Title: Gibberish code when navigating to installer.php
Last modified: August 20, 2016

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# Gibberish code when navigating to installer.php

 *  Resolved [ofeargall](https://wordpress.org/support/users/ofeargall/)
 * (@ofeargall)
 * [13 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/gibberish-code-when-navigating-to-installerphp/)
 * I’ve uploaded installer.php to my server, verified the PHP is running and created
   the appropriate database with the correct user permissions. When I navigate to
   installer.php all I get is a screen full if gibberish.
 * Here’s a screen capture:
 * [http://www.ssgbeta.com/installer_not_working.png](http://www.ssgbeta.com/installer_not_working.png)
 * [http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/duplicator/](http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/duplicator/)

Viewing 7 replies - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)

 *  [Cory Lamle](https://wordpress.org/support/users/corylamleorg/)
 * (@corylamleorg)
 * [13 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/gibberish-code-when-navigating-to-installerphp/#post-3474366)
 * Hi ofeargall,
 * If you open the file in a text editor do you see php code or the gibberish? You
   might have to change the encoding of the file… In an IDE like notepad++ you can
   toggle the file Encoding. It might need to be converted to UTF-8…
 *  Thread Starter [ofeargall](https://wordpress.org/support/users/ofeargall/)
 * (@ofeargall)
 * [13 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/gibberish-code-when-navigating-to-installerphp/#post-3474370)
 * It’s pretty messed up in code view as well
 * Screenshot…
 * [http://ssgbeta.com/installer_in_codeview.png](http://ssgbeta.com/installer_in_codeview.png)
 *  Thread Starter [ofeargall](https://wordpress.org/support/users/ofeargall/)
 * (@ofeargall)
 * [13 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/gibberish-code-when-navigating-to-installerphp/#post-3474374)
 * Same problem with UTF8
 * Screenshot:
 * [http://ssgbeta.com/installer_utf8.png](http://ssgbeta.com/installer_utf8.png)
 *  Thread Starter [ofeargall](https://wordpress.org/support/users/ofeargall/)
 * (@ofeargall)
 * [13 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/gibberish-code-when-navigating-to-installerphp/#post-3474390)
 * I re-ran the plugin and got a clean installer.php. Looks to be a freak accident.
 * Now… If I can just get rid of the “Is Writeable” failure on my install we’ll 
   be in good shape. Off to the documentation…
 *  [Cory Lamle](https://wordpress.org/support/users/corylamleorg/)
 * (@corylamleorg)
 * [13 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/gibberish-code-when-navigating-to-installerphp/#post-3474523)
 * You might check with your hosting provider to see how the perms need to be setup
   to allow PHP to write to the desired directory…
 *  Thread Starter [ofeargall](https://wordpress.org/support/users/ofeargall/)
 * (@ofeargall)
 * [13 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/gibberish-code-when-navigating-to-installerphp/#post-3474524)
 * Actually, I logged in through SSH and changed the permissions to ‘rwx’ for the
   Apache group using ‘setfacl’ on the command line. After the site was extracted
   and set up I changed the permissions back to ‘r-x’ and everything is working 
   famously.
 * The plugin worked like a charm after a couple of bumps in the road. Great plug
   in. I’ll use it again for sure.
 *  [Cory Lamle](https://wordpress.org/support/users/corylamleorg/)
 * (@corylamleorg)
 * [13 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/gibberish-code-when-navigating-to-installerphp/#post-3474545)
 * Hey ofeargall,
 * Glad to here you got it going… Permissions are just something that the plugin
   can’t update so it does take some time to get the perms right for certain environments…

Viewing 7 replies - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)

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## Tags

 * [installer.php](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/installer-php/)

 * 7 replies
 * 2 participants
 * Last reply from: [Cory Lamle](https://wordpress.org/support/users/corylamleorg/)
 * Last activity: [13 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/gibberish-code-when-navigating-to-installerphp/#post-3474545)
 * Status: resolved