CPanel Updates Breaking Movable Type Installations

Many users are experiencing intermittent 500 errors when using Movable Type, apparently as a result of certain Perl modules being upgraded by CPanel. (CPanel is an application which automates the management of shared hosting accounts.)

The modules are currently identified as DBI and DBD::mysql. Preliminary reports suggest that reverting these two modules to versions 1.47 and 2.9006 respectively will eliminate the 500 errors.

Some limited testing in a non-CPanel environment with the latest versions of these modules (1.48 and 3.0000 respectively) has not produced any similar performance issues to date; thus, it is not yet clear whether the newer modules alone are responsible for these errors, or whether it is something inherent to CPanel itself which is contributing to the issue.

We are still gathering information on the various configurations which have been affected at this point. Once we've determined all of the incompatibilities and created a patch, we'll post additional information here on the Professional Network blog as well as on Movable Type news.

UPDATE (Jul 6th, 2005 11pm PST): The developer of the DBD::MySQL driver reports that he has discovered the source of the problem (with the help of our own Brad Choate) and posted a fix for the module. Those of your with hosts using automatic CPanel updates should see the updates within the next 24 hours.