phpBB3 assumes that for a MySql database the auto_increment is set to 1. As with many load balanced MySql server setups this is not true for us. Having an auto_increment of 2 means that all the foreign keys (and other data) is wrong.

I am installing phpBB3 on a linux server - all goes fine with the install until the final stage. Then I get a 'General Error:Could not get style data' error message.

This comes from ./includes/session.php at line 1634. The sql it generates is:

SELECT s.style_id, t.template_storedb, t.template_path, t.template_id, t.bbcode_bitfield, c.theme_path, c.theme_name, c.theme_storedb, c.theme_id, i.imageset_path, i.imageset_id, i.imageset_name FROM phpbb_styles s, phpbb_styles_template t, phpbb_styles_theme c, phpbb_styles_imageset i WHERE s.style_id = 1 AND t.template_id = s.template_id AND c.theme_id = s.theme_id AND i.imageset_id = s.imageset_id;

The result is:

Empty set (0.01 sec)

OK, after a lot of digging I have found out why I get this 'Could not get style data' error message. In the file /includes/session.php there is this line (line 1605):

$style = ($style) ? $style : ((!$config['override_user_style']) ? $this->data['user_style'] : $config['default_style']);

which returns 1 after install as there is only 1 style ('prosilver') installed. However later there is the line 1608
which has the sql condition:

WHERE s.style_id = $style which would make perfect sense if the auto_increment on the MySql database was set to 1 as the first style_id in table phpbb_styles would be '1'. But in an environment with Server Load Balancing for the MySql server auto_increment can be set to 2 (which it is in our case).

I can of course add '&style=2' to the URL, but this is only a short term fix - the PHP code needs fixing.