No Web GUI, Amportal won't start (but PBX is up and working)

I’m running Asterisk 1.8 and FreePBX 2.9

After using Yum to downgrade my php from 5.3 to 5.2 (failed and I ended up reinstalling 5.3) (this could have something to do with dependencies not getting patched up), I can’t get into the FreePBX web GUI to do some much needed configuration work on my PBX. Of the 3 options on the main page, only the Flash Operator Panel works… the other 2 go to a blank page.

I also get fatal errors in broken english when trying to start amportal (PASTED BELOW).

Oddly enough, my phone system works 100% fine, so Asterisk is running strong. Of course, I can’t change any of my settings or look at anything!

=========ERROR MESSAGES =====================================================
amportal start

**** WARNING: ERROR IN CONFIGURATION ****
astrundir in ‘/etc/asterisk’ is set to but the directory
does not exists. Attempting to create it with: 'mkdir -p ’

mkdir: missing operand
Try `mkdir --help’ for more information.
**** ERROR: COULD NOT CREATE ****
Attempt to execute 'mkdir -p ’ failed with an exit code of 1
You must create this directory and the try again

==============================================================================

-------If anyone is wondering why on earth I wanted to downgrade my PHP, i was doing it as a workaround… so i could install a patch for the old php versions <=5.2 called zend-optimizer. This old patch for PHP appeases outdated dependencies in FreePBX’s package manager which still look for zend-optimizer even though it’s not necessary with the new PHP 5.3, so to use the patch, you need to downgrade to 5.2 and install the zend-optimizer patch — see: http://www.freepbx.org/forum/freepbx/installation/php-component-zend-optimizer-is-required

Correction… Asterisk is only 95% up. If a caller presses # for the company directory, Asterisk drops the call.

This could give more insight into what is wrong too. (some kind of a database issue)

Sounds like php is not running or mis-configured. The Comapny Directory uses a AGI script which needs php to execute.

Thanks I kind of assumed that… do you have any idea how to fix this, or do I need to do a wipe and fresh install :frowning:

I am not sure. It would be tough to troubleshoot here.

You could do a reinstall or look at using the FreePBX paid support to help you get it fixed.

I don’t mind doing a reinstall of FreePBX… BUT how can I make sure my settings don’t get wiped?

Since my phone system is working without freePBX (except for the “company directory”), can I assume all my PBX settings (trunks, extensions, etc) are in Asterisk, and so they’ll be recognized by the clean install of FreePBX?

As for the reinstall process, can I just uninstall FreePBX in Yum, and then reinstall it? Is there anything else I should reinstall while I’m at it?

THANKS x1,000,000!!!

I would do a fresh install as your issue is not a FreePBX issue but a apache/php issue. The problem is without a working GUI you wont be able to run a backup so hopefully you have a current one.

Thanks! The problem actually revealed itself upon trying to reinstall!

I went to install the only version of FreePBX in yum (2.7… i had 2.9 already). It confirmed the installation of 2 dependencies before continuing, so I stopped the installation of 2.7 right there, installed those 2 dependencies, and BAM my 2.9 was working again!! (:

Still though, I spent so much time running into lots of sticky issues when trying to install 3rd party add-ons that I want for my system before it goes live. I realize now that I should have gone with the incredible PBX distro (also free), but I didn’t know about it when I went with the AsteriskNOW distro. Incredible PBX already includes most of the third-party add-on’s I want (some of which, like TTS, don’t directly support Asterisk 1.8 and required tweaking from the folks at incredible pbx that I really would rather not do in order to get everything to work with *1.8). So, I’m going to end up wiping my system anyway I think and doing their distro :-/

I honestly don’t know why Asterisk pushes AsteriskNOW. It’s obviously aimed at newbies, but something much more complete like incrediblePBX or even freepbx’s distro is going to be much better.