When something goes wrong

Where to look

• Admin > App Logs - what ITFlow itself runs into: cron, mail, payment providers and the API. Start here when email isn't going out or a payment is refused. See App logs.
• The web server's error log - PHP's errors, such as a blank page or "500". With the install script it's /var/log/apache2/error.log. Installed by hand, it's the site's own, /var/log/apache2/itflow.example.com-error.log. With nginx, it's /var/log/nginx/error.log. tail -f the log while you reload the page to see the error as it happens.
• Admin > Debug - the versions of ITFlow, PHP and the database, PHP's extensions and settings, and whether the database matches what the code expects.

Common problems

"Login is restricted as ITFlow defaults to HTTPS-only"

You opened ITFlow over plain http://. Get a certificate and use https://, as in Install by hand. Behind a reverse proxy, the proxy has to tell ITFlow the visitor came over HTTPS - see config.php.

A blank page, or "500 Internal Server Error"

PHP stopped on an error, and the web server's error log says which. It's often a PHP extension missing after PHP was upgraded. Install the extension for the new version, such as apt install php8.4-intl, and restart the web server.

"Database Connection Failed"

ITFlow can't reach its database. Check MariaDB is running, with systemctl status mariadb, and that the database details in config.php are right.

"Potential Security Violation"

config.php tells ITFlow to read visitors' addresses from a proxy's header, but the request didn't come through the proxy. See Behind a reverse proxy or Cloudflare.

"Your IP address has been blocked due to repeated failed login attempts"

After 15 failed sign-ins in 10 minutes, ITFlow turns away sign-ins from that address. The block lifts by itself once the failures are more than 10 minutes old. Security and sign-in has more.

Email isn't going out, or email isn't becoming tickets

Go to Admin > Cron:

• Cron is not running - the cron entry is missing or failing. The page shows the line to add. To see what goes wrong, run it yourself as the files' owner: sudo -u www-data php /var/www/itflow.example.com/cron/cron.php
• Cron is switched off - click Turn cron on.

If cron is running, look at App Logs and the mail queue for what the mail server said.

An upload fails, or a backup is too large to restore

PHP's limits are too low. Set upload_max_filesize and post_max_size to 500M, and restart the web server - see Install by hand. With nginx, client_max_body_size must be as large. A backup bigger than that can be restored from the command line, which has no limit.

Setup says ITFlow's folder can't be written to

The web server's user has to own ITFlow's folder: chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/itflow.example.com.

Asking for help

Ask on the ITFlow forum. Say what you did, what happened, and what you expected, and include:

• The ITFlow version and database version, from Admin > Update
• The error from the web server's error log, or the App Logs entry
• How you installed ITFlow, and your OS, web server and PHP version, from Admin > Debug

Never post config.php, passwords, keys or your clients' data.