Moodle installation problem

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Moodle installation problem, Old install prevents new install? (3 Replies, Read 2045 times)

daniel_rodriguez	# May 5, 2026, 11:40 am
Group: Member Post Group: Newbie Posts: 4 Status:	Hi everyone! On a cPanel server, we have an old, manually installed Moodle on this path: /home/user/public_html/site1/ Moodledata is at /home/user/public_html/moodledata/ Now, we want to replace it with a brand new installation. We want to install a new Moodle using Softaculous, on this path: /home/user/public_html/site2/ We want to create the moodledata dir at /home/user/moodledata/ , outside public_html But Softaculous shows an error message on the installation process. Well, two errors messages, an the installation halts: =========================================== - It seems that the Moodle files are already present at /home/user/public_html location. Hence you can not install Moodle on this domain. Please try to install lower version of Moodle on this domain. - The folder /home/user/public_html should not be accessible via web. This folder is a document root of another domain =========================================== It looks like the old Moodle install is preventing the new Moodle install; is that so? Is there any way for us to create a new Moodle instance on this user account, using Softaculous?
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Moodle installation problem

nikita	# May 7, 2026, 11:42 am \| Post: 1
Group: Softaculous Team Post Group: Working Newbie Posts: 57 Status:	Hi, Apologies for the inconvenience caused to you. As of Moodle 5.1, the script has made significant changes in their code structure. Only the /public subdirectory should be accessible to the web, while the core application code stays one level above it. https://docs.moodle.org/501/en/Upgrading#Code_directories_restructure When you try to install Moodle 5.1 via Softaculous into /public_html/site2, Softaculous attempts to place the core files in /public_html and the web-accessible files in /public_html/site2 Since your /public_html is already a root directory of the another domain, Softaculous is throwing an error. "The folder /home/user/public_html should not be accessible via web. This folder is a document root of another domain" The error "files are already present" occurs because Softaculous has detected a similar file or directory name in your /public_html directory. Since Softaculous needs to put the new Moodle's core files in the parent directory (/public_html), it sees the existing folders and halts to prevent overwriting or mixing two different Moodle versions. Instead of installing to a subfolder (site2), create a subdomain (e.g., newsite.yourdomain.com) and point its Document Root to a new, empty folder outside of public_html (e.g., /home/user/newsite_files). This isolates the two installations entirely and satisfies the Moodle 5.1 requirements.
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Moodle installation problem

daniel_rodriguez	# May 7, 2026, 3:21 pm \| Post: 2
Group: Member Post Group: Newbie Posts: 4 Status:	Hi Nikita! Thank you for your help, that makes sense But Softaculous should be able to place the core files outside /public_html/ ( one folder above, on the user homedir ), and the public files at /public_html/site2/ I mean, we can do that manually, and it works; shouldn't Softaculous be able to do it too? Could this be considered a bug on the current Softaculous version? Or is it the intended behavior? Kind regards.
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Moodle installation problem

nikita	# Today at 11:37 am \| Post: 3
Group: Softaculous Team Post Group: Working Newbie Posts: 57 Status:	Hi, Sure. We shall test this scenario and get back to you.
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