[Koha] Install fails: 19.11 on fresh Debian 9: table $SITE.zebraqueue doesn't exist

[Dwight Tuinstra]

Hello all --

I'm volunteering some IT consulting at a small research library in Oaxaca,
Mexico, that wishes to use koha. To start the project I'm trying to install
a test instance of koha 19.11 on a fresh install of Debian 9, which the
documentation suggests is one of the preferred platforms.

I've carefully followed the wiki document "Koha on Debian" (
https://wiki.koha-community.org/wiki/Koha_on_Debian), performing all steps
in the order indicated. So far I found one (known but unfixed)
documentation bug and applied the workaround -- one needs to add a
backports repository -- but this time I'm running up against something that
isn't so easy.

The problem manifests as the web UI seeming to hang after going through all
the configuration screens and clicking on the button to create the database
tables. After several minutes of no activity, the brower reports
"Gateway Timeout" The gateway did not receive a timely response from the
upstream server or application.

There are two possible causes that I've been able to see so far:

POSSIBILITY 1:
There is an indexer problem that occurs even before the point where the web
installer is run. The file /var/log/koha/opac (I'm calling my instance
"opac") begins to fill up with error messages. The first few are:

DBD::mysql::db do failed: Table 'koha_opac.systempreferences' doesn't exist
[for Statement "
            SELECT * FROM systempreferences WHERE 1 = 0 "] at
/usr/share/koha/lib/Koha/Database.pm line 114.
DBD::mysql::st execute failed: Table 'koha_opac.systempreferences' doesn't
exist [for Statement "SELECT `me`.`variable`, `me`.`value`, `me`.`options`,
`me`.`explanation`, `me`.`type` FROM `systempreferences` `me` WHERE (
`me`.`variable` = ? )" with ParamValues: 0='casauthentication'] at
/usr/share/perl5/DBIx/Class/Storage/DBI.pm line 1836.
DBD::mysql::st execute failed: Table 'koha_opac.systempreferences' doesn't
exist [for Statement "SELECT `me`.`variable`, `me`.`value`, `me`.`options`,
`me`.`explanation`, `me`.`type` FROM `systempreferences` `me` WHERE (
`me`.`variable` = ? )" with ParamValues: 0='caslogout'] at
/usr/share/perl5/DBIx/Class/Storage/DBI.pm line 1836.
DBD::mysql::st execute failed: Table 'koha_opac.systempreferences' doesn't
exist [for Statement "SELECT `me`.`variable`, `me`.`value`, `me`.`options`,
`me`.`explanation`, `me`.`type` FROM `systempreferences` `me` WHERE (
`me`.`variable` = ? )" with ParamValues: 0='casserverurl'] at
/usr/share/perl5/DBIx/Class/Storage/DBI.pm line 1836.
DBD::mysql::db selectall_arrayref failed: Table
'koha_opac.marc_subfield_structure' doesn't exist [for Statement "
        SELECT *
        FROM marc_subfield_structure
        WHERE frameworkcode = ?
        AND kohafield > ''
        ORDER BY frameworkcode,tagfield,tagsubfield
    "] at /usr/share/koha/lib/C4/Biblio.pm line 1013.
DBD::mysql::st execute failed: Table 'koha_opac.zebraqueue' doesn't exist
[for Statement "SELECT COUNT(*) FROM zebraqueue WHERE done = 0;"] at
/usr/share/koha/bin/migration_tools/rebuild_zebra.pl line 324.
DBD::mysql::st fetchrow_arrayref failed: fetch() without execute() [for
Statement "SELECT COUNT(*) FROM zebraqueue WHERE done = 0;"] at
/usr/share/koha/bin/migration_tools/rebuild_zebra.pl line 325.

After this, the log continues to grow with the last two lines constantly
added over and over. Curiously, though, this seems to stop about the time
that the web installer is run.

POSSIBILITY 2:
The creation of database tables takes so long that the browser or installer
times out, or race conditions arise. I watched table creation in another
window as the web installer was running. Table creation seemed to go slow
(roughly a table every second) even though there was plenty of free memory,
free disk space (with low disk activity), and the CPUs were over 95% idle.
Table creation stopped at 162 tables, at almost the exact same moment that
the browser gave the timeout message, so I'm not sure if that's all the
tables or if there are supposed to be more.

What's odd here is that the web installer writes a good number of messages
to /var/log/koha/opac/intranet-error.log, each saying that one of these
database tables do not exist: language_descriptions,
language_subtag_registry, or systempreferences. However, all of these
tables *do* exist in the database when one examines it later, which
suggests a race condition.

OTHER INFO:
- Virtualization: VirtualBox 5.2.34_Ubuntu r133883, 2 i7 CPUs,
pre-allocated fixed disk (32Gb), 2GB RAM
- Debian version: 4.9.0-12-686-pae #1 SMP Debian 4.9.210-1 (2020-01-20) i686
- Koha version: 19.11
- Following: stable
- Database: mariadb, on same host as koha
- During WebUI installer:
    - All Perl dependencies installed and OK
    - All DB settings look reasonable, connection established, and database
koha_opac exists and can be accessed

Please help! I've spent hours upon hours doing the installation over and
over, making sure everything is clean and updated, and all changes and
actions are exactly as the documentation requests. I've kept configuration
changes to the minimum required by the documentation in order to avoid
complications. What do I need to do to get koha installed?

  --Dwight (Memo)