Frequently Asked Questions
General
As with many things, it depends.
Are you planning on developing new code for Ushahidi, or maybe testing the platform? Then go with one of the development setups.
Are you already familiar with XAMPP and want to avoid using Vagrant for performance or simply familiarity issues? Then go with the XAMPP Install guide.
Are you familiar with Vagrant, or willing to learn how to setup Vagrant + Homestead? Do you have a machine capable of running a virtual machine and vagrant? then go with the vagrant based setup (this is the setup Ushahidi staff uses on a daily basis!)
Are you a frontend developer who doesn't want to setup the backend but still wants to contribute? Then try setting up the platform client only, and using the API route of an ushahidi.io deployment. It's the fastest way to get started.
Are you ready to deploy Ushahidi for others to use?
Do you plan to modify the code in some way? Then follow the Installing for production environments setup guide.
Do you want to deploy Ushahidi and not worry about upgrading, monitoring services, or hosting it yourself ? Then start a new deployment in http://ushahidi.io/create and let us manage all the tech for you.
Something in between? Contact the Ushahidi team and we'll figure it out! We're always happy to chat.
Please follow the step by step guide on how to install Ushahidi here.
Yes you can. You can follow this link for more resources on how to install here.
Some folks have been successful in getting platform set up for development in a windows environment. We recommend that If you are not familiar with Vagrant or Vagrant is not working correctly for you in Windows, you try following the XAMPP installation guide here and let us know if you run into any issues.
For production environments, we strongly recommend you use a linux based environment instead, since most of our development and all our production setup is done in either Mac Os or a linux based distribution like Ubuntu, RedHat OS, Fedora, etc.
Are you in the root directory of the platform install? If not, please go inside the platform installation directory.
What version of platform are you running? When you run
ls application/phinx.phpdo you see this file, or an error? If you don't have anapplicationdirectory in the top level of your platform install directory, then you are likely in version 4 of platform and should be runningphp artisan migrateinstead.
You have installed only the API. Unless you are installing the bundle that contains both client and API, you would need to set up both separately. This also requires you to set up two different virtual hosts under different subdomains or ports. If this sounds too complicated, please look at the simplified install of the bundle.
Your web server setup is not handling the URLs as designed. There can be different reasons for this. If you are using Apache, please make sure that you have the directive “AllowOverride All” configured for the folder where you made your installation. If you are using nginx, please make sure that you are using our recommended configuration file.
First, let's identify your stack.
Are you using Ushahidi.io and running a deployment there? If YES, please contact our team through one of these channels https://www.ushahidi.com/contact#
Are you a developer, setting up Ushahidi yourself, maybe for the first time? Then start by checking the network tab in your development browser of choice and identifying any network errors. Look at the response for each and check waht you see.
The most common reasons for this error are:
you have used the wrong url in the BACKEND_URL key of your platform-client .ENV file. Check that when you access the URL in the browser + /api/v3/config it returns valid json. It should look like this when you call the /api/v3/config endpoint for your API: https://qa.api.ushahidi.io/api/v3/config
the server is failing for some reason. If the server is failing, it will likely show an error either in the browser when you call the API URL or in the server logs, which you can see in files contained within {the_platform_install_dir}/storage/logs. Check the errors in the log, often you will see that there is a permissions error somewhere, or a directory is missing, and will be able to solve it yourself.
When reporting issues, please note that we will need as much information as you can provide to be able to help you, so please start by checking all of these things and then contact us with the information you found. through the Ushahidi gitter channel. Details about your development environment, what you have tried doing to solve it, what you were doing when this error occured, and your log files will be critical for our ability to help you get set up.
Are you a developer who is only setting up the client and using ushahidi.io for the API? This is most likely an error in your .ENV file, check that your BACKEND_URL looks like this http://DEPLOYMENTNAME.api.ushahidi.io (notice the .api after your deployment's name, it's important!)
Please verify that all the fields have the correct values and that you have enabled the "Accept survey submissions from this source" toggle (it should be green/on!)
If you think your configuration is correct, please get in touch with your deploment name and details, and someone from the support team will be able to help.
Please verify that all the fields have the correct values and that you have enabled the "Accept survey submissions from this source" toggle (it should be green/on!)
If the configuration values are correct, then proceed to check the following in the platform api
php artisan datasource:incoming
Run the datasource:incoming task manually in the platform API directory (as the example above). It should succeed and not show any errors. If there are errors, check the logs under storage/logs to review what looks wrong. If nothing else, this will help you contact the team through the Ushahidi gitter channel with details.
If the incoming task worked, check if new posts are available. If they are, then this means that the problem is that the datasources work but are not being automatically fetched. Check that you have a crontab running periodically for your datasources and other tasks.
Open your crontab (with crontab -e) and check that it looks like this (the path to platform may be different, it should point to your platform API installation directory):
crontabMAILTO=admin@example.com#ensure a valid email for system notifications*/5 * * * * cd /var/www/platform && php artisan datasource:outgoing*/5 * * * * cd /var/www/platform && php artisan datasource:incoming*/5 * * * * cd /var/www/platform && php artisan savedsearch:sync*/5 * * * * cd /var/www/platform && php artisan notification:queue*/5 * * * * cd /var/www/platform && php artisan webhook:send
If after ensuring the crontab is correct and datasources run you don't see any new posts, please get in touch through the Ushahidi gitter channel with all the details about what you tried and what you have seen, and we'll be happy to help
Please ensure that you are using a supported version of PHP for the version of platform that you are running.
v2 supports up to PHP 5.4
v3 supports PHP 5.6 and 7.0
v4.0.0 supports PHP 7.0 to 7.2
v4.1.0+ supports PHP 7.1 to 7.3 (inclusive). This change was made to ensure we support versions of PHP that are getting security fixes at the very least. See PHP maintainance schedules here.
Please verify that you have created your MySQL database, know the correct credentials for the API to connect to it and that your “.env” file is created with the expected format and at the expected location
Please follow the step by step guide on how to update your deployment to the latest Ushahidi version here.
Yes, you can, but you will need to fork and modify the Ushahidi platform API repository to do so. New datasource types need to be coded into the platform. Check out the src/App/DataSource/ directory in the platform API codebase to learn how the current datasources are created.
If you are planning to add a new data source, please get in touch! The ushahidi development team will be more than happy to help answer any questions or provide guidance.
To change the color or appearance of platform, you will need to fork and modify the Ushahidi Pattern Library, and host Ushahidi in your own servers for the changes to be available. Please follow this guide about our pattern library to learn more.
Please follow the step by step guide on how to connect to the Ushahidi mobile application here.
TO contribute code to the Ushahidi platform, please follow the guidelines here: step-by-step guide to adding code to the platform
You can help us translate the platform into as many languages as possible allowing everyone access. Please follow the instructions to start translating here: Instructions on how to start translating
Connect with the wider Ushahidi community:
Join the discussion on our forum
Sign up on the mailing list
Chat with us on:
IRC at #ushahidi on Freenode
Gitter at ushahidi/Community
Skype
Messages to any of these channels should show up on all of them!
The Ushahidi community is global. If you need assistance in a different language, please contact us and we will try connect you to a wonderful helper.
