Admin Page displays white page of death

[blogger419]

I recently purchased my own server to use as a test server for my forum. After overcoming several issues, my forum finally appears to be working except for one thing. When I click on the "Admin" link on the forum menu I am brought to a blank white page. I have researched this issue and done everything suggested, all relevant memory settings are set at 1024M, the server has 16GB so I am not over loading it. Repair_settings.PHP are all at the recommended values. This is a copy of a live site so I know that everything works when configured properly. I am not sure what I am missing. Any ideas?

Server OS is Centos 7
I am running 2.0.10
Pretty URLs is disabled
All memory settings are at 1024
The HTML directory is set at 777

Side Note: I've seen several people with similar issues, the default response from SMF staff is to get a better host. I would argue that you shouldn't just reply with "get a better host" when you don't listen to the whole problem. You're assuming that everyone is using cheap hosting when some people are running their own servers, and some people are running VPS' where they have full control and are still dealing with these issues.

[Dave J]

When this has happened to me in the past it's normally something to do with installing Mods and some code that hasn't written correctly or been missed. What I suggest is if you have installed mods go in the reverse direction that you installed them and un-install them. Check to ensure that all code has been 100% removed from the files it has written to, then try to look at the site again and the admin

Another trick I try is, because I back up my folders as well as my database, I rename the existing 'Sources' folder then upload my old version to see if the site then works, you can also do it with the theme templates too.

I should point out that I have a cron job set up to backup my site files and databases daily, so you do have to get some sort of backup sets in place first before being able to do what I suggested above if you haven't done them manually.

[Shambles]

When diagnosing issues like this, I use the old "TALATEL" trick.

Take A Look At The Error Logs

http://yourforumurl/index.php?action=admin;area=logs;sa=errorlog;desc

If your forum error log doesn't indicate anything (or you get a white page of doom trying to look) then have a ganders at the error_log file on your hosting system.

[Kindred]

Well, the answer "get a better host" includes those folks who have acquired their own servers but have no idea how to configure them....

If you are running your own server, then you really need to know how to configure and debug issues on the server (or have/pay a host who does)

Shambles... the SMF error log won't have anything. The WSOD is a server level error in php -- which means that SMF never gets to the error logging.

blogger419... You are going to have to look at the SERVER error logs. Assuming you have configured your server correctly, it should be logging server errors in a file called error.log or errorlog. or something along those lines. That is actually the ONLY way to figure out what is causing the issue.


I am not a server expert myself... but that memory setting does not sound like enough....

[Shambles]

The WSOD is a server level error in php -- which means that SMF never gets to the error logging.

..which is why I wrote

... have a ganders at the error_log file on your hosting system.