After upgrading, the whole message board has disappeared.

[Johnnymushio]

I was using 1.1.4. Upgraded to 1.1.12 without a problem, until I go back to the directory of the message board, to be greeted with a 0KB blank page.

http://japantown.awardspace.com/messageboard/index.php

WTH happened?

I downloaded the right package. Uploaded all the files with FTP, overwriting all of the old ones.

Then I go to http://japantown.awardspace.com/messageboard/upgrade.php

I do everything it says. It says everything went OK.

Then I go check out my new board, and see absolutely nothing.

I find it ironic how the upgrader says "now that wasn't so hard, was it?"

Yes, yes it was hard. It still is hard. Actually, this is the worst thing that could happen, if it really did delete everything.

I look at all the files on the host, they are all there. index.php is listed as 14.66KB, not 0KB like when the page loads.

[busterone]

I just checked to see if your agreement.txt. and license.txt were there, and they did display.  I suspect that your settings.php file is corrupted. Check to see if it is at the forum root(same folder as index.php) and check to see if there is anything in it. 
There should also be a settings_bak.php file. Verify that they both contain the same information.

[Johnnymushio]

Thanks for replying. Settings.php and settings_bak.php are both in the root folder along with index.php.

I just did the whole upgrading process again, and still, blank page.

EDIT

I check both of the settings files, both have stuff in them. What I did notice was maintenance mode was set to 2 in both of them. I manually changed them both to 0 and checked the forum again, alas, there is still a blank bage.

EDIT

And yes, both files contain identical information.

[busterone]

Have you verified that your database is still there?
I have no idea myself beyond that and what has already been done.
Hopefully someone else will come along and have some better answers for you.

[Johnnymushio]

yes, of course it is still there. my chat room is still running off of the same database. and a hour ago before attempting to upgrade, smf 1.1.4 was running just fine. i was so tempted after reading "upgrading will only take a minute" i went ahead and did it. of course, that was several hours ago, and now my forum is gone.

EDIT

well im going to go cry myself to sleep now. maybe a solution to this problem will magically appear when i wake up.

[Johnnymushio]

I just attempted the upgrade process for a FOURTH time. After upgrading, it said this.

Upgrading...
Updating and creating indexes... Successful.
Reorganizing configuration settings... Successful.
Installing new default theme... Successful.
Adding and updating member data... Successful.
Updating holidays and calendar... Successful.
Adding custom message icons... Successful.
Adding package servers... Successful.
Cleaning up database... Successful.
Converting avatar permissions... Successful.
Adjusting uploadable avatars... Successful.
Updating thumbnails... Successful.
Updating ban system... Successful.
Updating permissions... Successful.
Updating search cache... Successful.
Upgrading log system... Successful.
Making SMF MySQL strict compatible... Successful.
Adding more room for the buddy list Successful.
Change some column types to accomodate more messages. Successful.
Final clean up... Successful.
Upgrade Complete
That wasn't so hard, was it? Now you are ready to use your installation of SMF. Hope you like it!
Delete this upgrade.php and its data files now. (doesn't work on all servers.)

If you had any problems with this upgrade, or have any problems using SMF, please don't hesitate to look to us for assistance.

Best of luck,
Simple Machines

Well, I have a problem, and now I am coming to you guys for assistance. Looking to you guys for assistance?

PHP version: 5.2.5
MySQL 4

Is it meaningful that in the settings files every time after I attempt this minute-long upgrade, the maintenance mode is set to 2? Setting it to 0 has no effect on the problem of my message board turning to nothing.

EDIT

After opening up my index.php file in FTP I added

ini_set("display_errors",1);

below

<?php

But, I still got a blank page, no errors. I got the suggestion from this old topic.

http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=375317.0

And the other 23 topics I read about this problem do nothing for me.

EDIT

I went to PHPMyAdmin. On the left hand side, I clicked on log_errors.

The query

SELECT * FROM `MBlog_errors` WHERE 1

was already typed in, so I clicked on go.

1 row with some information was shown. I clicked on "edit" to reveal this, among some other things which I think are irrelevant.

2: file(/home/www/japantown.awardspace.com/messageboard/Packages/installed.list): failed to open stream: No such file or directory<br />File: /~/www/japantown.awardspace.com/messageboard/sources/Subs-Package.php<br />Line: 509

Is this a clue to what is causing this WSOD?

Also, why is "sources" not "Sources"? I think in 1.1.4 is was lower case, in 1.1.12 it is uppercase.

