I just configured a plugin (captcha) using Configuration Manager. Everything broke. :(
In local.php, I found the following:
1. This
$conf['authtype'] = 'authmysql';
require_once ('mysql.conf.php');
had become (approximately, I didn't keep a copy, but basically, an extra level of quotes got added to everything)
$conf['authtype'] = '\'authmysql\'; require_once (\'mysql.conf.php\');'
which totally trashed MySQL authentication
2. Similarly, this
$conf['mailfrom'] = $conf['title'] . admin . ' <do-not-reply@earwigo.net>';
had become (approximately)
$conf['mailfrom'] = '$conf[\'title\'] . admin . \' <do-not-reply@earwigo.net>\';'
which meant that mails seem to come from "$conf"
3. This line
$conf['plugin']['authmysql']['TablesToLock'] = array();
had been added, which meant that the front page of the Wiki displays this pink message:
Command disabled: register
and new users don't get a "Register" link.
Now maybe all of these are being caused by something strange in my hosting company's PHP setup to do with escaping quotes or some other general PHP BS, but in any case it seems that the code should be able to detect and handle those situations. I'm happy to do further testing if required to help fix this problem, which it seems to me would be likely to cause some Wiki owners to run screaming from the room.