Multi-site install – original site is fine, 500 error on the new subdomain

  • Resolved zelda013

    (@zelda013)


    6 years, 1 month ago

    Hello,
    I’ve got a working site at https://lesbeauxebooks.com/ which I’d like to duplicate and translate into English on a subdomain, and then map a new domain to it. I plan to use a multi-site install with Multi-Lingual Press.

    I’ve installed the WP network and the original site works fine still but when i try to access the new subdomain https://en.lesbeauxebooks.com/ or the dashboard at https://en.lesbeauxebooks.com/wp-admin I get a 500 error “The domain / subdomain has not been found. Error 500.”

    I’ve checked the DNS, the wildcard subdomain exists. I don’t have access to the server to verify / create it myself but as the hosting offer I’m using specifies “unlimited subdomains” logically it’s in place there as well, yes ?

    I created the subdomain “en” in WordPress and it does appear in the WP network admin dashboard.

    In the wp-config.php I’ve added this code :

    /* Multisite */

define('WP_ALLOW_MULTISITE', true );
define('MULTISITE', true);
define('SUBDOMAIN_INSTALL', true);
define('DOMAIN_CURRENT_SITE', 'lesbeauxebooks.com');
define('PATH_CURRENT_SITE', '/');
define('SITE_ID_CURRENT_SITE', 1);
define('BLOG_ID_CURRENT_SITE', 1);

/* That's all, stop editing! Happy blogging. */

    And here is the modified htaccess file :

    
# BEGIN WordPress
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ - [L]

# add a trailing slash to /wp-admin
RewriteRule ^wp-admin$ wp-admin/ [R=301,L]

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -f [OR]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -d
RewriteRule ^ - [L]
RewriteRule ^(wp-(content|admin|includes).*) $1 [L]
RewriteRule ^(.*\.php)$ $1 [L]
RewriteRule . index.php [L]

</IfModule>

# END WordPress

    Any help would be greatly appreciated! I’m completely at a loss and my head is spinning after reading through about a gazillion different forum topics and blog posts. I called my hosting company in case they had an idea but they have been no help. :/

    The page I need help with: [log in to see the link]

Viewing 15 replies - 1 through 15 (of 23 total)

  • I took a look at the DNS records and then a trace on the sub…

    I think either your host doesn’t know about the subdomain or the DNS might possibly be pointing at the wrong server. There appeared to be the same IP address but the hostname didn’t match between the root and the subdomain. On a WordPress multi-site, the subdomains should point at the root address.

    Your web host should be able to help you with this.

    Thread Starter zelda013

    (@zelda013)

    Hello JNashHawkins, thank you very much for your reply.

    I’ve called my web host and they said that the DNS is pointing at the same server. To be honest they are not very helpful. :/

    Is there some way I can check / modify this myself ? Or, is there a different problem which could be the cause of this problem ? Where can I see the hostname, for example ?

    Very sorry for my lack of expertise…

    Okay, the IP address was right from what I thought I saw but the machine name looked different. I was hoping they’d walk you through that which is probably dependant on the Control Panel provided.

    There’s a couple things that come to mind. If you’ve had to tell the CP about the actual subdomain then the subdomain probably needs to point at a directory. On a discrete site on a subdomain, there would be a directory specified for that site under webroot.

    With WordPress multi-site, all the domains and subdomains need to come into webroot itself. That’s where CPanel gets me every time. I always wind up pointing the addon domain or subdomain into the wrong directory. So check that and point the sub into the webroot… should be public_html or whatever they call it on your host.

    And talking about hosting support… some of those people just haven’t seen that much… they are fine until things get complicated. If there’s no clear indication that they need to send you to the second level and they don’t have an answer then they tell you it must be your APP.

    The trick is to wait a bit and call back hoping you’ll get a different support tech.

    But I think the above subdomain setup info may be where you’ll find your answer.

    if your are using cloudflare or other ssl services where dns needs to be setup for subdomain to come alive, please check that else subdomain issue can only be solved from the hosting provider

    Thread Starter zelda013

    (@zelda013)

    Hello again @jnashhawkins, thank you again for your detailed replies.

    I’m not sure I completely understand but I am getting an inkling.

    First of all, update: I deleted the “en” subdomain I had created on the admin console of my webhost (I don’t think my host company is using CPanel. I just have access to some administration pages. I can provide a screen capture of any page if it would be helpful) and re-created it.

