Can't Install NatSkin

When I try to install the NatSkin plugin, I get a white screen for a while, then I get this error:

Software error:

Deep recursion on subroutine "Foswiki::Configure::Package::install" at /xxxx/xxxx/foswiki/lib/Foswiki/Configure/Package.pm line 1525.

I'm running Foswiki 1.9 via fcgid, using Perl 5.18 on a CentOS 6 cPanel VPS instance. I created a non-system Perl in the /opt directory, and used changeshebang (and a few other tricks) to setup Foswiki completely independent from the system Perl (5.8).

The site seems to work fine, I haven't had any problems while testing, but the NatSkin plugin just won't install. I have installed all of it's dependencies, including the SetVariable plugin.

I wonder if this is a perl 5.18 issue? I've seen some comments about Perl 5.18 in Foswiki developer posts (I Googled foswiki perl 5.18). It looks like most of the issues have been cleared up, but maybe this is a new one?

Just for the record, Foswiki is awesome!

Thanks Foswiki community for creating such a powerful tool!

-Paul

-- TengoPaul - 11 Apr 2015

Unfortunately this is an error in how Foswiki processes extension dependencies. There is no check for the situation where two extensions cross-require each other as a dependency. The bug is fixed in the upcoming Foswiki 1.2, but not on 1.1.9. There is a patch available in Tasks.Item12001 which retrofits the 1.2 fixes in to 1.1.9. If you don't want to apply that, the following quick fix might let you install the pieces from the shell.

If you can run the installation from the command line, edit tools/extender.pl and around line 272, you should insert a line NODEPS => 1, (including the trailing comma)

        {
            SHELL    => 1,
            USELOCAL => $reuseOK,
            SIMULATE => $simulate,
            NODEPS  => 1,
            DIR      => $installationRoot,
        }

That will let the install run without installing any dependencies. You can install NatEditPlugin and each of the dependencies one at a time. Or remove the NODEPS line, (set it to 0) and see if it will auto-install the dependencies.

-- GeorgeClark - 12 Apr 2015