Magento

Hi Folks -

I’m stuck at square one trying to install Magento, getting the dreaded error message:

PHP Extension “pdo_mysql” must be loaded
PHP Extension “curl” must be loaded

on the Configuration page of the Magento Installation Wizard.

Looking at Google and the Magento Installation Problems forum, this seems to be a very common install error.

I posted a detailed thread about this here four days ago:

http://www.magentocommerce.com/boards/viewthread/31312/

and have yet to get a response.

Anyways - since this error seems to be so common (evidently because most people’s PHP doesn’t include pdo, pdo_mysql, or curl), I think it would be smart for Magento to provide some documentation on this. I’ve seen some answers where they say “have your hosting provider install those PHP extensions for you” - but in my case I have a VPS (virtual private server), so I’m doing everything myself.

I bet lots of people give up on installing Magento simply because, like me, they don’t know how to get these PHP extensions installed.

In the meantime, I need to get an e-commerce site up and running. I took a look at Prestashop, and got it installed in about an hour, so I guess I’m going to use that for the moment.

Magento sounds like a very good e-commerce system so if anyone knows how to get these PHP extensions installed properly I’d be very appreciative for any help!

- Stefan Scott

stefanscottalexx - 11 February 2009 03:25 PM

Hi Folks -

Anyways - since this error seems to be so common (evidently because most people’s PHP doesn’t include pdo, pdo_mysql, or curl), I think it would be smart for Magento to provide some documentation on this. I’ve seen some answers where they say “have your hosting provider install those PHP extensions for you” - but in my case I have a VPS (virtual private server), so I’m doing everything myself.

- Stefan Scott

I agree. I know a fair bit of Linux, but my development machines are all Windows. So, I wanted Magneto in WAMP platform. Like you, I found it quite frustrating.

I’ll keep trying (I can afford the time at the moment) through other forums. If I manage to solve the problem I’ll post the solution here.

It’s not as if you can’t get an old Pentium 3 off eBay for $40 to act as your perfect CentOS 5 home development server. Saves a lot of money and time.

J.T. - 12 February 2009 10:05 AM

It’s not as if you can’t get an old Pentium 3 off eBay for $40 to act as your perfect CentOS 5 home development server. Saves a lot of money and time.

That’s fine at home. But not when you work in a company that limits what you can do with your computers.

Anyways, I found the answer to one of the problems.

The library libmcrypt.dll that is included with PHP has to be copied to:

- On Windows 64 bits installations -> C:\WINDOWS\SysWOW64
- On Windows 32 bits installations -> C:\WINDOWS\system32

So, it isn’t a Magneto problem. It is a PHP for Windows problem.

For the other pdo errors is enough to follow the instructions available in the forum. I’ll give you a step by step later. I am in a rush now.

Depending on which Linux distro, installing php extensions can be as easy as:

yum install mcrypt

yum install php-curl

yum install php-devel php-pear mysql-devel httpd-devel

pecl install pdo

Then add this to php.ini:

extension=pdo.so
extension=pdo_mysql.so

Partly from: http://karoshiethos.com/2008/07/24/installing-pdo_mysql-on-centos/

stefanscottalexx - 11 February 2009 03:25 PM

Hi Folks -

I’m stuck at square one trying to install Magento, getting the dreaded error message:

PHP Extension “pdo_mysql” must be loaded
PHP Extension “curl” must be loaded

on the Configuration page of the Magento Installation Wizard.

Looking at Google and the Magento Installation Problems forum, this seems to be a very common install error.

I posted a detailed thread about this here four days ago:

http://www.magentocommerce.com/boards/viewthread/31312/

and have yet to get a response.

Anyways - since this error seems to be so common (evidently because most people’s PHP doesn’t include pdo, pdo_mysql, or curl), I think it would be smart for Magento to provide some documentation on this. I’ve seen some answers where they say “have your hosting provider install those PHP extensions for you” - but in my case I have a VPS (virtual private server), so I’m doing everything myself.

I bet lots of people give up on installing Magento simply because, like me, they don’t know how to get these PHP extensions installed.

In the meantime, I need to get an e-commerce site up and running. I took a look at Prestashop, and got it installed in about an hour, so I guess I’m going to use that for the moment.

Magento sounds like a very good e-commerce system so if anyone knows how to get these PHP extensions installed properly I’d be very appreciative for any help!

- Stefan Scott

Yeah, I hear you.

I put up a post yesterday looking for a proper “php_pdo_mysql.dll”, since the one that was provided in the wiki is now down. Seeing as how popular the XAMPP installation is and how no one using XAMPP will be able to install Magento without that file, you’d think the devs would’ve at least hosted the file themselves. However, they kept the download link to some obscure “nolimitclubbing.com” site which is now completely dead (LOL, can it get any more unprofessional when your critical workarounds are being hosted on a dance club site) . Even more frustrating is that the devs know it’s down. Rather than providing any other workarounds though, they simply keep the dead link in the wiki and added the text “Warning: broken link”. No other comments on where else we can get it or do without it!!!! WTF!!!

I’m fortunate enough that I downloaded the file when the link was still active a month ago so I can always steal it off my home install for any future Magento installations. However, anyone else who is installing Magento as of today, and is running XAMPP, is completely SOL as they watch their Apache crash out on that file during installation.