    I also checked again that the “*” sub-domain exists, in the DNS (screen capture here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/maTat6YvyFkkWhJQ6).

    Then I deleted the new subdomain site I had created in the WP Network dashboard and created it again.

    Now I am getting a 404 error on the new site instead of a 500 error.

    Questions :
    1. do I need to have an explicit “en” subdomain as a folder on the server? Somewhere in the “read this first” documementation (unfortunately I can’t seem to find the reference now :/) I believe I saw that it does not. Could that be causing a problem?

    2. “With WordPress multi-site, all the domains and subdomains need to come into webroot itself” : my WordPress is installed in the “www” folder (screencap : https://photos.app.goo.gl/cuEYVvUudQnahn2dA. The folder just above it is called “UPLOAD YOUR SITE INTO THE WWW FOLDER” so you can’t mistake it). Is this the public_html root you mean ? As a test, in the DNS admin page of my host account I edited the the address of the “en” subdomain to be “pf39-web.online.net.www.” instead of “pf39-web.online.net.” Now I am getting an unspecified “site unavailable” error which could be down to waiting for the new DNS to propagate (I hope…), is that correct ?

    Thanks again for your patience and assistance, I really hope to figure this out !!!

    • This reply was modified 6 years, 1 month ago by zelda013.
    Thread Starter zelda013

    (@zelda013)

    @salmansaleem920, thanks for your reply. I’m not using Cloudflare or any other ssl service however I do plan to switch my sites to https soon(ish), is there something I should know before attempting that ? (I would hate to spend all this time fixing this problem only to bork the whole thing again :p)

    Thread Starter zelda013

    (@zelda013)

    PS @jnashhawkins New update, after the “site unavailable” error now I am back to a 404 error for the dashboard https://en.lesbeauxebooks.com/wp-admin/ but the home page of the site https://en.lesbeauxebooks.com/ shows
    “Index of /
    [ICO] Name Last modified Size Description
    Apache/2.4.10 (Ubuntu) Server at en.lesbeauxebooks.com Port 80”
    is this progress ?

    BTW I’ve updated both the en and * subdomains to point at the www folder.
    screencap of the current DNS settings : https://photos.app.goo.gl/Z3taVQc93d9rT38y6

    • This reply was modified 6 years, 1 month ago by zelda013.

    I can’t read french but from looking at what you have in DNS I believe you have things almost right there. I’m a little confused with the ‘pf39’ but I imagine that was declared in another DNS record provided by your web host.

    If need be we will come back to that but DNS looks right enough for now.

    I want you to create an ‘A’ record – let’s call it bobo and we’ll point it at 62.210.16.61 just like your main ‘A’ record

    Now go into the network dashboard and create a site called bobo.lesbeauxebooks.com

    If you can still get into the network dashboard then we know we didn’t break that DNS record. Now try to reach ‘bobo’ who the world should know as bobo.lesbeauxebooks.com

    If it works then we are getting there – if not then we probably still have DNS right but need to tell the CP about ‘bobo’.

    There’s a method to my madness here. We haven’t cluttered up the DNS with a machine or site known as bobo before.

    BTW: Bobo is what my one grandson calls his older brother.

    At this point, if the new subdomain ‘bobo’ works then I want you to change the DNS A record for ‘bobo’ to the wildcard star character ‘*’ and save that.

    Go into network and create another site called ‘bobo2’ (bobo2.lesbeauxebooks.com) and see if it works.

    If at any point something doesn’t work send me a screenshot of the DNS records and tell me where you were at when it didn’t work.

    BTW: the pf39.web.online.net.wwww was a good try but I don’t think it exists outside of the internal workings of your webserver so it probably should be changed back at this point (after the other stuff above) or just deleted even.

    Now, if all the bobo, bobo2 and the network dashboard still work, then rename the bobo sub to ‘en’ and see if it works. If it doesn’t tell me before you do anything else as I have another machine here waiting to test that. It has never heard of the en.lesbeauxebooks.com site so it won’t have any detritus in its resolver cache.

    Thread Starter zelda013

    (@zelda013)

    @jnashhawkins thank you so, so much for this detailed help, I really can’t tell you how grateful I am. ??

