In this post I will only discuss issues not mentioned in the readme.txt file that came along with WPMU and I will add some information to certain subjects, where I found easier ways to do the job.

If you are hosted on a free server you will not be able to use WordPress MU.
Here is the list of minimum requirements for WordPress MU to work correctly on your server:

1. Backup Backup Backup
2. Apache mod-rewrite on
3. Virtual Host or CNames capability
4. chmod 777 for root directory
5. MySQL database
6. PHP 4 (5) support
7. Importing posts comment data

1. Backup Backup Backup
A dirty installation from WordPress to WordPress MU means that we do have lots of posts and comments in an existing database! Back it up!!!! Go to your MySQL control panel and download the whole thing to your machine. Further do an export within WordPress. Double security!
Keep them in a save place, you will need them to re-integrate your data into WordPress MU later on.

2. Apache
Apache must be configured so that mod_rewrite works. If you were using WordPress before on your server and you used “nice url’s” then you are good to go. If you don’t contact your host and ask them to activate mod-rewrite for you. On my server Hostloco mod-rewrite was active upon “delivery”.

3. Virtual Host or CNames
Your virtual host may not be activated, no big deal, there is a way to get to use WordPress MU on a server without virtual host. What you do need in this case is CNames. Before creating a new blog as a subdomain (e.g.: main domain here is http://ralfengel.com subdomain url to blog is http://wordpress.ralfengel.com) that does only exist virtually, no need to create this subdomain, just add a CName on your web host control panel like this: wordpress.ralfengel.com , then create your new blog in the WPMU control panel. This worked fine for me.

4. Chmod to 777
After uploading all the new WordPress MU files (WITHOUT TOUCHING THE wp-config-sample.php!!!!!!!!!!!!!!), call the index.php file on your domain in your web browser to initialize the installation. You may read a warning message on the bottom to change specific directories to chmod 777. Use FileZilla (Free FTP program) to set these permissions. If the chmod for the root directory is to be changed you may need to contact your host, since (at least in my case) FileZilla didn’t seem to be able to change the values chmod for the root directory.

If everything went right you should now be able to fill out the installation sheet, index.php with the database information needed. After saving your new – empty – blog should load in the window.

5. MySQL Database
Not much to say here, create one, create a user, and you are ready.

6. PHP
Usually the servers today are set to PHP 4 and can be set to PHP 5. My installation of WPMU works fine with PHP 4, but I did find a plugin asking for PHP 5, so I just changed it in the PHP permissions and preferences in the hosts control panel.

7. Importing posts comment data
Since I did a “dirty” installation, I have a backup.xml file on my hands, which contains all the data from my MySQL database. I used the WordPress Export function file. It was huge. 370 posts, 1200 categories, 180 comments and so on made it a pumped up 3,8 MB.
Wordpress MU may – will – can – not import this size of file using the WordPress Import function (I don’t know why, just know that it doesn’t work).
You will need a html editing program to break this file into bits, hehe!!
I used ACE HTML Freeware to do the job. It is somewhat nifty to do, especially because this is a heavy file, takes a while for it to load, and the tab switching is slow, too. You’ll need patience to do it.

Find the very first <item> entry using the – edit – find… – function.
Copy everything from the beginning until just before the <item> and paste it into a new xml file tab.
Copy this:
</item>
</channel>
</rss>
And paste it below the “header” of the file.

If your xml backup file is 4mb of size, then you will have to create 4 files, since I’ve noticed that WPMU will not import anything bigger than some 1.4MB of file size.
Use the right scroll bar button to judge more or less 4 visual divisions of the file. Cut each data segment out including <item> and </item> and paste it in your new header – footer file.
Save it and repeat this till done. My files ranged from between 900KB and 1.2MB, the latter already starting to cause trouble when importing. I had to repeat import 2-3 times for the bigger files, so try and keep the file size low, maybe that helps.

I hope everything will go well for you on this task. I did run into some trouble after having done all the above. See my Upgrade Issues Post for more.

