Error: The 'albums' directory cannot be found.

Ethel

http://www.terrillphoto.com/Steve_Terrill_Photography/zenphoto

This is a question that has come up alot. I have tried all the solutions and read through alot of the forum questions to find the answers.

I am brand new to zenphoto and php and am setting up the zenphoto version 1.1.3
Everything seems clear and ready to go until I press the "Go" button.
Then I get this:
Error: The 'albums' directory (./albums/) cannot be found.

I see the "albums" folder sitting on my site in my "zenphoto" folder so I know it has something to do with the path (?)

I've set the permissions to writeable.

I've tried going through the test.php and finding my SERVERPATH, but I am not sure out of all the info on there which is the right one... being a newbie.

I've also altered the "zp-config.php" to point to the album folder but it didn't seem to make any difference.

I know this is asked a million times, but can someone walk me through this part?
Thanks!!!

Ethel

Well... I think I figured it out by mistake...
I added a folder called "albums" to my "zp-core" folder. Hope this works!
This solution was NO WHERE in the forum... I am confused!??

Ethel

Ok... so that didn't work out in the end.
It let me log on to the admin window, and upload an album of 30 images, but it doesn't show the album when I go to view the gallery.
HELP!!
ANYONE?

sbillard

The 'albums' folder should be in a subfolder of your zenphoto folders--zenphoto/albums`. The folder should have been created when you copied the zenphoto release files to your site. If not, setup should create this folder if it does not exist. If it cannot create it you get the error.

Remove your zp-config.php file after carefully noting your mySQL user, password, database, and prefix. Run setup and fill in these values when it asks. If you still have the problem with the albums folder, create it manually with FTP and set its permissions to 0777.

Ethel

Ok... so I've started all over from the beginning, downloading zenphoto, etc.

I see the "albums" folder as a subfolder of the "zenphoto" folder, along with the "cache" folder. I've set all permissions to 777. The database info in the zp-config.php file is all correct.

When I go through the setup.php process I get a checkmark before all the items, including the "albums folder". Then I press "go"... and I still get the error.

I tried deleting the "albums" subfolder in the "zenphoto" and then creating a new one manually with ftp, with permissions at 777, and it still gives me the error.

I tried creating another "albums" subfolder within "albums" in the "zenphoto" folder: zenphoto/albums/albums. Deteted that because that didn't work either.

Any other ideas?
Thanks so much for your response to a newbie!! I really like zenphoto and all its possibilities. I think it could be just what I am looking for on this site.

sbillard

I researched the error message. The album folder itself is not being reported as a directory. Is it possible that there is a file named 'albums' as well?

The only other suggestion I have is to modify the two lines near the bottom of zp_config.php:

`// define('WEBPATH', '/zenphoto');

// define('SERVERPATH', '/full/server/path/to/zenphoto');`

Take out the two leading slashes and fill them in with the appropriate information.

Ethel

I've tried that route as well...

Is it possible to rename the "albums" directory... or create a different directory instead?? It seems to be having issues with that directory name? There are no other files named "albums" that I can see.

One other thing... If I create an "albums" subfolder in the "zp-core" folder. Somehow setup.php recognizes that and allows me to sign in... but when I upload images and create albums... I don't see the thumbnails... and when I view gallery it shows nothing in there.
Is this strange?

sbillard

You can change the name by editing the line in zp-config.php that reads `$conf['album_folder'] = '/albums/';` Just change the `albums` to something else. Setup will try to create the albums folder if it doesn't find it. So, setup is happy with the albums folder. I really don't know why the rest of zenphoto is not.

The one last thing to try is to download the nightly build and install it. Perhaps that might make a difference.

You can also add the following in the theme index.php file:

`echo "
".SERVERPATH; echo "
".getAlbumFolder();`

put it right after the `

` line. This will at least tell us something about what zenphoto is looking for.