    I’ve created the A record “bobo” (capture here : https://photos.app.goo.gl/vZ2knXCFLhziGQn4A ) and I’ve created the new site “bobo” in the network dashboard ( https://photos.app.goo.gl/MxxfdTqWd9fqYJkp9 ).

    Please tell the real bobo hi for me and let him know I appreciate his assistance. ??

    I can’t currently access bobo (500 error on both the site and the dashboard “The domain / subdomain has not been found. Error 500.”), but could that be because the new DNS hasn’t propagated yet ? I set it to one hour, the lowest possible, so I will check back, but let me know if there is something else to check / do in the meantime.

    You said we might have to “let the CP know about bobo”, how do I do that?

    I haven’t modified anything else in the DNS besides adding bobo however I did delete the “en” subdomain from the server, as that should be handled by the wp network I believe, without needing an actual domain… I can always create it again if necessary (let me know).

    THANK YOU !! I really feel hopeful with your help I can figure this out!

    Thread Starter zelda013

    (@zelda013)

    PS yes the ‘pf39’ was the original address which was there, I just added www. to end of it. I imagine it’s the address of my bit of the server from my hosting company (which is “online.net”).

    Thread Starter zelda013

    (@zelda013)

    Well, it’s been more than one hour, and I still have a 500 error. :/

    Okay, I’m sitting over here in Middletown, Virginia and when I went to bobo.lesbeauxebooks.com the DNS seemed to have found it but then the server never answered. I’m almost 100% sure the DNS is working for bobo.lesbeauxebooks.com and your network dashboard at this point.

    So I went over to your host’s documentation for info on adding a sub-domain to their hosts. In an effort to make things easy they have the subdomain stuff creating a subdirectory and telling DNS something about that also.

    There is nothing I can find about adding a domain or a subdomain to point at the root site.

    But you can create a subdomain by creating a subdirectory above www (the webroot) via ftp. If you can ftp in would you ftp in and create that subdirectory called bobo and then try the bobo.lesbeauxebooks.com url again?

    Else take a snapshot of the DNS as it is then create the subdomain bobo and then make the DNS records match again when the hosting console changes it if it does. The only entries to worry with would be the bobo entries.

    Thread Starter zelda013

    (@zelda013)

    Ftp subdomain bobo : done. (https://photos.app.goo.gl/aLKcE1j1FNCE4jpv7 ). Now that I created the subdomain, on the wp-admin I get a 404 error, and on the site itself I get the site listing :
    “Index of /
    [ICO] Name Last modified Size Description
    Apache/2.4.10 (Ubuntu) Server at bobo.lesbeauxebooks.com Port 80”

    The DNS after creating the bobo ftp folder looks the same to me as before, here is a screencap : https://photos.app.goo.gl/8fZkgsxZgHLEkKhP6

    The bobo folder is definitely seen by something, as the error is different. Does that help? I can also create a (folder) subdomain via the admin tools of my host, but the only thing I can define is the name of the subdomain, see the screencap here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/hNe8HU7Xtukhkj52A

    The text means :
    Create a new sub-domain
    sub-domain * (that’s the blank space to fill in the name)
    cancel / add a sub-domain
    I did that originally for the “en” subdomain but it just created a folder as via ftp, I never was able to administrate any other details about the folder.

    Let me know what to do next.

    Dang it. The DNS works but that server insists on taking you to that subdirectory which is empty but it is working.

    So now we need someone to go into Apache and set vhosts to work to the web root and that has to be someone at the host and probably someone at their second level support.

    You might be able to do this through htaccess also. Here’s a sample entry but I can’t see the info needed from here and it’s a little beyond my experience level to do this on a production machine. Second level support there should be able to help.

    <VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost
    DocumentRoot /var/www/staging
    ServerAlias https://www.staging.domain.com
    ServerName staging.domain.com (or whatever name you gave it)

    <Directory /var/www/staging>
    Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
    AllowOverride all
    Order allow,deny
    allow from all
    Require all granted
    </Directory>

    ErrorLog ${APACHELOGDIR}/error.log
    CustomLog ${APACHELOGDIR}/error.log/access.log combined

    </VirtualHost>

    You can’t admin bobo until WordPress is actually running that. Right now bobo is just an Apache page.

    As long as the the Network admin is working we ain’t really broke anything.

Viewing 15 replies - 1 through 15 (of 23 total)
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