1.
I'm running magento 1.7.0.2. Upon trying to install the "Blank" theme found at http://www.magentocommerce.com/magento-connect/blank-theme.html with Magento Connect (version 2.0, 1.0 did not work), I get the following error message:
"The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to maintenance downtime or capacity problems. Please ty again later."
This error message appears in the main area of the page as the only message, and displays even when I try to display the admin user interface. I solved this problem by reinstalling everything.
Later I realized that the default design package already has a theme called base which is presumably the reason why this did not work (the installation failed with a warning that widget.xml already exists). Then, once I try to reload any of the pages, I get the following error.
2.
I also want to ask, how come does System -> Magento Connect -> Magento Connect Manager ask the user to change every Linux directory to world-writable. Isn't it enough that the apache group www-data have all (read,write,execute) permissions on every file. After all apache runs with GID set to www-data so this should be sufficient. Also, making everything world-writeable under the magento directory should be a security risk, right?
Thanks,
John Goche