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1. Exec-PHP
2. Youtube Video
3. Sidebar Widgets
4. Write Post – Custom Fields
5. Google Analytics

1. Exec-PHP
After finishing the WP MU install I started re-activating all my plugins. All of them did re-activate without any error messages. Then, when I returned to the “Write a Post” page, the usual

“Exec-PHP WYSIWYG Conversion Warning. Saving this article will render all contained PHP code permanently unuseful. Even if you are saving this article through the Code editor. You can turn off this warning in your user profile. Ignore this warning in case this article does not contain PHP code. Read the Exec-PHP documentation if you are unsure what to do next.”

Message came up! Doing what the help link says, I returned and found out that the Warning was still active. I googled the issue, and found out that the exec-php plugin will not work on WordPress MU. I found some posts mentioning a way to get around this issue, but they were clearly warning of a Security Issue, leaving WordPress MU vulnerable to hackers!!!
So, for now I’m trying to find a way, a new way to make PHP code work on WordPress MU, and here it is:
ATTENTION: Only use this procedure if you are the only user of WordPress MU, since it is a security risk!!
You will have to download a plugin to be able to execute code withing the < and > brackets, and you will further have to edit you kses.php file in the wp-includes folder. Go to my “Execute PHP code on WordPress MU” post for all details…

2. Youtube Video
I have 365 posts, and at least 40 of them have one or more Youtube Videos integrated into them. This Youtube embedding worked excellent on WordPress, but on WordPress MU it does not. After Googeling around for a while I ran into this excellent Plugin created by eJump. It is called EasyTube and it overruns the Worpress MU protection, thus allowing for Youtube and Google Videos to be shown in WordPress MU.
So, the “Youtube Video” issue is solved!

3. Sidebar Widgets
I’m using the “Adsense Prosense” theme for WordPress. It is a Widget ready theme that has 3 Adsense ads integrated, 3 columns, 2 Sidebars. It worked fine on WordPress 2.7, but now on WordPress MU it is not behaving correctly. After editing your Sidebar 1, and clicking on “Save Changes”, you would want to edit Sidebar 2. So I went ahead to display Sidebar 2, and started adding the Widgets I would like to be displayed in it, but everytime I add a Widget, the whole screen returns to display Sidebar 1 and with the Widgets added that I wanted on Sidebar 2. Now that is weird!

I found out that I can use Sidebar 1 as I desire, personalized, and just not touch Sidebar 2, which already has the basic fields in it. Nevertheless I’d rather be able to personalize both Sidebars…

4. Write Post – Custom Fields
Today when I wanted to enter the -write post- tab it took an eternity to open, some 2 or three minutes. I started looking around on Google and found several possible reasons that could cause this.
The most logic one would be a plugin. Thus I de-activated all my plugins, but the problem persisted.
I tried to open this blogs -write post- tab, and it opend in an acceptable time, thus I knew that it was my main blog who was giving trouble.
I kept on checking and by coincidence saw that inside the “custom fields” tab, there was a lot of information in the different fields. I waited for the loading process to finish and then opened the custom field tab, and there were at least 500 entires, descriptions, title and enclosure.
I started deleting them manually and it took me like 20 minutes or more. Then I reloaded the page and some fields where still there, deleted them and reloaded. Finally all custom fields where empty.
The page still loads slower than on my subdomain blogs, but at least it works again.
I will investigate this further and post the solution here.

5. Google Analytics
If you have used Google Analytics before, you may have been using Google Analytics for WordPress by Joost Devalk at http://yoast.com/wordpress/google-analytics/. Sorry, but it seems that this version of the plugin doesn’t work for WPMU.
I googled to see if there are any Google Analytics for WordPress MU out there and found this one:
Google Analytics Plugin For WordPress MU – Revised – English
It works perfectly. One confusing thing about it is that you can reach a “urchin” field in two different tabs:
1. Site Admin: Google Analytics
2. Settings: Google Analytics
Both windows look different, as far as I understand If you fill out option 1. on your main blog, a side wide analytics will be done, if you choose option 2 only the specific URL will by considered for analytics. I’ll observe and update…

I’m working on these Issues and will add solutions as they come but I would greatly appreciate any feedback from you on this.

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