My PHP output files need to be executable

If you are generating PHP files through Movable Type, some webservers will require that the generated files have the execute bit set (in other words, that the permissions are at least 755). By default all files created by the system will have their permissions set to 666, and you will receive errors about your files not being executable.

To fix this, add this line to your mt.cfg file:

HTMLPerms 0777

This will set the default permissions for all files created by the system to 777; note that if you are using the HTMLUmask setting in mt.cfg, the setting for HTMLPerms will be adjusted by the umask setting. For example, if you have set HTMLPerms to 0777, and you set HTMLUmask to 0022, all files created by the system will have permissions of 0755.

I changed hosts, and now I can't log in to Movable Type.

When you change hosting providers (or just move to a different server at the same provider), it is possible that the two servers have different versions of the Berkeley DB library; this is the library that Movable Type uses to store your data. When you copy the DB files from one host to another, if the two hosts have different versions of Berkeley DB, the new host will not be able to read the files from the old host.

This can be fixed by converting the DB files over to the format used by the new library version; this is accomplished in several different ways, depending on the Berkeley DB versions involved. The files that need to be converted are all of the files in your db directory whose filenames end in either .db or .idx (the .lock files do not need to be converted).

The following steps require that you have shell access to your server, and imply that you are somewhat familiar with running Unix commands; if this is not the case, you should ask your hosting provider to help you.

1. First, and most important, back up your DB files; you need to create backup copies of all of the files in your db directory. (If you do this by downloading the directory, make sure to transfer it in binary mode.)

2. The easiest way to convert the DB files is to use the db_upgrade program; unfortunately this is not available on every server, but it may be available on yours. To find out, log into your shell account, and type the following at your shell prompt (<db_dir> is the path to your db directory):

   $ cd <db_dir>
   $ db_upgrade *.db *.idx
   

   If your server has db_upgrade, this will convert all of your DB files over to the new format. If this works, you're done, and you can skip the following steps; Movable Type should now work.

3. If the above db_upgrade command does not work--for example, if you get an error saying that command not found--then you will need to use the following method to convert your data. This method dumps out all of the data from your DB files, then loads it into new versions of those DB files.

   The program used to dump the contents of your DB files is called either one of two things: db_dump, or db_dump185. To determine which program you need to use, first try running the following command in your shell account:

   $ cd <db_dir>
   $ db_dump author.db
   

   If this command is successful, you will see a screenful of data dumped out. If it is unsuccessful, you will get an error message; in this case, try using the following command:

   $ db_dump185 author.db
   

   Again, if the command is successful, you will see a screenful of data. If this also fails, then you will need to contact your hosting provider.

4. Now that you have determined which db_dump program to use (either db_dump or db_dump185), you can dump all of the data from your old DBM files and load it into new versions of those files. To do that, try the following (substitute db_dump185 instead of db_dump, if necessary):

   $ db_dump -f author.db.data author.db
   $ mv author.db author.db.old
   $ db_load -f author.db.data author.db
   $ chmod 666 author.db
   

   You will need to run these four commands for each file in your db directory whose name ends in .db or .idx. After you have done so, you're done, and Movable Type should now work.