Pset7 - Forbidden 403. I can't even get started

Question

I have done a ton of research online regarding this problem and have found several similar threads, but none of those solutions are working for me. I saw somebody posted the same question yesterday but the post has been taken down by the author.

I have tried every solution possible and have reset and retried all of the solutions, yet I still can't get past the 403.

For some strange reason, I can get into myphpadmin but not anything else.

I was hoping that things would have changed after a few CS50 IDE updates but so far, no luck. Just as many problems with version 62 as I had with 59!

Can you please help me out? I'm not able to progress any further with this course otherwise, I have already gone ahead and watched all the videos for the rest of CS50!

Thank you

Answer 1

I found that deleted post over on reddit with an answer from delipity. But the user continued to have problems. I unzipped a fresh pset7, and did these chmods and finally got RockRolld! (oops. Spoiler :). I then removed pset7 and reinstalled, then followed this list and got the same (positive) result. I am running IDE 62. Full disclosure, I did not reinstall the database.

~/workspace/ $ chmod 711 pset7
~/workspace/ $ cd pset7
~/workspace/pset7/ $ ls
config.json  includes/  public/  vendor/  views/
~/workspace/pset7/ $ chmod 755 public
~/workspace/pset7/ $ cd public
~/workspace/pset7/public/ $ chmod 711 css fonts img js
~/workspace/pset7/public/ $ chmod 644 css/* fonts/* img/* js/*
~/workspace/pset7/public/ $ cd ..
~/workspace/pset7/ $ chmod 711 includes vendor views
~/workspace/pset7/ $ chmod 644 includes/* vendor/* views/*
~/workspace/pset7/ $ chmod 644 public/*php 
~/workspace/pset7/ $ chmod 644 config.json
~/workspace/pset7/ $ cd vendor
~/workspace/pset7/vendor/ $ ls
library50-php-5/
~/workspace/pset7/vendor/ $ chmod 711 library50*
~/workspace/pset7/vendor/ $ cd library50*
~/workspace/pset7/vendor/library50-php-5/ $ ls
CS50/
~/workspace/pset7/vendor/library50-php-5/ $ chmod 711 CS50
~/workspace/pset7/vendor/library50-php-5/ $ chmod 644 CS50/*php

EDIT The last line has been corrected from chmod 644 CS50/* to chmod 644 CS50/*php. This was not detected in running the (vanilla) app. If you already did the incorrect chmod, the correction is
cd ~/workspace/pset7/vendor/library50-php-5/ $chmod 711 CS50/share

Answer 2

This is the same solution as posted in Reddit, simply with clean code ready for copy/paste to terminal. Please note that you have to start in "workspace" directory.

chmod 711 pset7
cd pset7
chmod 755 public
cd public
chmod 711 css fonts img js
chmod 644 css/* fonts/* img/* js/*
cd ..
chmod 711 includes vendor views
chmod 644 includes/* vendor/* views/*
chmod 644 public/*php
chmod 644 config.json
cd vendor
chmod 711 library50*
cd library50*
chmod 711 CS50
chmod 644 CS50/*php

Answer 3

What does it say in the Apache2 error log?

In the CS50 IDE, open a terminal in a new tab and execute tail -f ~/lib/apache2/log/error.log and then watch that while you try to load one of the pages that is giving out the 403 Forbidden error message. When a new error message appears in the log, paste it here.

EDIT: @gloopit: Too much info. Please delete all but one of the repetitive error log entries at the top of comments. Also, we are only looking at ~/workspace/pset7 so just try what I said above: chmod 755 ~/workspace/pset7 and tell me how it goes. Also, if you see things in the error log you don't recognize, paste the messages here or into Google. "something about SIGTERM" is too vague. It might not be a problem & may just mean that you stopped or restarted the server.