@hypolite@xy@helpers Unfortunately, I can't troubleshoot anymore today. I tried switching to PHP 7.4 CGI from FastCGI but that didn't immediately solve anything (other than make the error more obvious: going to / attempts to redirect to index.php/install/install...etc)
I've been trying to use the release tarball because when I initially tried I got a mod_security error regarding .git... So, if and when I continue, I might abandon this subdomain entirely, start fresh with a new subdomain using regular CGI and try again with git and investigate the mod_security error.
You cannot get the query string in FastCGI by using the @ARGV array. You must use $ENV{'QUERY_STRING'} instead. and... If an error occurs in your FastCGI script, it may not be returned immediately. If the script loads a web page, the page will appear to hang. When the script times out, it's possible that the error message may not be logged and you'll only see a 500 error.
@hypolite@xy Yes, strangely, nothing in my error logs, just a record of the request in the access logs. On a whim, I un-commented the line in .htaccess "AddHandler php53-cgi .php" and going to / at least downloaded something. Is there a version of this I should have for 7.4 FastCGI?
@xy I sincerely appreciate your help, by the way! This is an interesting tool but just confirms what I'm witnessing in the browser: going directly to the site redirects to /install and returns a 500 error. Going directly to index.php redirects to infinitely many /install/install...etc
I did notice that attempting to go to "index.php" causes a redirect to "index.php/install/install/install/install...etc". I had read someone here github.com/friendica/friendica… mention something similar, but I'm not sure if it's relevant.