Natskin install, not rendering correctly

I've done a new install of Foswiki (1.0.7) and having problems with the NatSkin.

I am using Apache login (apache access controls, using foswiki to map username to wikiname). This is also an internal wiki/documentation install.

Everything works without the NatSkin. I wanted to use a different skin. Took a snapshot of the install, installed FoswikiSiteSkin. Install went fairly smoothly. But wasn't quite as happy with it. Went back to my snapshot (Just in case these plugins conflict) and tried to install NatSkin. I am using the *_installer (running 'perl NatSkin _installer' etc. from install dir). It goes through, installs its dependencies etc. Now, before setting 'SKIN' to the new skin, I decided to preview it by adding '?skin=nat' to the url. But all I get is this in the browser:

%WEBCOMPONENT{"HtmlHead"}%
%USERACTIONS{ guest="
$login$sep$users$sep$register
" format="
$account$sep$users$sep$logout
" }%
%WEBCOMPONENT{"BottomBar"}%

viewing the source, there is a quite a bit of html but don't see any links to css files. so maybe I actually have to configure in SitePreferences but not sure what are good defaults to start with. I went through the NatSkin and NatSkinPlugin. It seems like just setting SKIN should give me working views, just maybe not all the customization. Maybe I'm overlooking something obvious. I 'chown'ed everything to webserver user.

-- ImranNiazi

Do I get you right that after setting

* Set SKIN = nat

in the SitePreferences everything is fine?

-- MichaelDaum - 10 Nov 2009

Oh sorry, I wasn't clear. I have the same problem when I set it in the sitepreferences it doesn't work either. I meant maybe there are other things that need to be configured. When I set it permanently, then all the pages return similar output, and the wiki becomes unusable. I had to restore from my backup/snapshot.

I think maybe that some plugin is missing. I'm only installing the base, plus whatever the installer determined was a dependency. The content that I got, looks like the template wasn't populated. Also is there a plugin/extension I'm supposed to manually enable/disable? I guess I should also attempt a reinstall. I guess a question I should have asked was, everything should just work, if I take a base install, then run the *_installer to install the skin + dependencies? Only thing I installed before NatSkin and after the base install was SubscribePlugin (which I forgot about). I have a snapshot of foswiki before that.

-- ImranNiazi - 10 Nov 2009

It seems as if the NatSkinPlugin is not activated. Please have a look at your System.InstalledPlugins, the apache error log and the foswiki warnings in data/warn200911.txt. Then look at your configure (or lib/LocalSite.cfg ) to check which plugins are actually activated. See the $Fowiki:cfg{...Plugin}{Enabled} = ... lines.

-- MichaelDaum - 10 Nov 2009

Thank you! Yep thats what it was. I was looking under Extensions but not under Plugins. Enabled and was missing DBCacheContrib. Installed and now its pulling up the skin. Thanks again!

-- ImranNiazi - 10 Nov 2009