Answers.Body: <p>I think the answer is here: <a href="https://civicrm.stackexchange.com/questions/35825/civicrm-installation-backdrop-incomplete">CiviCRM installation (Backdrop) incomplete</a>?</p>
  <p>After getting the Backdrop/CiviCRM installation working on the local Docker container site (I think by fixing some SSL issues), I moved the codebase and databases to the remote server.</p>
  <p>At that point, I was getting empty civi pages as shown in the question above, along with a number of behind the scenes errors. I decided to try the solution in the post above, because the main change was moving from nginx (Docker) to Apache (LAMP server). After adding <code>Options -MultiViews</code> to the .htaccess file on the remote server, everything started working.</p>
  <p>While I did not retry a Civi installation from scratch (I ended up moving a working codebase/database to a new server), I am willing to bet that this would have solved my initial problem as well.</p>
  <p>It's a relief, but also kind of frustrating. I hope this saves others from many hours of fruitless debugging!</p>
  
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2024-10-23T16:30:02.233Z
Answers.LastActivityDate: 2024-10-28T02:09:35.860Z
Answers.LastEditDate: 2024-10-28T02:09:35.860Z
Answers.UserDisplayName: Hoosier in AA
Body: <p>I've been working on moving my elderly Drupal 7 site over to Backdrop CMS, and the last step is getting CiviCRM installed and working on the new site with my existing database (using the <a href="https://docs.civicrm.org/sysadmin/en/latest/misc/switching-cms/drupal-to-backdrop/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">instructions here</a>).</p>
  <p>Edit: To clarify, Civi is being installed on a Backdrop site converted from Drupal 7, but the D7 Civi database is not being loaded (yet). This should be the equivalent of a fresh install.</p>
  <p>Short version: Civi module installs properly in Backdrop, and gives the expected messsage</p>
  <blockquote>
  <p>CiviCRM is almost ready. You must configure CiviCRM for it to work.</p>
  </blockquote>
  <p>That message links here: https://[mysite.org]/civicrm/setup</p>
  <p>Clicking that link does not bring me to the installer/configuration process (specifying database, db user, etc) but instead goes to a page which looks like this:</p>
  <p><a href="https://i.sstatic.net/gYCbwSRI.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.sstatic.net/gYCbwSRI.png" alt="Generic confirmation of CiviCRM install" /></a></p>
  <p>The link to the configuration checklist simply displays this same page. The &quot;review these permission&quot; link brings you to the Backdrop permissions page, but CiviCRM is not on the list. No database has been created, and no civicrm.settings.php file has been created. I find no errors in any of the logs, even though I have errors turned on in Backdrop.</p>
  <p>I have tried this with a couple versions of CiviCRM (see below), with two PHP versions, and both in a Docker container using ddev and on a LAMP server, with identical results each time.</p>
  <p>I've tried a number of things, with only partial success. I was able to run the installation with the utility cv, which appeared to work partially (though I was unable to change any Civi settings). However, when I used it to upgrade the database to the latest version, cv reported success but I was unable to access any Civi pages (error &quot;Warning: session_start(): Failed to read session data: user...&quot;). I'm not sure what to try next, or what is going wrong.</p>
  <p>Any advice would be appreciated. Thank you!</p>
  <ul>
  <li>CiviCRM: 5.76.2 (same as Drupal) and 5.78.2</li>
  <li>Backdrop CMS 1.29.1</li>
  <li>PHP 7.4.33 (Docker and server) and 8.3.12 (server)</li>
  <li>MariaDB (10.5.22 on the server)</li>
  <li>Docker container with nginx web server, and LAMP server running on
  AlmaLinux 9</li>
  </ul>
  
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2024-10-19T07:38:15.083Z
Comments.Text: I've converted a few sites to Backdrop recently, but I have not gone the route of upgrading the D7 database to Backdrop - it did some weird things esp. re themes/layouts. Instead I installed Backdrop, then Civi and then dropped all the Civi tables and imported a D7 backup.  Then I imported users. The only problem is that doesn't deal with roles & permissions, but that's not a big deal.  That obviously doesn't help if you have webforms or other stuff like Views but it's worked very well, so if you don't have those dependencies I recommend it.
Comments.UserDisplayName: Andy Clark
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2024-10-19T18:18:36.880Z
Comments.Text: Thanks. Does that mean you imported the D7 Civi database in pieces? When I tried a test on a completely clean Backdrop site, I was able to get Civi to load correctly, but had some issues when trying to restore the existing database from D7. Turned out Civi uses lots of triggers, and the old database user name was hard-coded into the sql dump I was using. (I use Virtualmin to manage the sites, and it does not offer a choice to ignore "definers" in the dump, even if I'd known to do it. ;) ) But still stuck on the converted site.
Comments.UserDisplayName: Hoosier in AA
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2024-10-19T21:24:19.500Z
Comments.Text: Can you search replace the definers for the old MySQL username with the new, before importing the CiviCRM database?
Comments.UserDisplayName: Laryn
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2024-10-20T02:29:10.803Z
Comments.Text: Yes, I did just that in BBEdit. Based on posts I had read, I replaced the old username with CURRENT_USER, which seemed to work. But again, this was on a clean Backdrop site locally which had not been converted from Drupal.
Comments.UserDisplayName: Hoosier in AA
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2024-10-20T18:18:39.673Z
Comments.Text: There are a number of suggestions on dealing with triggers in case that is a solution for you eg https://civicrm.stackexchange.com/questions/619/why-do-i-get-access-denied-you-need-at-least-one-of-the-super-privileges-f/620#620
Comments.UserDisplayName: petednz - fuzion
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2024-10-21T07:22:24.990Z
Comments.Text: Re. your question about importing the D7 db in pieces - all I imported was the user records (table 'users' ) by extracting them with SQL from D7 and importing them into Backdrop. That was the only dependency most of the installs had on D7 - except for one webform that I rebuilt, and as I said above user roles & permissions.
Comments.UserDisplayName: Andy Clark
Tags: <installation><configuration><drupal-7><backdrop>
Title: Installing CiviCRM on Backdrop site converted from Drupal 7 fails at configuration step
ThreadText: # Installing CiviCRM on Backdrop site converted from Drupal 7 fails at configuration step
  
