Dreamhack Troubleshooting

Common Dreamhack problems and their solutions.

My hack won't start

Check out the latest error messages in your Apache error log:

tail -f ~/apache/logs/error_log

(The -f option will keep updating if more errors come in, which can be useful if you open up your Apache log in one window and try to restart Apache in another window. Hit Ctrl-C to stop the process.)

Most of the time, the reason your Dreamhack won't start is because of a code error in one of your .pm or .pl files. The error messages here will tell you where to look.

(If you get a big scary error message that takes up the whole entire screen on startup, look at the very beginning of the error for the file that the error is in.)

I'm getting a database error on connect

If you get an error message that looks like "cluster: status 0: ERROR: Can't connect to the database (clust#0), so I can't update it", it probably means that your $LJHOME/etc/config-local.pl or $LJHOME/etc/config-private.pl files have been overwritten, thus removing your username and password for your database.

If you made a backup of your config files, copy the backup over the live version. If you didn't, just edit the files to put in your username (dh_username) and password (the database password you were assigned at the beginning, not your current login password). You might want to follow the instructions in the Dreamhack getting started guide for protecting your configs to prevent future problems.

My patch files include all of my config changes

Follow the instructions in the Dreamhack getting started guide for protecting your configs. This will also keep your config changes from creeping into your patch files.

I have .orig and .rej files all over the place

Check the "tidy" script at the bottom of the Dev Maintenance page.

My hack isn't sending me email

Edit your $LJHOME/etc/config-local.pl and find the line "$MAIL_TO_THESCHWARTZ = 1;". Comment it out, or change it to 0, to send mail directly instead of through TheSchwartz.

I need to run TheSchwartz to test something

See the instructions in the Dreamhack getting started guide for how to set up TheSchwartz on Dreamhacks.