Well, it sounds like the first order of business is getting Scoop  
talking to your database again!

You said you could log in to mysql; could you confirm that you can do  
this with the hostname, username, password, and database name  
specified in the apache configuration?

Also, could you take a look at your error logs for apache? Right  
where Scoop tries to connect to the database, there's a message  
that's printed if the connection fails, and that has the error  
message returned by the db. You're looking for a line that starts:

(Scoop::_set_dbh) Can't connect to database!

Please paste the error message from that line into your reply.  
Although it might tell you what you need to do directly :-)

About the blocks thing: what happened is that the special pages admin  
interface had been hardcoded before, but was moved to the database  
where all the interface really belongs. A block is now used to build  
the special pages admin interface, and I was just wondering if you  
could see that block after you applied the patch.

-janra

On 17-Mar-06, at 11:51 AM, Allen Hsu wrote:

> Janra,
>
>   Thanks for getting back to me so quickly. Concerning your layout  
> of what i did its correct. By restarting, i mean stopping apache  
> and then starting apache.
>
> * added the patch
> * special pages admin tool still wasn't there
> * restarted apache
> * special pages admin tool *still* wasn't there
> * restarted mysql
> * db down error
> * restarted apache
> ****tried stop/starting mysqld again, but db still down.
> ****and stop and started the httpd process a handful of times since  
> then.
>
> >Did you see any error messages at all when applying the patch?
> No error msg when i applied the patch, mysql asked me for the  
> password and afterword it went back to the prompt.
>
> >Can you see the block that was added in the
> blocks admin tool?
> I had clicked on the "Special Pages" link from the Admin section,  
> is Special Pages now a block and to be administered through the  
> block tool?
>
> >This is probably a silly question, but when you restarted mysql are
> you sure it started up again properly?
> No question is silly in my opinion. Ask away since your helping me  
> =). I did a "service mysqld stop", then "service mysqld start",  
> started "ok", and i can log in with the db account i made for scoop.
>
> >And finally, what is the current status of the site?
> Still getting dbdown.
>
> >Magically fixed itself as soon as you asked for help? ;-)
> I was hoping...
>
> Let me know if there is anything else i can look into. Appreciate  
> your help.
>
> Allen
>
> On 16-Mar-06, at 10:41 AM, Allen Hsu wrote:
>
> > Janra,
> >
> >   I used your suggetion below and it looks like the patch added the
> > "special_edit_form....." entry to the scoop database, but when i
> > went to the website my "special pages" still wasn't working. I
> > tried restarting apache, which didn't help and then i tried
> > restarting mysql and now i'm getting a "DB is Down!" error msg on
> > the website. I have since tried restarting apache again, but that
> > didn't work. Do you have any suggestions on alleviating the error?
> > Looks like i'm having DNS issues with the scoop site right now, so
> > won't be able to scan through the Admin Guide for the moment. TIA
> >
> > Allen
> >
> > On 3/15/06, janra at write-on.org < janra at write-on.org> wrote: > From:
> > "Allen Hsu" <allen at proxihost.com >
> > >
> > > Wondering if anyone can help me out with the following question.
> > > When i click on "Special Pages" from the admin tools I just see my
> > > header and menu items. The rest of the page is blank. Any
> > > suggestions or directions to a patch/fix to this issue? Thanks in
> > > advance.
> >
> > Hi Allen,
> >
> > There was a fairly major change made to the special pages tool, and
> > the patch that would update existing sites was put in the patches
> > directory but by mistake was not added to the scoop.sql file that is
> > used for new sites. You can simply apply the patch; it doesn't  
> affect
> > anything but the special pages.
> >
> > This was fixed a couple of days ago; new sites created from a cvs
> > scoop checked out after Sunday evening will have the special pages
> > tool.
> >
> > To apply the patch, issue the following command: (replace <values>
> > with whatever is appropriate for your site)
> >
> > mysql -u <user> -p <scoopdb> </path/to/your/scoop/struct/patch- 
> files/
> > 1.0-1.1/patch-27-SpecialAdmin.sql
> >
> > then type your mysql password.
> >
> > (Note that command should be all on one line, and there are no  
> spaces
> > in the path to the sql patch file.)
> >
> > -janra
> >
>
>
>