Styling not working on dev server

[z929669]

In preparation for upgrade to the latest release requiring PHP 8.x from my current version (4.7.3), I have set up a test server and migrated our IPS www and database. The site is working fine, but I can't invoke any themes or styling, so I just get unstyled HTML rendering.

I have tried "Clear System Caches" under tools and diagnostics to no avail. I have also tried using the IPS default theme with no luck.

Note that my license key isn't valid for this test server, as I am in full dev mode and using IP address for access rather than my domain name registered with IPS. I don't think this should affect themes though. conf_global.php has been modified to reflect the IP address format.

$INFO['board_url']

I've had such issues before, but they always wind up getting corrected using methods described previously.

Maybe I'm still missing something?

EDIT: I should note that I haven't upgraded anything yet. This is just a replica of my working live instance at this point. Caching is via MariaDB.

Edited January 23, 2023 by z929669

[Jim M]

28 minutes ago, z929669 said:

Note that my license key isn't valid for this test server, as I am in full dev mode and using IP address for access rather than my domain name registered with IPS. I don't think this should affect themes though. conf_global.php has been modified to reflect the IP address format.

Sorry, please note that your license only entails you to run 1 Live URL and 1 Test URL. If I am understanding what you are describing here, you have a third location now running the software which is against those terms. If you require support, please ensure that you get in line with support terms and we can proceed.

[z929669]

17 minutes ago, Jim M said:

Sorry, please note that your license only entails you to run 1 Live URL and 1 Test URL. If I am understanding what you are describing here, you have a third location now running the software which is against those terms. If you require support, please ensure that you get in line with support terms and we can proceed.

The test server has no URL. It's an IP address. Nothing to do here? Please offer up a suggestion for compliance purposes, given I only have an IP address at the moment. I suppose I could assign a domain name to the test server and ask you all to change my test URL, but that seems like a lot of effort to get this one question answered. If this is the suggestion though, please provide confirmation or next steps.

Once I confirm things are working under PHP 8.x, then it's a simple matter of bringing the server online under my existing prod and test URLs (i.e., no extra work on either side).

Thanks

[Jim M]

3 minutes ago, z929669 said:

The test server has no URL. It's an IP address. Nothing to do here? Please offer up a suggestion for compliance purposes, given I only have an IP address at the moment. I suppose I could assign a domain name to the test server and ask you all to change my test URL, but that seems like a lot of effort to get this one question answered. If this is the suggestion though, please provide confirmation or next steps.

We recommend running a sub-domain on the Live URL's domain so that if you need to move it around to different servers, you can simply and easy via DNS without needing to change what is on the license. For example, if your live URL's domain was example.com, your Test URL would be at test.example.com.

If you would like to do that and decommission your current Test URL, we can do that for you now.

[z929669]

25 minutes ago, Jim M said:

We recommend running a sub-domain on the Live URL's domain so that if you need to move it around to different servers, you can simply and easy via DNS without needing to change what is on the license. For example, if your live URL's domain was example.com, your Test URL would be at test.example.com.

If you would like to do that and decommission your current Test URL, we can do that for you now.

I use subfolders rather than subdomains, and changing to subdomains entails fundamental changes to my webserver syntax that effectively obviates my use case for the test domain and a whole lot of of added effort testing/troubleshooting subdomain setup just to get a question potentially answered.

As it stands, the simplest thing for me to do is have you all change it temporarily until I validate that things work (once I get the question answered). Then I'll need to change it back, so please work with me here.

I'm simply trying to do it the easy way, but it looks like I must deal with DNS and associated headache. I don't want to run into more red tape down the road for changing my test URL (since I don't think my use case should require all this in order to determine if my issues are solely due to the URL being an IP).

Edited January 23, 2023 by z929669

[Jim M]

8 minutes ago, z929669 said:

As it stands, the simplest thing for me to do is have you all change it temporarily until I validate that things work (once I get the question answered). Then I'll need to change it back, so please work with me here.

I'm afraid, there is still some confusion here. This would still result in you have 2 Test instances when you can only have 1 accessible in this manner. If you need to test, you would want to use your existing Test URL to do so or use a localhost install so it is not accessible over the internet in this manner.

[z929669]

4 minutes ago, Jim M said:

I'm afraid, there is still some confusion here. This would still result in you have 2 Test instances when you can only have 1 accessible in this manner. If you need to test, you would want to use your existing Test URL to do so or use a localhost install so it is not accessible over the internet in this manner.

Hmmm. I think you are misunderstanding. I stated in my previous that I would assign a domain name to my test server via DNS and have IPS decommission my existing, changing it to the new. There would not be two test instances at any given time.

[Jim M]

Just now, z929669 said:

Hmmm. I think you are misunderstanding. I stated in my previous that I would assign a domain name to my test server via DNS and have IPS decommission my existing, changing it to the new. There would not be two test instances at any given time.

You would need to decommission the whole installation, not just on the license URL on the license. As the license is what allows you to run the software in the given location. Without that piece, you can't run the software there.

[z929669]

4 minutes ago, Jim M said:

You would need to decommission the whole installation, not just on the license URL on the license. As the license is what allows you to run the software in the given location. Without that piece, you can't run the software there.

okay? What's the problem then? It seems like you are layering complexity where there doesn't need to be any. For reasons beyond the scope of my query, I'm using subdomains on my production server for both prod and test instances. I simply want to know if my theme/styling issues could be due to using raw IP.

Otherwise, I'll need to get this sorted before decommissioning my entire live server. I CAN decommission my test instance, but I will not decommission my server, since that's where I am running my prod instance, too.

Edited January 23, 2023 by z929669

[Jim M]

Just now, z929669 said:

okay? What's the problem then? It seems like you are layering complexity where there doesn't need to be any. For reasons beyond the scope of my query, I'm using subdomains on my production server for both prod and test instances. I simply want to know if my theme/styling issues could be due to using raw IP.

Otherwise, I'll need to get this sorted before decommissioning my entire live server. I CAN decommission my test instance, but I will not decommission my server, since that's where I am running my prod instance, too.

I’m afraid, this is the license agreement and what has been instructed from my first post and why I am clarifying it. You can keep the production install live but you would need to remove the test install from its current location if you want to create a new test install at another location. 

[z929669]

3 minutes ago, Jim M said:

I’m afraid, this is the license agreement and what has been instructed from my first post and why I am clarifying it. You can keep the production install live but you would need to remove the test install from its current location if you want to create a new test install at another location. 

And once again, I'm agreeing to decommission my test instance. I'm not sure I can do that from the test instance itself in any way. All I can do is wipe that test instance and provide you a new test URL once I get it established. Sound kosher? If so, I'll be back once that's done.

[Jim M]

Just now, z929669 said:

And once again, I'm agreeing to decommission my test instance. I'm not sure I can do that from the test instance itself in any way. All I can do is wipe that test instance and provide you a new test URL once I get it established. Sound kosher? If so, I'll be back once that's done.

Ok, I apologize if I misunderstood you but wanted to clarify what is being done due to some of replies. Yes, that is fine. Thank you. 

[z929669]

After disabling our current test instance, assigning a spare domain to my new test instance, and updating my web server with said name string, the styling issues were resolved.

After further investigation and testing, I have found that my issues were caused by a URL string mismatch between my web server (nginx) and the URL defined in config_global.php. The web server was unable to cache resources as defined. Getting these synced properly was the solution, regardless of using domain name or raw IP.

Given this revelation, I have decommissioned my second test instance on the new server, and will spin that up again at my current test URL once I'm ready to deploy, decommissioning the first at that time.

[Marc]

Glad to hear things were sorted 🙂