Ethel

Ok... so I did what you suggested:

"You can also add the following in the theme index.php file:

echo "<br/>".SERVERPATH; echo "<br/>".getAlbumFolder();

put it right after the <div id="main"> line."

I've taken the "album" subfolder out of the "zp-core" folder and defined the webpath and server path in the zp-config.php... it looks like this now:

define('WEBPATH', '/zenphoto');
define('SERVERPATH', '/Steve_Terrill_Photography/zenphoto');

And I will try downloading the nightly build and installing it next.

Thanks for your responses.

Ethel

PS... now the error changed to:

"Error: The 'albums' directory (/Steve_Terrill_Photography/zenphoto/albums/) cannot be found."

hmmm...

sbillard

Is that the correct server path? That is, does it look the same as the FTP path you use?

Ethel

The path I see in my ftp is:
Sites/Steve_Terrill_Photography/zenphoto/albums/

I changed it but it made no difference...

I still have to upload the nightly build to see if that will do anything...

Ethel

So... now I have uploaded the nightly version and followed all the steps... setup gives me:

PHP version 5.1.2
PHP GD support
PHP mySQL support
zp-config.php file
mySQL setup in zp-config.php
connect to MySQL
MySQL version 4.1.22
connect to the database terrillphoto
mySQL access rights
mySQL show tables found zp_albums, zp_comments, zp_images, zp_options
.htaccess file (RewriteEngine is ON)
.htaccess RewriteBase is /Steve_Terrill_Photography/zenphotonightly
albums folder
cache folder

We are all set to update the database tables: zp_options, zp_albums, zp_images, zp_comments.

Go!

I press go...it assumes that i've already logged in because it goes straight to:
"You can now View your gallery, or administrate."

If I press "gallery" it gives me a totally blank screen/page. If I press "administrate" it gives me the old error: Error: The 'albums' directory (./albums/) cannot be found.

sbillard

Something seems wrong with the sever path. I would expect the rewritebase to just be zenphotonightly. The blank screen is probably a script error. If you can find the error log it might shed some more light on the problem.

Ethel

Do need to have the .htaccess file and the modrewrite at all? It seems like it is part of the problem. What if I disable it altogether and delete the .htaccess file?

Ethel

Hi Again...
For what its worth, I looked in the error log and this is what it said last:

[Thu Jan 31 23:15:35 2008] [error] PHP Notice: Undefined variable: msg in /Volumes/XRAID01/Users/terrillphoto/Sites/Steve_Terrill_Photography/zenphoto/zp-core/setup.php on line 137

I went to line 137, but since I don't know php, I have no idea what to change... or if I should. Right now its:

return checkMark(is_dir($path) && is_writable($path), " $which folder$f", $sfx, $msg);

Any thoughts would be great!
I am about to give up on this zenphoto... bummer.

sbillard

Well, the error message is indicating that zenphoto thinks your album folder is "external" to the zenphoto installation. That definately should not be the case unless you changed the line in zp-config.php setting the external album folder. If that is not set to NULL. It should read `$conf['external_album_folder'] = NULL;`.

The actual fault is an bug in setup. That will be fixed in tonight's nightly build. But, that won't help you. Setup was not reporting a problem, so you can run "upgrade.php" to get around the error messate. That runs setup without the system check.

sbillard

Also, you do not need .htaccess if you disable mod_rewrite. It would be worth a try to reset the option and remove the .htaccess file.

Ethel

Where do I disable mod_rewrite? How?

And when I run "upgrade.php" it still gives me the same error.

If I download the nightly build from tonight, will it fix this problem for me?

sbillard

There is an checkbox in the gallerly options for mod_rewrite.

You should not be getting any system report when you run upgrade.php. The failure was in putting out one of the error messages. So I guess I am not sure what happened.

Anyway, with the nightly build you will be able to run setup.php again.

I did check your site again, Setup seems to run on the zenphoto site without an error. You can try removing the .htaccess file on that site after reseting the mod rewrite option in the gallery options.