Quick checklist:

• Correct permissions.
• Correct shebang line
• In the correct directory?
• Is a particular extension required (i.e., do you have myprog.pl instead of myprog.cgi)?

use CGI::Carp qw(fatalsToBrowser);
[download]

From what you are describing, it sounds like the problem is not with your code, but with the configuration. You have your code in the wrong place or something.

Is there any chance that you made corrections to your code that you forgot to upload to the server?

Ovid, when I added the line

use CGI::Carp qw(fatalsToBrowser);
[download]

I got an error:
Software error:
Can't locate object method "new" via package "CGI" at .......
So I presume that the program is compiling. And when I run it from the command line it's all good. Thanks a lot for helping a very bad perl programmer.

Oh! This is a good sign. It means that your script is trying to run.

Perhaps I should have been more clear. use CGI::Carp qw(fatalsToBrowser); does not replace use CGI;. I suspect that either you used it in place of use CGI; or you are trying to assign new CGI before the use CGI; statement. Either of those will produce the error you describe. Try the following:

#!/usr/bin/perl -Tw
use strict;

use CGI;
use CGI::Carp qw(fatalsToBrowser);

my $query = new CGI;

# the rest of your code goes here.
[download]

Note that use CGI; is before the new CGI; assignment.

Also notice the -T switch on the command line. That's for "taint checking." You're going to hate this, but you really need to read perlsec and understand what's going on. If you start learning this early, you will save yourself a lot of problems down the road.

Cheers,
Ovid

P.S.: Don't think of yourself as a bad Perl programmer, think of yourself as a new Perl programmer. There's a difference :)