Question

Whenever a new user tries to register, they get the following error (edited):

You are already registered 
Can't register twice, the username BlahMsBlahh? is already registered. 
Please contact admin@mycompany.com if you have any questions. 

Topic TWikiRegistration . { }  

But the user does not exist. They do not have a Wiki Topic with their name and they do not exist in .htpasswd. Everything else on the Wiki seems to work fine. There are no errors at all in the Apache error_log . Any suggestions at other things I can look at?

This server does run under mod_perl BTW, and User Registration used to work (I think even after we went to mod_perl).

We've tried it from unix clients and windows clients, netscape 6, mozilla, IE. All to no avail.

• TWiki version: 01 Dec 2001
• Perl version: 5.6.1
• Web server & version: Apache/1.3.27 (Unix) mod_perl/1.27
• Server OS: Solaris 5.9
• Web browser & version: various
• Client OS: various

-- DaveMangot - 13 Jan 2003

Answer

Seems like a coding issue if mod_perl is enabled. The latest TWikiBetaRelease has some mod_perl fixes. In your installation try to move $query = new CGI; to inside the main function and 'my'yfy it, e.g. my $query = new CGI;. If that does not help, do some TWikiDebugging on the register script.

-- PeterThoeny - 14 Jan 2003

Moving and my'ing fixed the problem, thanks. If anyone else tries this solution, don't forget to apachectl graceful after applying the change or mod_perl won't pick it up.

-- DaveMangot - 14 Jan 2003

This might be related to my problem that was exactly the other way round: CantFindUsernameWhenUserExists

-- MatthiasWientapper - 04 Dec 2003

Had this same problem today, but above mentioned fixes appear to already be in Debian package of TWiki. In .htpasswd was a manually created entry for the user name that I had tried registering and had error "...Can't register twice...". Simply removing this user from .htpasswd and then registering the user again fixed it for me.

-- JasonRyan - 16 Mar 2004

I also get this problem after having updated twiki files. After filling in the form and submitting, the loading 'hangs' and gets a browser timeout. Re-submitting leads to "user exists", but the user name has a question mark, indicating that the user topic is not created. The password entry is created at this time. Reloading the oops page shows the user topic as a normal link.

After looking at the error log I noticed that TWiki.pm reads a variable that is set in TWiki.cfg

[Sun May  9 14:13:23 2004] view: Use of uninitialized value in string eq at /home/aclemens/twiki_lib_dekko/TWiki.pm line 2266.

Appears to be: $htpasswdFormatFamily that is a new variable. So I needed to updated TWiki.cfg as well (forgot/was reluctant because I must not forget to save the installation settings).

Apparently this is not the total solution to my problem, as I still have it.

Update: register script hangs on sending confirmation email. Entered a working mail server name in TWikiPreferences and registering works now. Only I now get a Send Mail Error.

-- ArthurClemens - 09 May 2004