I’m totally with you though. I jumped to Prestashop after my high hopes for Magento were trampled by their poor templating system (Why is everything being output through “echos”???!!!), needlessly complex code modification system, poor community support, sluggish performance (Yes, I know its got great features, but none which justify such a massive performance hit). All my frustrations can be summed up in the “How do I get a vertical nav bar?”. Any well thought out shopping cart would make implementing such a feature a snap. However, in typical Magento fashion, it takes multiple pages of forum posters and massive code rewrites to even partially hash out a solution. At the tipping point at which you’d think a solution is just around the corner, all the key posters in the thread get hit by a bus, you never see a definitive solution and the thread drops into oblivion leaving all newcomers to post the same freaking question in hopes someone will answer.

With Prestashop, the file structure is intuitive, the Smarty templates are a breeze to edit and the community boards actually feel like a community.

I still obsessively check in with Magento in hopes that they’ll release a patch or some form of coherent documentation. Until then though, I’m jumping to Prestashop where I can finish my site in the same time it’ll take me to reverse-engineer Magento to the point where I can be productive with it.

Hi,

Magento is based on the Zend framework.
If you’re developing on localhost get yourself a copy of Zend Core
http://www.zend.com/products/core/
It installs the latest Apache and PHP. Options to install mySQL, Zend framework & phpMyAdim as well.

It’s free, why fool with anything else??

need an online host? you can’t do better than
http://www.a2hosting.com/

rainman127 - 12 February 2009 10:59 AM

Hi,

Magento is based on the Zend framework.
If you’re developing on localhost get yourself a copy of Zend Core
http://www.zend.com/products/core/
It installs the latest Apache and PHP. Options to install mySQL, Zend framework & phpMyAdim as well.

It’s free, why fool with anything else??


need an online host? you can’t do better than
http://www.a2hosting.com/

Dude, thank you! I haven’t tried it yet, but it looks almost identical to XAMPP. Any key differences between this and XAMPP I should be aware of?

from the Zend website:

Zend is the PHP Company

Businesses utilizing PHP know Zend as the place to go for PHP expertise and sound technology solutions. Zend’s founders Andi Gutmans and Zeev Suraski are key contributors to PHP and the creators of the core PHP scripting engine, the Zend Engine. Because of their internationally recognized expertise, the company continues to provide important leadership for PHP and other open source communities, and plays a central role in the explosive growth of PHP.

this is where the big kids play.

J.T. - 12 February 2009 10:29 AM

Depending on which Linux distro, installing php extensions can be as easy as:

yum install mcrypt

yum install php-curl

yum install php-devel php-pear mysql-devel httpd-devel

pecl install pdo

Then add this to php.ini:

extension=pdo.so
extension=pdo_mysql.so

Partly from: http://karoshiethos.com/2008/07/24/installing-pdo_mysql-on-centos/

OK, here’s where it gets interesting:

I *did* install the PHP extensions pdo, pdo_mysql and curl (can’t remember what I typed, it was probably something with ‘apt-get’ as I’m on Debian - and it spewed out a lot of output to the screen, which I carefully looked through, and there were no errors or warnings).

Then I also *did* add those lines to the end of php.ini, so it now ends with this:

extension=pdo.so
extension=pdo_mysql.so
extension=curl.so

And ... I still got the same error message. (I also stopped and restarted my web server.)

Sleuthing around further, I suspect the following two things may also need to be fixed:

(1) My info.php page in the browser shows:

Configure Command
‘./configure’ ‘--enable-fastcgi’ ‘--enable-fpm’ ‘--with-mcrypt’ ‘--with-zlib’ ‘--enable-mbstring’ ‘--with-openssl’ ‘--with-mysql’ ‘--with-mysql-sock’ ‘--with-gd’ ‘--with-jpeg-dir=/usr/lib’ ‘--enable-gd-native-ttf’ ‘--without-sqlite’ ‘--disable-pdo’ ‘--disable-reflection’

Notice where it says ‘--disable-pdo’ - I guess that’s a problem.

But I can’t remember how I installed PHP the first time (and I’m leery of re-installing with minus the ‘--disable-pdo’ option, or maybe with some ‘--enable-pdo’ option - in case this might somehow disturb my existing apps that also use PHP, ie Drupal, Prestashop, etc.)

(2) In php.ini, there’s a line where it says:

extension_dir = “./”

so maybe I have to change the part between quotes to something like:

/usr/lib/php5/20060613+lfs
/usr/local/lib/php/extensions/no-debug-non-zts-20060613

but who am I to say? I’d rather have someone from Magento support tell me how to do this - and reassure me that I’m not going to blow my existing PHP apps out of the water by doing this.

Anyways, my main point is: everyone seems to know that Magento needs a few extra settings in PHP in order to be installed.

And I think Magento could really increase its user base faster if they put out a FAQ explaining how to handle these, ya know, “frequently asked questions” - instead of forcing us to seek out other e-commerce apps which actually have complete installation instructions.

In other words - configuring PHP should be included in the Magento installation instructions!

Anyways, maybe I’m a hopeless case - since in the interests of speeding up Magento (and my other PHP apps), I’m using also nginx + FastCGI + PHP-FPM (instead of Apache and Zend, which seems to be the standard setup for Magento).

Magento has a lot of good “buzz” surrounding it. Unfortunately I’m not enough of a PHP expert to be able to install it.

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