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The installer lives at /install. After the welcome page (Start Installation) it walks through Server Requirements, Permissions, Database Configuration, License Activation and Installation Complete. This page lists what goes wrong on each one and how to fix it. For the normal flow, see Web installer.

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Find the real error first

A blank page or a “Something went wrong” page hides the cause. Two places show it:
  1. Open storage/logs/laravel.log and read the last entry.
  2. If the log is empty, set APP_DEBUG=true in .env, reload the page, copy the error, then set it back to false.
Leave APP_DEBUG on only while you diagnose. With it on, error pages show code and settings to anyone.

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Common problems

The installer locks itself once the file storage/installed exists. Visiting /install then sends you to the sign-in page. This is normal after a finished install. Sign in with your admin account instead.
A message such as “Unknown database” or “Base table or view not found” for the sessions table, before you have entered any database details, usually means .env already asks for database-backed sessions. .env.example sets SESSION_DRIVER=database, and no tables exist yet.Set SESSION_DRIVER=file in .env and reload /install. The installer switches the value to database itself when it reaches the activation step.
The page checks PHP 8.3 or newer, the Apache module mod_rewrite, and these PHP extensions: bcmath, ctype, curl, dom, fileinfo, gd, iconv, intl, json, mbstring, mysqli, openssl, PDO, pdo_mysql, tokenizer, xml and zip.A red mark means the PHP version the website uses is missing something. Switch the site to PHP 8.3 or newer and enable the extensions in your host’s PHP settings, then reload the page. The Next button is always available, but anything left red will fail later.
  • The mod_rewrite line only appears when PHP can list Apache’s modules. On other setups, such as PHP-FPM, the page cannot check it.
  • The Functions group lists proc_open. It is marked Optional, and an amber warning only means video features will not work until your host enables it. See Video processing.
  • A Security note about session.upload_progress.enabled is advice only. Turn it off in php.ini or ask your host. It cannot be changed from the app.
The page checks that PHP can write to the .env file and to these folders: bootstrap/cache, public/uploads, lang, storage, storage/framework, storage/framework/cache, storage/framework/cache/data, storage/framework/sessions, storage/framework/views and storage/logs.Change the permissions in your file manager or over SSH so the user PHP runs as can write to them. On most shared hosts, folders at 755 and .env at 644, owned by your hosting account, are enough. On a VPS, give the web server user ownership of storage, bootstrap/cache, public/uploads, lang and .env.After the install, MagicPost also needs to write to public/media. See File storage.
The installer tests the login with the host, database name, user and password you entered, and shows the database server’s own message after “Invalid database credentials.”
  • Access denied means the user or password is wrong, or the user has no rights on that database. Create the database and the user in your hosting panel first, and give the user all privileges on the database.
  • Unknown database means the name is wrong. Many hosts add a prefix to the name, such as your account name and an underscore.
  • Connection refused or No such file or directory means the host is wrong. Try localhost, then 127.0.0.1, or use the database host your hosting panel shows.
  • “Provided database user credentials do not have access to this database” followed by technical text means the check itself hit an unexpected error. The text after it is the reason.
The Port field is required and is saved to .env, but the connection test that runs before saving does not use it. It connects on PHP’s default MySQL port, so a correct login on another port can still be rejected.Either set mysqli.default_port in php.ini to your port, or fill in the five DB_* lines in .env yourself and open /install/activation directly.
The installer saves your answers by finding the existing DB_HOST, DB_PORT, DB_DATABASE, DB_USERNAME and DB_PASSWORD lines in .env and replacing their current values. It matches each line exactly as it reads now, so DB_HOST=127.0.0.1 is found, while DB_PASSWORD must be written with single quotes around its current value, for example DB_PASSWORD='' when it is empty. A line that is missing or written differently, such as one with double quotes, is left unchanged, and the site then keeps the values or defaults it had before.Open .env, make sure all five lines exist without a leading #, and type the values yourself. See Environment variables.
Opening the activation page creates the tables and loads the starting data. If that fails, you are sent back with the database error appended to the message.
  • The database user must be allowed to create, alter and index tables.
  • If an earlier attempt stopped half way and left tables behind, use a new, empty database and enter its details instead.
  • “Failed to seed the database” means the tables exist but the starting data could not be written. The full error is in storage/logs/laravel.log.
The license check failed. The installer shows this one message for every cause:
  • The License Key or the Envato Username is wrong. Both are required. See License activation.
  • The server cannot make outbound HTTPS requests. The check uses cURL and waits up to 30 seconds. Ask your host to allow outgoing connections.
  • The first message means the admin account could not be written. The database error follows the message and is repeated in storage/logs/laravel.log.
  • The second message means PHP could not create the file storage/installed. Make storage writable. The admin account already exists at that point, so check whether storage/installed is there before you run the activation again. If the file exists, the install finished and you can sign in with the default admin account.
The last page shows the default admin account:Sign in with these exact values, then change them, as the last installer page asks. In a production environment a new password must be at least 12 characters with upper and lower case letters, a number and a symbol.
The web server is not rewriting requests to index.php. The .htaccess files in the application folder and in public do this on Apache.
  • Enable mod_rewrite and allow .htaccess overrides (AllowOverride All) for the site folder.
  • Point the domain’s document root at the public folder, or leave it at the application folder so the root .htaccess forwards requests to public.
  • On Nginx there is no .htaccess. Add the usual Laravel rule that sends unknown paths to index.php.
Common causes, in the order to check them:
  1. The .env file is missing or APP_KEY is empty. Run php artisan key:generate.
  2. The vendor folder was not uploaded, or the site runs on PHP older than 8.3.
  3. storage or bootstrap/cache is not writable.
  4. The domain points at the wrong folder.
The last line of storage/logs/laravel.log names the one that applies.

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After the installer

Add the cron job straight away, because scheduled posts and video processing depend on it. See Cron and queue and the Post-install checklist. If posts do not go out, continue with Scheduler and queue problems.