Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Programming Discussion : Blank PHP page with no reported errors

[lbeachmike]

Hi there -

I have a client running Wordpress with some obscure plug-in and today his WP install began producing a blank page. Of course I figured there must be PHP errors, so made sure to be logging all errors but still no errors being reported at run-time or to the error log to shed light on what is going on, and still the blank page after sitting there for a bit.

Not sure how to effectively nail down what is going on.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks.

mrk

[fabin]

Try disabling all plugins and check if that brings the site back.

[Tactics]

Make sure all closing tags <? ?> are present and don't have extra spaces before or after. If your client edited the config file for instance and removed one of the two, then this will cause a problem. I have checked the latest version of Wordpress and wp-config.php is missing the end closing tag, try adding it and see if this fixes your problem.

If you know its a plugin related issue, disable all plugins.

[lbeachmike]

Originally Posted by fabin

Try disabling all plugins and check if that brings the site back.

Ahhh - yes, I needed that sanity-check. Why hadn't I thought of this previously?

I will go and do that - although I have no doubt this will bring the site back. This client is running an obscure and very messy plug-in that does "passive blogging"

Tactics - the client has not edited any files, and the site was indeed working early today.

Thanks for the sanity check ... I expect to be back with more questions

Mike

[lbeachmike]

Great advice guys and thanks for the help -

This was narrowed down to the slimstat plug-in, which for some reason causes issues on normal WP operation, but otherwise works fine in wp-admin.

Now the main question is why was I unable to get any errors logged at all to help guide me to source of the problem?

Thanks.

Mike

[fabin]

Now the main question is why was I unable to get any errors logged at all to help guide me to source of the problem?

Because most plugins doesn't have logging feature. Only apache and php errors are logged in apache's error log.

[lbeachmike]

Originally Posted by fabin

Because most plugins doesn't have logging feature. Only apache and php errors are logged in apache's error log.

Thanks Fabin - but if I am getting a blank page in PHP, doesn't that suggest that there is a PHP error causing it?

The odd thing is that this site previously worked with the very same plug-in and simply stopped working today, but nothing was changed that we are aware of.

Thanks.

mrk

[fabin]

but if I am getting a blank page in PHP, doesn't that suggest that there is a PHP error causing it?

Not necessarily

The odd thing is that this site previously worked with the very same plug-in and simply stopped working today, but nothing was changed that we are aware of.

May be the plugin is buggy.

[lbeachmike]

Well, I now see what happened.

Originally there was some permissions issue with the cache and images directories when the plug-in was first installed by the client, so I corrected this. I can now see by the timestamps on the files for the slimstat plugin that it was clearly reinstalled earlier today and the permissions changes were thus wiped away.

This clearly is the cause of the issue. What's odd is that we originally received error messages, but now we get the blank screen instead.

Thanks for the help guys - it's much appreciated.

Mike