Serge Jespers

I’m currently installing this new dedicated RackSpaceCloud server. While I have fallen in love with ColdFusion in the last year or so, I am still a CF n00b and not ready to completely switch. So my new server needs both ColdFusion (for new projects) and PHP (mainly for my WordPress blog).

After I installed Apache, MySQL and PHP, I started the CF install. It literally took me less than 10 minutes to get ColdFusion up and running (even on the officially unsupported Debian distro). I just downloaded the installer, launched it and when the installation was done, I had a fully working CF9 server that ties in to my Apache install. I set up my datasources, uploaded some of the scripts I used in the MAX widget and found that everything was working just fine.

I started copying over the files and databases from my WordPress blog on the old server and when that was done, I tested my WordPress install. While the public side of the blog seems to work just fine, the admin side is totally messed up. Even though my PHP.ini file clearly states that scripts have 128Meg to play with, some plugins in the admin nag that the “Allowed memory size of 33554432 bytes exhausted”. Wait a minute… That’s 32M instead of the 128M I specified in the config file. So I ask “the Googles” if they know a solution. I get hundreds of links back. They all suggest the same things.
1) change the memory_limit in the PHP.ini
As it was already on 128M, that was not the solution.
2) add define(’WP_MEMORY_LIMIT’, ‘128M’); to your wp-config.php file
Did that. It didn’t solve the issue.
3) Add php_value memory_limit 128M to an .htaccess file
Tried that. No change.

So… While I did get hundreds of results back, none of them actually solves this issue. I contacted RackSpace’s helpdesk. Even though they can’t really help me as I am on a dedicated box, they were very accommodating and genuinely wanted to help out. But… They also gave me the exact same suggestions I already found on Google. And so now I am stuck. This seems to be a very unique problem and I have no idea what is causing it and no way of getting support.

I have now spent over 10 hours trying to fix this with no luck.

So yes… ColdFusion is a paid solution but if I can get that up and running in 10 minutes compared to the 10+ hours I’ve now spent on this PHP install, it is totally worth its price. And then I’m not even talking about the features CF9 provides out of the box without any additional installs… Now… Can someone please port WordPress to ColdFusion? kthxbye.

Oh… If you happen to think of a possible solution, feel free to leave a note in the comments or send me a message.

Update: For the record: This is NOT CF love vs PHP hate. As this post clearly shows, I am still using PHP next to CF. It is also possible that I did something wrong in the install but I’m sure you’ll agree that there is a big difference in the user experience…