  (Asked by: username_0 on 2024-10-18)
  
  I've been working on moving my elderly Drupal 7 site over to Backdrop CMS, and the last step is getting CiviCRM installed and working on the new site with my existing database (using the [instructions here](https://docs.civicrm.org/sysadmin/en/latest/misc/switching-cms/drupal-to-backdrop/)).
  
  Edit: To clarify, Civi is being installed on a Backdrop site converted from Drupal 7, but the D7 Civi database is not being loaded (yet). This should be the equivalent of a fresh install.
  
  Short version: Civi module installs properly in Backdrop, and gives the expected messsage
  
  > CiviCRM is almost ready. You must configure CiviCRM for it to work.
  
  That message links here: https://[mysite.org]/civicrm/setup
  
  Clicking that link does not bring me to the installer/configuration process (specifying database, db user, etc) but instead goes to a page which looks like this:
  
  [![Generic confirmation of CiviCRM install](https://i.sstatic.net/gYCbwSRI.png)](https://i.sstatic.net/gYCbwSRI.png)
  
  The link to the configuration checklist simply displays this same page. The "review these permission" link brings you to the Backdrop permissions page, but CiviCRM is not on the list. No database has been created, and no civicrm.settings.php file has been created. I find no errors in any of the logs, even though I have errors turned on in Backdrop.
  
  I have tried this with a couple versions of CiviCRM (see below), with two PHP versions, and both in a Docker container using ddev and on a LAMP server, with identical results each time.
  
  I've tried a number of things, with only partial success. I was able to run the installation with the utility cv, which appeared to work partially (though I was unable to change any Civi settings). However, when I used it to upgrade the database to the latest version, cv reported success but I was unable to access any Civi pages (error "Warning: session\_start(): Failed to read session data: user..."). I'm not sure what to try next, or what is going wrong.
  
  Any advice would be appreciated. Thank you!
  
  * CiviCRM: 5.76.2 (same as Drupal) and 5.78.2
  * Backdrop CMS 1.29.1
  * PHP 7.4.33 (Docker and server) and 8.3.12 (server)
  * MariaDB (10.5.22 on the server)
  * Docker container with nginx web server, and LAMP server running on
    AlmaLinux 9
  
  **Tags:** installation, configuration, drupal-7, backdrop
  
  > **Comments:**
  > **username_1**: I've converted a few sites to Backdrop recently, but I have not gone the route of upgrading the D7 database to Backdrop - it did some weird things esp. re themes/layouts. Instead I installed Backdrop, then Civi and then dropped all the Civi tables and imported a D7 backup.  Then I imported users. The only problem is that doesn't deal with roles & permissions, but that's not a big deal.  That obviously doesn't help if you have webforms or other stuff like Views but it's worked very well, so if you don't have those dependencies I recommend it.  
  > **username_0**: Thanks. Does that mean you imported the D7 Civi database in pieces? When I tried a test on a completely clean Backdrop site, I was able to get Civi to load correctly, but had some issues when trying to restore the existing database from D7. Turned out Civi uses lots of triggers, and the old database user name was hard-coded into the sql dump I was using. (I use Virtualmin to manage the sites, and it does not offer a choice to ignore "definers" in the dump, even if I'd known to do it. ;) ) But still stuck on the converted site.  
  > **username_2**: Can you search replace the definers for the old MySQL username with the new, before importing the CiviCRM database?  
  > **username_0**: Yes, I did just that in BBEdit. Based on posts I had read, I replaced the old username with CURRENT_USER, which seemed to work. But again, this was on a clean Backdrop site locally which had not been converted from Drupal.  
  > **username_3**: There are a number of suggestions on dealing with triggers in case that is a solution for you eg https://civicrm.stackexchange.com/questions/619/why-do-i-get-access-denied-you-need-at-least-one-of-the-super-privileges-f/620#620  
  > **username_1**: Re. your question about importing the D7 db in pieces - all I imported was the user records (table 'users' ) by extracting them with SQL from D7 and importing them into Backdrop. That was the only dependency most of the installs had on D7 - except for one webform that I rebuilt, and as I said above user roles & permissions.  
  
  ---
  
  ## 1 answers
  
  ### Answer by username_0 on 2024-10-23. Score: 2 | Accepted answer
  
  I think the answer is here: [CiviCRM installation (Backdrop) incomplete](https://civicrm.stackexchange.com/questions/35825/civicrm-installation-backdrop-incomplete)?
  
  After getting the Backdrop/CiviCRM installation working on the local Docker container site (I think by fixing some SSL issues), I moved the codebase and databases to the remote server.
  
  At that point, I was getting empty civi pages as shown in the question above, along with a number of behind the scenes errors. I decided to try the solution in the post above, because the main change was moving from nginx (Docker) to Apache (LAMP server). After adding `Options -MultiViews` to the .htaccess file on the remote server, everything started working.
  
  While I did not retry a Civi installation from scratch (I ended up moving a working codebase/database to a new server), I am willing to bet that this would have solved my initial problem as well.
  
  It's a relief, but also kind of frustrating. I hope this saves others from many hours of fruitless debugging!
  
  
  ---
  
  