Issues Installing AtoM (Access to Memory) on Windows and Oracle VirtualBox Ubuntu – Need Help

[MATIAS VALDES]

Hello everyone,

I have been trying to install AtoM for testing and evaluation, and I’m encountering multiple issues. I would appreciate any help or advice from the community!

What I’ve tried:

1. Windows Installation Attempt

   • I first tried installing AtoM on Windows following the official documentation. Despite following the steps for dependencies and environment configuration, I ran into several incompatibility problems and couldn’t get all required services (like PHP, MySQL, and Elasticsearch) running smoothly together.

   • The documentation for Windows seems minimal and I experienced permission/compatibility issues with some components.

2. Oracle VirtualBox with Ubuntu

   • I switched to a fresh Ubuntu 24.04 LTS installation running inside Oracle VirtualBox.

   • I installed all the recommended packages, Composer, and extracted the atom-latest.tar.gz file into /var/www/html/atom.

   • Permissions were set for all required folders (cache, uploads) and Apache was configured with its own site file for AtoM.

   • The database configuration in config/config.php matches the database, user, and password as required.

Problems encountered:

• After completing all installation steps, when I access the AtoM site (from Windows and even from the Ubuntu VM's browser), I only get a “500 Internal Server Error” and the usual “Oops! An Error Occurred” AtoM page.

• The Apache error logs and PHP logs do not show any detailed error messages—just standard startup/restart notices and no explicit errors.

• The display_errors and error_reporting settings are properly enabled in php.ini, but no extra error message appears on the browser or logs.

• I verified that all necessary PHP modules are installed (php-xml, php-intl, php-mbstring, etc.).

• File and directory permissions are correct.

• The MySQL database exists and is accessible, and the credentials in the config file are valid.

What else I attempted:

• Deleting Apache’s default index.html and disabling the default site.

• Installing ubuntu-desktop to access the VM’s graphical environment and test with a local browser.

• Restarting Apache, MySQL, and even the VM multiple times.

• Double-checked config.php for typos or connection errors.

My question:
Has anyone recently managed to get AtoM running on either Windows or an Ubuntu VirtualBox VM? If so:

• Are there extra troubleshooting tips for catching hidden errors during installation?

• Are there log files or debug/profiler settings in AtoM/Symfony that I can enable to see what's going wrong?

• Could this be a compatibility issue with recent versions of PHP or Ubuntu?

Any help, workaround, or suggestion would be greatly appreciated. If you need specific details/screenshots, let me know!

Thank you in advance for your support.

[Alberto Pereira]

Hi Matias,

I've run some local dev environments in virtualbox (windows host and ubuntu/centos guests) without issues. 

I'd start with finding out why there are no errors in the web server logs. Check if there is a log level in the apache configuration that needs to be changed.

Also, 500 errors are not necessarily thrown by the web server, so you can also try debug mode in AtoM:

https://www.accesstomemory.org/en/docs/2.8/admin-manual/maintenance/debug/

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "AtoM Users" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to ica-atom-user...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/ica-atom-users/2af12635-fd64-4285-a75f-c9b7fa0da3ecn%40googlegroups.com.

[Roberto Greiner]

Apache logs? The Atom-Ubuntu documentation indicates NGinx as the web server. Have you tried using that?

Roberto

--

You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "AtoM Users" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to ica-atom-user...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/ica-atom-users/2af12635-fd64-4285-a75f-c9b7fa0da3ecn%40googlegroups.com.

-- 
  -----------------------------------------------------
                Marcos Roberto Greiner

   Os otimistas acham que estamos no melhor dos mundos
    Os pessimistas tem medo de que isto seja verdade
                             James Branch Cabell
  -----------------------------------------------------

[pieters...@gmail.com]

Roberto

Have multiple instances running on Ubuntu VM (2.8.2, 2.9.1 and 2.10.0). 2.8.2 running on Apache

1. Which version of AtoM?
2. You must make 100% sure the version of PHP is the version for the AtoM. See install documentation.
3. Also the same with MySQL and Elasticsearch.

Try running qubit_dev.php in place of index.php

This shows errors more clearly than the error logs.

You have to run this from VM or edit the qubit.dev.php and add the server IP to list of allowed IP’s.

 

Groete / Regards

Johan Pieterse

082 337-1406

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/ica-atom-users/c694d050-d274-4e11-b45c-f24fc1c43ea2%40gmail.com.