Forum was working now shows a blank white screen

[helpwanted2]

I just got my forum working last night and now when I go to my forum it shows a blank white page. For christs sake I just got it working any help?

[Kindred]

what is your forum URL?
Who is your host?

A white screen of death indicates a major error on the server-side of things.
Check your forum directory on the server for a file called error.txt or maybe just error. (or something like that)

barring that, ask your host what is going on...

[helpwanted2]

what is your forum URL?
Who is your host?

A white screen of death indicates a major error on the server-side of things.
Check your forum directory on the server for a file called error.txt or maybe just error. (or something like that)

barring that, ask your host what is going on...

My host would not have a clue what is going on. They had no involvement in the set up of of my forum they only gave me a  Debian server to access through SSH.

Also I see no error.txt or any file in my server directory.

[Kindred]

whether they were involved in the setup of your forum or not.... this issue is an issue that can only be determined by looking at the SERVER error logs.

they should be able to tell you what is CAUSING the error (if they can't, then I suggest finding another host who has some level of competence)

[Illori]

they should be able to tell you what is CAUSING the error (if they can't, then I suggest finding another host who has some level of competence)

it sounds like you have a unmanaged server, is this correct? it seems the knowledge you have is not enough to be running an unmanaged server. i would suggest moving to a server that is managed if you dont know how to locate the webserver error logs. most of the time an unmanaged server would not get much help from the host due to being unmanaged.

[helpwanted2]

whether they were involved in the setup of your forum or not.... this issue is an issue that can only be determined by looking at the SERVER error logs.

they should be able to tell you what is CAUSING the error (if they can't, then I suggest finding another host who has some level of competence)

I found an error log and more files in "/var/log/apache2" ill post them here if it helps

[helpwanted2]

they should be able to tell you what is CAUSING the error (if they can't, then I suggest finding another host who has some level of competence)

it sounds like you have a unmanaged server, is this correct? it seems the knowledge you have is not enough to be running an unmanaged server. i would suggest moving to a server that is managed if you dont know how to locate the webserver error logs. most of the time an unmanaged server would not get much help from the host due to being unmanaged.

Managed isnt my thing, instead of having a GUI that limits me I would rather have a CLI and do whatever I please. Yea I may not be able to find logs but im still getting there.

[helpwanted2]

Here are the error logs

[Sat Mar 12 06:25:04.104142 2016] [mpm_prefork:notice] [pid 1057] AH00163: Apache/2.4.18 (Debian) configured -- resuming normal operations
[Sat Mar 12 06:25:04.104179 2016] [core:notice] [pid 1057] AH00094: Command line: '/usr/sbin/apache2'
[Sat Mar 12 08:19:36.836396 2016] [mpm_prefork:notice] [pid 1057] AH00169: caught SIGTERM, shutting down
[Sun Mar 13 05:32:49.045077 2016] [mpm_prefork:notice] [pid 26140] AH00163: Apache/2.4.18 (Debian) configured -- resuming normal operations
[Sun Mar 13 05:32:49.045159 2016] [core:notice] [pid 26140] AH00094: Command line: '/usr/sbin/apache2'
[Sun Mar 13 05:34:03.621086 2016] [mpm_prefork:notice] [pid 26140] AH00169: caught SIGTERM, shutting down
[Sun Mar 13 05:42:07.369374 2016] [mpm_prefork:notice] [pid 26374] AH00163: Apache/2.4.18 (Debian) configured -- resuming normal operations
[Sun Mar 13 05:42:07.369443 2016] [core:notice] [pid 26374] AH00094: Command line: '/usr/sbin/apache2'

