Require_Once fatal error on installation

Installation only took about a week longer than five minutes, mostly getting past the frustration factor.

Require_Once() is an error message that has generated many blog entries.

First, there’s the date.timezone issue encountered. It’s a PHP error, not server or WordPress. I even found instructions somewhere on how to fix it at the server level, which obviously didn’t help.

Once that was resolved, the error messages began making more sense. The problem is that a specific directory structure is required by
wordpress_install.php. It’s not enough that the files are on the server. However, the directory structure required by the code does not match the structure produced when the .zip file is extracted.

The error messages explain where the code is looking, so it was a straightforward matter to copy the files into where they were expected to be. That is, straightforward once it dawned on me what the problem was.

It was just a matter of re-running wordpress_install.php until all the problems were resolved, and then suddenly, there it was — the words, “Ready for Install.” A week later, we were ready for a brief five minutes.

The information in the ReadMe file wasn’t sufficent to get started, since it didn’t include instructions on uploading the installation files to the server.

I finally found instructions on WordPress.org. However, as I said, there’s a difference between either mode explained in the instructions and what wordpress_install.php expects.

For a complete newbie, it’s was very difficult to get a conceptual picture of what was supposed to be happening. Maybe I’m not supposed to be as dumb as I am, but then again, I am!

Best wishes to all!