Question

Okay. I have now tried 4.2 and 4.1.2 and both versions configure puked with this error:

Software error:

Use of uninitialized value in substitution (s///) at (eval 25) line 23.

I have followed the install guide explicitly without deviation. Three people have now each triple checked every setting, every file permission. I even went as far as completing opening up all the perms wide open with all files being owned by the user apache is running as as a last ditch effort to rule out any perm related issues.

I am running centos 5, apache 2.2.8 with php 5.2.6. I have scores of very heavy duty perl scripts running on this same box w/o problems.

Grr.. This is my 4th look in the last few years at trying to use TWiki and yet again another show stopper.

Does anyone know a version that will work? I don't care how low in version I need to go.. I've already spent way to much time on this. I can run solaris 10 x86 as an alternative if it will work on that platform.. We need to get this working.

I have googled this to no end and found other people with the same problem but no responses or solutions.

Environment

-- ChuckCarson - 18 Jun 2008

Answer

If you answer a question - or someone answered one of your questions - please remember to edit the page and set the status to answered. The status selector is below the edit box.

That's weird, because line 23 is a comment. But searching this Support web shows it's a pretty common problem.

Did you try these work-arounds of editing \bin\configure?

• from ErrorMessageWhenUsingConfigure: remove the "-w" flag in the perl shebang line within the configure script
• from BrokenConfigureNextButton: change "-w" to "-s"

-- SeanCMorgan - 18 Jun 2008

Yes, I disabled use warnings and use strict. I even drilled down and found the exact call that causes it to puke:

$query = new CGI;

It dies on this line for some reason.. I have the latest version of CGI from CPAN installed.

-- ChuckCarson - 19 Jun 2008

I run both 4.1.2 and 4.2.X on Centos 5. it works fine. There is no need to hack configure to get it to work.

There is something else that is wrong with your setup.

Try and catch me on IRC on Freenode in the #twiki channel.

My nick is Lavr. I am always connected but normally active just before midnight central european time or a few hours during the day in weekends.

Let us start at the very start.

Where do you install TWiki (exact path).

And how does your twiki/bin/LocalLib.cfg look like?

-- KennethLavrsen - 20 Jun 2008

I just ran into this problem on what was a previously working system running on Fedora 8. I wonder is a recent upgrade(say to perl... I always upgrade when advised that updates are avail by the system) caused the problem. I can run configure but when I select add more extensions and navigate to an extension to upgrade and after entering password the server reurns: Software error:

Use of uninitialized value in substitution (s///) at (eval 41) line 23.

Checking the logs add nothing but the referer is configure.

-- HansSchwing - 22 Jun 2008

Hans. You seem to have a working configure but the installers fail when you upgrade or add an extension. We know many installers have a bug so I think this may not be the same problem that Chuck has. He cannot run configure at all.

-- KennethLavrsen - 22 Jun 2008

I tried many installers(one that worked previously on this installation) and also upgrades that worked before. For example I have been updating the tinymce and wysiwyg plugins without the error mentioned above before and now I get that error. In summary none of the install or upgrades work now and they did before.

-- HansSchwing - 23 Jun 2008

Do you run perl 5.10 after some recent upgrade or new distro?

We have a configure problem with 5.10. See Bugs:Item5727

-- KennethLavrsen - 23 Jun 2008

I am pretty sure that Fedora 8 just updated to perl 5.10. I will check when I am back at the system with the problem. Seems likely that is it.

-- HansSchwing - 23 Jun 2008

We now know more.

The error is in the perl CPAN library CGI.

version 3.37 is know to be buggy and maybe also previous versions. 3.15 is know to now have the problem for sure and probably also versions later.

The error happened when TWiki does this very basic command

$query = new CGI

There are known recorded bugs about this.

• http://rt.cpan.org/Public/Bug/Display.html?id=36340
• http://rt.cpan.org/Public/Bug/Display.html?id=34551

which is fixed in 3.38 which was released the 25 Jun 2008 (the day I write this)

We have confirmed upgrading to CGI 3.38 cures the problem.

To verify yourself.

perl -e 'use CGI; print "$CGI::VERSION\n";'

Depending on which distro you use and when you read this, your package manager may already have a new perl for you with a newer CGI. The CGI CPAN lib is normally bundled with perl and not in its own package.

If you do not have an update you can update using CPAN.

perl -MCPAN -e 'upgrade CGI'

which upgrades just CGI to the latest version.

If you are on a shared host - contact your system administrator and ask him to update the CGI CPAN library. Even if configure works without the -w in the shebang line TWiki itself may later show problems and your shared host may be flooded with warning messages.

-- TWiki:Main.KennethLavrsen - 25 Jun 2008

Seems to be answered, closing this after more than 30 days of inactivity.

-- PeterThoeny - 02 Aug 2008