh install but one with wrong db credentials.

Hope that helps!

Thanks - I'll try that tomorrow

The problem was I COULDN'T fill in the MySQL data as it didn't get that far (at least at a web page level)

> The problem was I COULDN'T fill in the MySQL data as it didn't get that far (at least at a web page level)

As I mentioned:

> Note on fresh installs with Zenphoto 1.6+: You can only enter database credentials once via the setup form. Once the config file is created and you have wrong credentials you have to enter them in the file itself via FTP. We only consider it a "fresh" install as long as there is no config file present.
https://www.zenphoto.org/news/installation-and-upgrading/

Solved - after weeks of heartache!

A subtle configuration difference between the MySQL on the old and new sites. The old site gave you one account and one DB with "access all". The new site has multiple accounts and (up to) three DB with a default of "access none" (which you can configure from the hosting admin panel)

Zenphoto setup could log on to MySQL (so no error) but couldn't access the DB I'd set up for it...

Glad you solved it. It's sometimes such simpler things you just need to find.