Drupal 8 install fails: writing permissions problem?

Hi,

I've been fiddling around for a few days, and I'm at a loss. I tried to migrate my Drupal 8 website from local to Altervista, but I failed:

I managed to import the database in phpmyadmin, and I copied all my files to the root. I adjusted settings.php. The website works fine. Al pages, forms, buttons show and do what they are supposed to do.
But when I try to log in (as admin, uid 1), i get 'access denied: you are not authorized to access this page'. This message is different from what I get with an unrecognised username/password combination ('username/pw are not recognised'). I couldn't find a way to make it work.

Here is what I've tried:
- different browsers (default is chrome, but tried windows explorer and firefox)
- checked cookie_domain (and clearing cookies)
- checked settings.php
- checked .htaccess (rewrites)
- uninstalled all modules and tried again
- changed permissions of all files and directories on server (via ftp) to 777
- switched on/off clean urls
- cleared caches / sessions / flood tables in database
- created new user + password

I gave up and decided to do a clean install of Drupal 8.4.4 instead of migrating my site, but that failed too. I uploaded all files to the root, emptied the database and started the install. But after choosing language and profile, I get this error:

Warning: touch(): Utime failed: Operation not permitted in Drupal\Component\PhpStorage\MTimeProtectedFastFile Storage->save() (line 100 of core/lib/Drupal/Component/PhpStorage/MTimeProtectedFastFileStorage.php).

After that, my database contains 23 tables and a settings.php file is created. An attempt to log in on the site fails ('unrecognized un/pw: never set an admin during install). Clicking the 'forgot password' leads to an 'Internal Server Error'.


Is there something particular about permissions on Altervista that makes installing Drupal problematic? I am really out of ideas of what to try next... Help?

[alemoppo]

I gave up and decided to do a clean install of Drupal 8.4.4 instead of migrating my site, but that failed too.

Before installation:

• Check .htaccess (rewrites)
• core/lib/Drupal/Component/PhpStorage/MTimeProtectedFastFileStorage.php at line 100 replace:
  

  $result &= touch($directory . '/', $mtime); 

  with:
  

  //$result &= touch($directory . '/', $mtime); 

• core/lib/Drupal/Core/Session/SessionConfiguration.php at line 73 replace:
  

  return $prefix . $this->getUnprefixedName($request); 

  with:
  

  return 'PHPSESSID';//$prefix . $this->getUnprefixedName($request); 

Bye!

Yeeeeessss!!!! Thank you SO much!! I would never have come up with that myself. :-) It works now.
Another thing it complains about is opcache, but I guess that's just not installed on the server, right? It's not a problem, just something it mentions upon install.

EDIT: in case someone else has the same problem: editing the two files in core also solves the 'access denied' problem in the migrated existing site. :-)