Magento

This is my second time testing Magento After my last trial a year ago.  The software looks promising but still seems to have lots of issues, particularly around installation, noted by the size of the topic. 

After getting past the number 500 Internal Server Errors, and trying the different methods of installations, when I am finally able to login to the Admin panel, I can only get to the Dashboard and the System Message area.

After individually deleting all the messages, (the select all option does not work) I can’t go back to the System menu page to create roles, users etc as dictated by the user guide.

I’ve read through this forum extensively and couldn’t find a definitive solution.

I provide a lot of ecommerce sites for my customers and would like to give Magento a try but if installation is any indication of what is to come then I might have to hold off.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

I suspect the issues you are seeing are a result of permissions issues in your environment (ie. cache directories not being writable, .php and .js not being executable, etc. )

During initial testing try installing into something like XAMPP 1.7.1 to remove any environmental issues, I suspect you have a more pleasant experience. Once you get more familiar with Magento you can then put it into a more traditional environment and sort out any environmental issues that exist in it.

Try to chmod (change permissions) your ‘js’ directory and all .js files to 755.

thanks for the quick replys guys.  I’ll give these recommends a try.  For now I’ll stick with cre-loaded as it is more stable and has 0 issues installing.  I produce and host too many ecommerce sites to go through all this headache. 

magento looks to be a good step forward in the open source cart market, but not quite ready for prime time. 

a mentor once told me about software development.  “you know its good when its like making toast… bread in toast out with no complications”

I’ll keep magento in the test area until its more fully developed

a mentor once told me about software development.  “you know its good when its like making toast… bread in toast out with no complications

Keep in mind that if it was indeed a permissions issue due to environmental or user upload error, one could argue that you can’t fault the bread or the toaster if no one plugged the toaster into the wall or paid the electricity bill.

I’m having this exact same problem, Magento seems to be installed ok, but none of the tabs in the admin panel do anything.

Why does this problem happen? I’ve changed all the JS files to permission 777. Why can’t Magento just install with every file writable by default or something?

Is there anything else I can try?

Are you installing locally (XAMPP, etc) or to a remote server (who is your host?)

What browser are you using (if FF, any specific extensions installed?)

Permissions is certainly where I would start.. a few threads on the topic:

Misconfigured CGI settings
Permissions Thread
Permissions Wiki <- Good SSH instructions for setting permissions across all folders/files

A number of the sites that I have seen with problems are due to either what the default permissions level is set to on folder creation for the host or account and that the files were unzipped local on their computers and uploaded (or SVN downloaded and uploaded) instead of the full .zip file being uploaded and unzipped server side.