There is an installation tutorial linked to on the main page here, but it is woefully out of date.  I have done my best to install Tracks on my host (Dreamhost) but am not having any luck.  I have created the database and verified that the migrate script was able to create the database tables.  I have uploaded the app to my website, creating a subdomain dedicated to it: http://gtd.mydomain.com.  When I access tracks via a web browser at that URL, I get a 404.  If I try http://gtd.mydomain.com/public/, I get “Rails application failed to start properly.” I get a 404 when I try /signup.  I even tried downloading and compiling the latest version of ruby and updating the scripts here to have the path to that version of ruby (/home/myuser/bin) and still have the same issues.

I’m open to starting again if anyone can provide up to date installation instructions.  If not, can anyone give me an idea of some things to check?  This application is far, far, too complicated to install.  It needs to move in the direction of being an install as simple as wordpress or movable type or something…

No help, huh?  I tried from scratch and got no luck.  I guess I’m off to go try gtd-php.  A shame because it doesn’t look like it’s anywhere near the product that Tracks is.  One last plea… anyone?  Anyone?

As you’ll appreciate, I don’t have an account on Dreamhost, so it’s very difficult for me to debug what’s going wrong here. One thing to check is that you have the right path for ruby in the dispatch.* files in the public directory. It’s set as #!/usr/bin/env ruby which should automatically find the location of ruby on most systems, but you could find out where ruby is on the Dreamhost system and then set it explicitly to that path. You also need to check that the .htaccess file in public gets uploaded properly.

Other than that, I’m not sure what to suggest.

bsag - 12 August 2006 03:28 PM

Other than that, I’m not sure what to suggest.

They could always hire someone.

Hi,

I’ve published my installing instructions for Tracks 1.043 on Dreamhost at http://www.untillately.eu/2007/05/22/installing-tracks-on-dreamhost-updated-version/

If you need a hand or have a question, feel free to post some comments.

Kind regards,

Frederik

Update: Due too a lack of time, I disbanded my old blog where the original article was written. Since it helped out a whole lot of people, I moved it over to my new blog. The URL in the message above reflects the new location for the article. Please use the comments section if you need a hand, I’ll do my best to provide some meaningful answers to help you out.

using Frederik’s steps, I was able to set up tracks on my dreamhost account without problem. my only issue is how slow it is, and that if i change the extension on dispatch.cgi to dispatch.fcgi, and change it in .htaccess, i get “Application error Rails application failed to start properly”. how can i get it to accept fcgi? (of course, fastcgi is enabled on the subdomain i’m using)

alana: To clarify, you don’t want to change the extension on the dispatch.cgi file itself (there is already a dispatch.fcgi file, as well as a dispatch.cgi file). You just need to change the line in .htaccess, and then it should work fine.

oh, i must have lost dispatch.fcgi somewhere along the way. i’ve downloaded another copy and i’ll give that a try now. thank you for your help (:

when i kept the original fastcgi line, i got an application error. so i decided to try the debian line, making it look like

now, when i load the application, i just get a text display of dispatch.fcgi . i double-checked that fastcgi is enabled and it’s enabled on the subdomain and the domain itself. i tried chmod 755, then switched it back to 644 when it didn’t change anything.

sorry if this is a simple issue, i literally have a concussion right now so i’m not at the sharpest level of whatever ):

I just tried to upgrade from 1.041 to 1.043. I renamed the old track dir and replaced the database.yml and environment.rb files and restarted the server using ‘ruby script/server -e production’.

When I go to my login screen, I get:

Application error
Rails application failed to start properly”

I am not a linux guru by any stretch of the imagination. So I am not sure how to troubleshoot this.
Any ideas??

Michael

michaelramm: Did you also copy over the old log directory (or change the name of the new one from log.tmpl to log)? Also, check that the dispatch.* scripts in public have the correct shebang line (the first line of the script: whatever you had working in 1.041).

Yes to both questions, bsag.

I have no idea why it is not working now. I have a feeling that it is because DH now has ruby on rails installed by default.
I went through the steps on their wiki about setting it up, and it is not working. I get the Ruby on Rail Welcome page (http://gtd.blackbeltproductivity.net/)

I have a supprt ticket in with DH, but have not received a reply yet.

Michael

OK, your last post got me thinking.
In fact, the shebang lines are different:

Old version (working): #!/usr/bin/env ruby
New version (not working): #!/usr/bin/ruby1.8

According to the Dreamhost wiki on Ruby on Rails at http://wiki.dreamhost.com/index.php/Ruby_on_Rails:

Please note: Make sure the shebang location (#!) of ruby in the railsapp/public/dispatch.fcgi file is #!/usr/bin/ruby1.8

So, now I don’t know what to do.

Michael

michaelramm: Hmm, well, it’s possible that they’ve changed the location of their ruby binary since the wiki was created. Basically (in case you don’t know - apologies if this is all old news), the #!/usr/bin/env ruby version calls a little program called env which searches for the binary given as the argument, the advantage being that you get it to find the path itself, rather than having to hardcode in the path, which will differ between platforms.

So provided Dreamhost have env installed (and the fact that your old version works suggest that they do), that version should work. I would give it a try and see.

For what it’s worth, I was able to get Tracks running beautifully on Dreamhost, using Frederik’s tutorial.  It took me a while to figure it out yesterday, and it still ran slowly so I gave up and deleted it.  Today I realized where I’d gone wrong with my first attempt, and this time I was able to install it in less than 10 minutes.  The biggest tip I have is to make sure you are in the public subdir when you run “rake migrate” or it won’t work!

I’ve been trying all night and I keep getting the following error:

undefined method `cache_template_extensions=’ for ActionView::Base:Class

I can’t even figure out what this one means...help, please?