Update: I eventually solved the problem by setting my PHP memory limit to 32m and reinstalling via PEAR. The first attempt (at 8mb) had run out of memory and crashed, leaving me with a broken copy.

I experienced a weird issue today when installing the symfony framework for PHP. I used the PEAR install method, and everything went smoothly until I tried to run the symfony command from my shell. It turns out a few hundred very important Symfony files were prefixed “.tmp” for some reason that I’ve been unable to ascertain. Anyway, after renaming these files, Symfony worked like a charm.

If you found this page through Google because you’re having the same issue, you can download and run this simple script I wrote for a quick and easy solution. But be sure to read the warning at the top ;)

Cheers.