FAQs

Installation

How do I log into a fresh install??

The installation and setup process creates an admin user which can then use to create other users etc:

Username: admin

Password: changeme

As the default password suggests, you should change this as immediately after installation.

I get "Too Many Redirects" or errors while making API calls

Please check whether mod_rewrite is working on your server. In addition, read the comment thread at #3153 for more steps on how to diagnose mod_rewrite.

Apache2 VirtualHost Config

see https://github.com/ChurchCRM/CRM/blob/master/cloud9/001-cloud9.conf for the config used by our cloud9 dev system.

How do i upgrade my VM to php 7

see https://github.com/ChurchCRM/CRM/blob/master/cloud9/upgradePhp7.sh

Internal Server Error 500

We have an entire page dedicated to resolving 500 errors, but we see in many cases the root cause being incorrect file permissions on the web server. Make sure you set the permissions as per our documentation on setting up permissions correctly for details.

Error reporting in PHP

Update the copy of Include\Config.php file change line 56

error_reporting(E_ERROR); to error_reporting(E_ALL);

also, see a listing of all PHP error reporting that can be used

Debug

Explore various methods for debugging the ChurchCRM application, including turning on error reporting and enabling app logs.

Enable the logs in the System Settings, the default value is INFO but you may want to change that. The logs are created in the /logs dir. Please note that logs are not cleaned by the system and it is up to the admin to clean files.

What if my host doesn't have register_globals turned OFF?

There is a simple workaround if your server does not have register_globals turned off. Create a file called ".htaccess" with a simple text editor and insert the following line into that new file: php_flag register_globals off Save this file and upload this file into the main ChurchCRM directory.

How can I enable the Phar extension?

Some web hosts allow you to selectively enable PHP extensions by the use of a phprc file. If your web host does not enable Phar by default and allows the use of phprc files, you can add the following to your phprc file:

extension=phar.so

How do I setup my Logo or Letter Head?

Many of the reports and documents you can generate from Church CRM allow the inclusion of a logo or letter head. By default, this will be the following files in the /Images directory:

church_letterhead.jpg
church_letterhead.png

It may be tempting to simply upload your own artwork and rename the files as above, but this is not "upgrade-safe". System upgrades will overwrite your files with the default ones again. The correct method is:

1. Ensure your letterhead or logo is 500x80 pixels or an exact multiple of this ratio (eg. 1000x160 is also acceptable).

2. Your logo should be either PNG or JPEG/JPG format. Be aware only PNG supports transparency (alpha channel).

3. Upload your image to /Images using FTP/sFTP/SSH (whatever your hosting provider supports). eg. using SSH secure copy:

   scp my_fancy_letterhead.jpg user@hostingprovider:ChurchCRM/Images

4. Log into your Church CRM with admin privileges.

5. Go to Admin -> Edit General Settings -> Report Settings

6. Change the value of sDirLetterHead to ../Images/<your_file_name> and hit "Save Settings".

   Where <your_file_name> is the name of the image you uploaded in step #3