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Frequently Asked Questions

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Installation​

How do I log into a fresh install?​

The installation and setup process creates an admin user that you can use to create other users:

  • Username: admin
  • Password: changeme

Change this password immediately after your first login.

How do I set up map features?​

ChurchCRM currently supports two different mapping service providers which cannot be used together; you need to choose one or the other. We currently support:

  • Google Maps API
  • Microsoft Bing Maps

Both require configuration external to ChurchCRM before using the mapping features. See Geographic and Google Maps Setup for details.

I get "Too Many Redirects" or errors while making API calls​

Please check whether mod_rewrite is working on your server. In addition, read the comment thread at #3153 for more steps on how to diagnose mod_rewrite.

Apache2 VirtualHost Config​

see https://github.com/ChurchCRM/CRM/blob/master/cloud9/001-cloud9.conf for the config used by our cloud9 dev system.

Internal Server Error 500​

See the 500 Error guide. In many cases the cause is incorrect file permissions. Set permissions as described in File System Permissions.

Error reporting in PHP​

To see more detailed errors during troubleshooting, edit your Include/Config.php (or the .example from the ChurchCRM source) and change:

error_reporting(E_ERROR); to error_reporting(E_ALL);

See the PHP error reporting constants for other options.

Debug​

Explore various methods for debugging the ChurchCRM application, including turning on error reporting and enabling app logs.

Enable the logs in the System Settings, the default value is INFO but you may want to change that. The logs are created in the /logs dir. Please note that logs are not cleaned by the system and it is up to the admin to clean files.

How do I set up my logo or letterhead?​

Many reports and documents can include a logo or letterhead. By default, ChurchCRM looks for these files in the Images/ directory:

church_letterhead.jpg
church_letterhead.png

It may be tempting to simply upload your own artwork and rename the files as above, but this is not "upgrade-safe". System upgrades will overwrite your files with the default ones again. The correct method is:

  1. Ensure your letterhead or logo is 500x80 pixels or an exact multiple of this ratio (eg. 1000x160 is also acceptable).

  2. Your logo should be either PNG or JPEG/JPG format. Be aware only PNG supports transparency (alpha channel).

  3. Upload your image to /Images using FTP/sFTP/SSH (whatever your hosting provider supports). eg. using SSH secure copy:

    scp my_fancy_letterhead.jpg user@hostingprovider:ChurchCRM/Images

  4. Log in to ChurchCRM with an admin account.

  5. Go to Admin → Edit General Settings → Report Settings.

  6. Set sDirLetterHead to ../Images/<your_file_name> and click Save Settings.

    Replace <your_file_name> with the image you uploaded in step 3.