[TriLUG] Strange PHP problem

[Matt Nash]

Hi folks,

I am having a problem with my Apache2/PHP5 installation on a relatively 
new Ubuntu Dapper installation.  I regularly perform a dist-upgrade and 
I believe it was after one of these that my problems began.

I have been testing out SugarCRM as well as using phpmyadmin to manage 
MySQL, and these apps have been working just fine.  Suddenly, the web 
server has started treating PHP scripts as files to download rather than 
scripts to execute.  The browser says "You have chosen to open (...) 
which is a: application/x-httpd-php.  What should Firefox do with this 
file?"  There is empty space in place of the (...), not a file name.

I have been through the Apache config file and added a ScriptAlias and 
Action directive to try to solve this, but nothing I do seems to have 
any effect.  In fact, I can't seem to change the name of the MIME type 
in the error message-- if I change the line in apache2.conf to read 
"AddType application/x-httpd-phpBLAH .php" then the message that Firefox 
pops up still includes "application/x-httpd-php".

To add to the confusion, if I type the full path to an actual PHP script 
into the address bar, I get a slightly different message: "You have 
chosen to open index.php which is a: PHP file"

Even stranger, I still get the "What should Firefox do with this file?" 
message after I have stopped Apache.

Thanks for any help you can offer.

Matt