Here are the other ones

[Fri Mar 11 06:25:02.534674 2016] [mpm_prefork:notice] [pid 7996] AH00163: Apache/2.4.18 (Debian) configured -- resuming normal operations
[Fri Mar 11 06:25:02.534718 2016] [core:notice] [pid 7996] AH00094: Command line: '/usr/sbin/apache2'
[Fri Mar 11 15:20:31.893958 2016] [mpm_prefork:notice] [pid 7996] AH00169: caught SIGTERM, shutting down
[Fri Mar 11 15:20:53.992726 2016] [mpm_prefork:notice] [pid 5096] AH00163: Apache/2.4.18 (Debian) configured -- resuming normal operations
[Fri Mar 11 15:20:53.992793 2016] [core:notice] [pid 5096] AH00094: Command line: '/usr/sbin/apache2'
[Fri Mar 11 15:27:04.825853 2016] [mpm_prefork:notice] [pid 5096] AH00169: caught SIGTERM, shutting down
[Fri Mar 11 15:27:05.917193 2016] [mpm_prefork:notice] [pid 5240] AH00163: Apache/2.4.18 (Debian) configured -- resuming normal operations
[Fri Mar 11 15:27:05.917257 2016] [core:notice] [pid 5240] AH00094: Command line: '/usr/sbin/apache2'
[Fri Mar 11 15:31:00.248021 2016] [mpm_prefork:notice] [pid 5240] AH00169: caught SIGTERM, shutting down
[Fri Mar 11 15:31:01.344678 2016] [mpm_prefork:notice] [pid 5348] AH00163: Apache/2.4.18 (Debian) configured -- resuming normal operations
[Fri Mar 11 15:31:01.344746 2016] [core:notice] [pid 5348] AH00094: Command line: '/usr/sbin/apache2'
[Fri Mar 11 15:45:05.224312 2016] [mpm_prefork:notice] [pid 5348] AH00169: caught SIGTERM, shutting down
[Fri Mar 11 18:20:41.860309 2016] [mpm_prefork:notice] [pid 7324] AH00163: Apache/2.4.18 (Debian) configured -- resuming normal operations
[Fri Mar 11 18:20:41.860381 2016] [core:notice] [pid 7324] AH00094: Command line: '/usr/sbin/apache2'
[Fri Mar 11 18:25:15.899879 2016] [mpm_prefork:notice] [pid 7324] AH00169: caught SIGTERM, shutting down
[Fri Mar 11 18:25:16.983667 2016] [mpm_prefork:notice] [pid 8876] AH00163: Apache/2.4.18 (Debian) configured -- resuming normal operations
[Fri Mar 11 18:25:16.983738 2016] [core:notice] [pid 8876] AH00094: Command line: '/usr/sbin/apache2'
[Fri Mar 11 20:20:55.964202 2016] [mpm_prefork:notice] [pid 8876] AH00169: caught SIGTERM, shutting down
[Fri Mar 11 20:20:56.974451 2016] [mpm_prefork:notice] [pid 10650] AH00163: Apache/2.4.18 (Debian) configured -- resuming normal operations
[Fri Mar 11 20:20:56.974546 2016] [core:notice] [pid 10650] AH00094: Command line: '/usr/sbin/apache2'
[Fri Mar 11 20:21:41.104744 2016] [mpm_prefork:notice] [pid 10650] AH00169: caught SIGTERM, shutting down
[Fri Mar 11 20:22:41.646632 2016] [mpm_prefork:notice] [pid 12611] AH00163: Apache/2.4.18 (Debian) configured -- resuming normal operations
[Fri Mar 11 20:22:41.646701 2016] [core:notice] [pid 12611] AH00094: Command line: '/usr/sbin/apache2'
[Fri Mar 11 20:39:20.933250 2016] [mpm_prefork:notice] [pid 12611] AH00169: caught SIGTERM, shutting down
[Fri Mar 11 20:41:32.541672 2016] [mpm_prefork:notice] [pid 1057] AH00163: Apache/2.4.18 (Debian) configured -- resuming normal operations
[Fri Mar 11 20:41:32.558518 2016] [core:notice] [pid 1057] AH00094: Command line: '/usr/sbin/apache2'
[Sat Mar 12 06:25:04.034295 2016] [mpm_prefork:notice] [pid 1057] AH00171: Graceful restart requested, doing restart
AH00558: apache2: Could not reliably determine the server's fully qualified domain name, using MY.IP.ADDRESS. Set the 'ServerName' directive globally to suppress this message

Please for the love of god someone help me.

[margarett]

http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=1236986
(or just google for "AH00169: caught SIGTERM, shutting down", there are LOTS of results)

You really need to find someone who knows how to debug things server side. If you are running an unmanaged server and learning through the process, well, you're in for a bumpy ride

[suhaneankit]

I know the solution of this problem. I too faced the same white page issue and found that its because of one of the Mod installed incorrectly.

Solution you can try - Disable all the Mods and enable it one by one and check which Mod is causing problem then Delete it.

[aegersz]

I think the most relevant question here is:

what was the last change you made between the functional forum and the "white screen of death" ?

I run a great free tool called webmin that has it's own webserving menu system and it also lets you quickly navigate to all system logs of interest to you now and SO many other very handy displays and functions.

uses port 10000 - it's small and simple to install (jusy google it and Debian (or whatever Linux system you have deployed).

seriously, it eases the transition from a managed server to your own server.

check it out, you won't be disappointed ... it even has a command shell if you lock yourself out of ssh for whatever reason.

[suhaneankit]

I just found a topic initiated by me long back when i had same issue on my Forum.
http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=537596.msg3820367#msg3820367

The mentioned solution by me in this thread worked for me that time.

[helpwanted2]

Alright so I figured out that the problem is with SMF and not my webserver. I say this because last night I had switched from apache2 to nginx and right when I configure nginx to look in my directory where SMF is installed THE SAME BLANK PAGE appears. Someone should know how to fix this.

[Kindred]

Actually, you don't know that it is the same...  because a white screen just means that there has been a fatal error. Unless you find the reason, typically in the logs, you have no idea what the cause is.

However, given your description, i would assume a bad configuration of nginx

[JBlaze]

A blank white screen means that PHP is throwing a fatal error. Since nearly all production setups prevent server-level errors from being displayed publicly, you will have to access your server error logs.

Since you have now switched over to nginx, your error log will be located either in /var/log/nginx/error.log or /var/log/nginx/nginx_error.log. You will have to search through that log to find out what is causing the error. Most likely, it's being caused by improper file permissions or a missing PHP module.

But until we can see the error logs, we won't know what's causing the problem.

[helpwanted2]

Good news! I fixed it. Not sure how but I installed apache or something like that but I will still be here because I got questions and will have more.