trouble installing

[canvasjoe]

Hi everyone,

 

I'm a schoolteacher and webmaster trying to find a good shopping cart to start an online nutrition store. I've downloaded oscommerce and started installing it, but have run into a snag.

 

I unzipped the downloaded file... ftp'd up the "catalog" folder into the root directory of my website. (I am just testing oscommerce out on a domainname I own - www.plentifuldomains.com. This is not the domain name I will use to sell nutrition products. I'm just testing the cart there for now).

 

I started a new mysql database in the control panel of my website. Then using the browser I went to plentifuldomains.com/catalog/install and started to install the cart through the install wizard. I entered the database server, my username, etc, and the installation wizard said, "A test connection made to the database was successful".

 

Then on the same page it said to continue to execute the database import procedure. It said, "the file to import must be located and named at: /install/oscommerce.sql"

 

I intrepret this to mean that the next step for the wizard is to detect a .sql file named oscommerce in the "install" directory, which is in the "catalog" directory. There is already a "oscommerce.sql' file in the install directory as it was already in there when I unzipped the download. I understand this .sql file to be a test or demo file listing some products for me. BUT... when I continued to the next step the install wizard says:

 

"the following error has occurred: SQL file does not exist: /install/oscommerce.sql".

 

But the file does exist. It's sitting in the install directory. It came with the original download of oscommerce.

 

I hate to be a klutz. I know html and css but nothing about script languages or databases.

 

Can you please lead me on to a full installation, some how?

 

Thanks,

 

Joe

[Wendy James]

If you go into your webhosts control panel (or however you access phpmyadmin) you can manually run the sql then run the setup and select not to install the database.

 

Doing that is pretty easy. Once you are in phpmyadmin, select your database, then click on SQL and either copy and paste the contents of the oscommerce.sql or you can click browse and find the file on your hard drive then click on go.

 

Hope that helps some. :)

[canvasjoe]

Hi Wendy,

 

Thank very much for replying. I have followed your instructions and the installation nows seems completed. The phpmyadmin area of my control panel now has listed the many items in the oscommerce.sql I uploaded there. I have tabs like "structure, sql, export, search and query" in the admin area with which to edit/manipulate the sql file items (like address_book, categories_description, etc.).

 

I skipped the install process in the installation wizard and instead click on upgrade and the wizard said the upgrade was complete.

 

But now I am sitting here without the fainest clue as to what to do next!!!

Here is what I think shoud be the case. I "installed" oscommerce on my server and so now I should be able to enter into a oscommerce admin environment, (which is different than my phpmyadmin area in the control panel) and be able to add product categories, product names, descriptions, prices and other data for my customers to see in the catalog area of my web site (which I have not even started to build yet).

 

Then the data that I enter into the oscommerce admin is somehow connected to the catalog page template (when I make it) so the the data is dynamically provided in my store when visitors click on products. Those are the concepts I believe apply. But... I have no idea as to what to do next.

 

Do I now have a admin area to the oscommerce I can access? Can I build a store front home page, and catalog pages, and item description pages and a shopping cart page with oscommerce and where do I go to start this?

 

I can build html/css pages with NetObjects Fusion and Dreamweaver and by hand code. What now...?

 

My gratitude goes out to anyone who helps me get going in the right direction!!

 

Joe

[kingkahn22]

try this Joe,

 

you go to yourdomain.com/catalog and here OSC already has its default design and layout.

 

you go to yourdomain.com/catalog/admin - here is your admin panel for OSC.

Make sure to password protect that directory.

 

You might think about installing a contribution from oscommerce.info for your design , simple template system is a suggestion.

[♥Vger]

If you go to http://www.yourdomain.com/catalog/ you should now see your osCommerce homepage - provided the install went well.

 

At this address: http://www.yourdomain.com/catalog/admin you should reach your osCommerce 'admin' control panel, and it's here you set up your products, e-mail address, store name and address etc.

 

The first thing you should do, after locating the 'admin' control panel and verifying that it's there, is to then go to your web hosting control panel and Password Protect this folder - otherwise anyone can get in there and do anything they like.

 

p.s. As you are new to osCommerce at the moment I would advise you to get to know it before trying to install any contributions, including template systems.

 

Vger

[canvasjoe]

Vger and Kinghahn22 thank you for responding.

I've already tried to do exactly that... go to the catalog and admin directories. But here is what happens: When I go to www.mydomain/catalog the browser immediately skips over to catalog/install/index.php, that is, the install wizard and therefore I can not visit the index.php file alone in the catalog directory. AND, when I go to www.mydomain/catalog/admin the web page says, "Unable to connect to database server!" Hmmm what to do? I will go and password protect the phpmyadmin in the control panel. If the osc admin can not connecting to the phpmyadmin then am I not really installed properly?

 

 

Entirely different topic...

I did find my way to the osc manuals at a manual site and there I found the CRE Loaded manual too. Now that is just over kill for the moment, but there is another version of osc called cre loaded as you must know (but it was news to me). Should I look into cre loaded? is is necessary? Any history/comment on this? This manual site had an osCommerce manual too. oscommerceguides.com

 

Again, thanks for the help!!!

 

Joe

[canvasjoe]

Hello... anybody out there?

 

 

How do you like the new avatar pic?

I tell people I'm similar to Neo... but

they just laugh.

 

Joe

[piranha]

I was also unable to run the install and followed the instructions to manually install the oscommerce.sql file. It worked and I was able to run the upgrade. Now I'm stuck at the exact same stage as canvasjoe.

 

Can anyone help with next step?