Apache/Win98/PHP4: Just hangs, no error

[Anon]

I had everything working fine: php4, apache on win 98. Loaded a couple of test pages just fine. But now when I try to load a .php file, the browser just hangs, trying to load the file. If I ctrl-alt-del I can see the php process has started, if I reload the page or try to load a different php page, it spawns another instance of php, but I never get the page processed, and no error either.

I think this problem started after I made the changes to the php.ini file, as noted in the tutorial on this site for php,apache,mysql on win98, modified slightly for php4, and dropped it into c:\windows. I tried renaming php.ini to php.ini.bak so it wouldnt be loaded, and restarted windows, but I encounter the same problem. Does it sound like a problem with httpd.conf or php.ini, or is it something else? If everything else fails I suppose I can reinstall... this is the second time I've installed this suite of software, I just reinstalled win98 so I had to put it all back on. But I didn't run into any problem like this the last time, it all went smoothly. Any help is greatly appreciated. Post comments here or email me directly at [e-mail]. Thanks.

[Anon]

Well, I deleted php.ini from c:\windows and c:\php and all is well. I suppose I messed up somewhere. Maybe having it in both locations is a problem? I know I modified php.ini-dist and renamed it to php.ini the last time I installed everything. Any ideas what on went wrong?

[Anon]

I had the same problem.
I had php.ini in both the php folder and the windows folder.
It only seems to work if there is a copy of php.ini in the php folder.
I wondered whether when PHP runs for the first time it locates php.ini and uses that location from then on.
It's odd because in previous installations it worked fine with php.ini in the windows folder.
The other strange thing is that once I've run a php script I'm unable to shut down apache properly from the command line.
Let me know if you work out what's going on.

[Anon]

If you enabled one of the extensions by removing the beginning semicolon in php.ini, that would cause the browser to hang.

[Anon]

I did enable the mysql extension, but then noticed that there is no mysql.dll in the php4 dist. I'll have to check when I get home but I think I'm running it without a php.ini file at all. Is it true that most of the php directives can be configured with apache's httpd.conf file? I'm kind of confused with all the recent changes, older documentation/articles/board postings become less relevant. I need to sit down and check out my install more thoroughly.

[Anon]

I found the source of this problem, as well as another problem I had once before.

First, you only need the php.ini in your php directory, that is the first place it looks for directives.

Second, leave the extensions commented out. I had uncommented the mysql extension, which was the reason it would just hang and not process. PHP4 now has native mysql support, so this extension is unneeded. I've read elsewhere to leave all of the extensions commented out.

Third.. the first time I installed php/apache on win98, I kept getting this string at the top of every page:

X-Powered-By: PHP/4.0.1pl2 Content-type: text/html Mozilla/4.0

I was following the tutorial on this site on installing mysql/php/apache, and it indicated you should get the browscap.ini file, place it in c:\windows, and uncomment the line in php.ini that loads it ([browscap]
;browscap = windows/browscap.ini), . I was just playing with that line and realized uncommenting that line is the cause of that header being printed. At least, that is what caused it for me. I did a controlled test of commenting/uncommenting just that line and uncommenting it was definitely the cause. I have seen this problem mentioned in other posts here and elsewhere, and I would be interested in hearing if anyone else has found this to be the cause.

Also, I'd be interested in knowing if there is another way to get the browscap info without using the browscap.ini file.