Anyways, I go to line 509 in subs-package.php, it says this

$installed_mods = file($boarddir . '/Packages/installed.list');

So, I go to packages/installed.list

The file does exist, but it is 0KB. Does that matter? Is this the problem? How do I fix it?

EDIT

I tried using repair_settings.php.

I noticed the new file folders started in capital letters, but all my directories linked to lowercase folders, so i renamed the folders to make them lowercase in hopes of it fixing the problem, but it didn't do anything.

this is beyond frustrating... why does it boast only taking a minute to upgrade, when the forums are flooded with help on upgrading problems, which obviously makes upgrading takes hours, if not weeks.

i would say this is completely unacceptable, but i guess you get what you pay for.

[Johnnymushio]

well. since no one knows how to solve this problem, can someone tell me a quick way to remove every trace of this message board from my web site? if i delete all of the files, will that automatically delete all of the ~80 items in the database? i would rather not do this, but i have no idea what else to do.

[Illori]

you would have to manually delete the database as well as the files. you could always look into hiring someone to fix it for you.

[busterone]

Johnnymushio, I apologize. I had hoped that someone else would jump in here with a solution, or at least some good suggestions on where to look. I am baffled myself.

[Antechinus]

This is unusual. Most upgrades go without problems. The reason we see threads about problems here is because nobody ever makes a thread if things go perfectly, so the content on this site is skewed.

Would you be willing to give an SMF team member cPanel and forum admin access so we can look into this?

ETA: Oh and which upgrade package did you use?

If you were wanting to go directly from 1.1.4 to 1.1.12 the large upgrade pack is the one to use.

If you used the Small Update package (just checking) then that would definitely cause problems.

[Johnnymushio]

Yes, I used the large upgrade package. Several times actually.

And by cpanel and forum admin access username/password, you mean to the board? well. i am not sure what good it would do you, considering the whole forum is just blank. i can't even access anything. i just see white.

If there is nothing I can do, is there a way to at least salvage some board names and board descriptions. That information must be in some file somewhere. so if i do end up starting fresh, I will at least know which categories I had.

and speaking of password/username, if some staff member really wanted to, I guess I could just temporarily change the password to the database and give one of you guys control of it. but, i think if i changed the password to the database i would have to change it for smf as well so smf could still access the database. how would i go about doing that with a blank board? i can modify files still, just not view them via http.

i wouldnt be too devastated if i had to start fresh, but i just think in the future if i wanted to upgrade again, something will prevent me, like this problem, from doing it. so i would love to fix this without a complete reboot of the board.

[Illori]

by giving access to your hosts control panel and a valid admin account on your forum a member of the staff here would be able to fix any issues you are currently having. by just giving them access to the database you would not be giving them enough access to fix the problems. at the minimum they would need ftp access and a valid admin account on your forum.

[Johnnymushio]

So a staff member would need the following, am I correct?

host: username/pass
ftp: username/pass
my sites board: username/pass
database: username/pass

that would be fine, i would just like to know how to temporarily change my sites board admin password.

[Illori]

yes they would need that information, but please wait for a staff member to offer their service to fix your issue.

[Antechinus]

So a staff member would need the following, am I correct?

host: username/pass
ftp: username/pass
my sites board: username/pass
database: username/pass

that would be fine, i would just like to know how to temporarily change my sites board admin password.

Yes that would be sufficient access. You don't really need to change anything as anyone who has database access can create another forum admin account for temporary use anyway.

If there is nothing I can do, is there a way to at least salvage some board names and board descriptions. That information must be in some file somewhere. so if i do end up starting fresh, I will at least know which categories I had.

All settings and forum content should still be in the database. Speaking of which, did you make a backup before attemtping the upgrade? If you have one available that might be handy, depending on what the problem is.

[Johnnymushio]

Yeah, I checked the "backup" box when I started the upgrade. And I just wanted to know how to change my sites admin password just because I don't want anyone knowing the real thing

So, the board titles and descriptions are located in the database? I'll have to go take a look.

Actually I see "topics" in the database now, but no titles or descriptions, just numbers and things like that.

[Antechinus]

Well you can change the password later anyway.

The topics table only contains reference numbers. The actual title and post content is stored in the messages table. In other words, all text content is listed by message ID and that includes the title of each post.

[Johnnymushio]

so, are you offering to take a look? im going to bed now, but i can pm you the login information tomorrow

[Antechinus]

Yep, I'll take a look and/or make sure someone else does (depending on timing).

[Johnnymushio]

ok, i have pmed you the info. i hope the problem can be figured out so next time around i can avoid it. if not, oh well