Suddenly forum web address gives blank page (no modifications made before)

Started by Finn_958, April 24, 2018, 02:51:57 AM

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Finn_958

Hi,
The forum coscienzamaschile.com always gives blank page, so I cannot access the forum and the SMF admin interface. No script modifications nor posts were made before it happened. The server support says it's all ok on their side and it's a php error.
I made a file restore with Filezilla (which may not include database), it usually worked in case of MOD errors or similar, but not this time, still blank page. I have no way to list the mods (which I did not add/modify) because admin interface is not accessible.
Any possible solution besides reinstalling the forum and/or losing all posts and cofingurations? :-\

Finn_958

Support reply:

my php test file now uploaded to...
https://www.coscienzamaschile.com/testing.php
is fine and showing online.

but..
https://www.coscienzamaschile.com/
goes to:
https://www.coscienzamaschile.com/index.php?PHPSESSID=1dcvctnk0bpudrslti5ospcf54;wwwRedirect [why?]
and this is running with no errors and producing no output.
it is showing blank white page even after enabling php error reporting.

This will be a php script or database error, have you made any changes to your script recently? [no!]
please try removing any plugins / and change your theme. [impossible, admin interface not accessible]
then let us know what script are you trying to install here? [I did not install any scripts and no one posted before error happened. I made a post yesterday and all was ok].

Kindred

please check with your host and/or find the error.log, errorlog, or similarly named error log file on your server.
Слaва
Украинi

Please do not PM, IM or Email me with support questions.  You will get better and faster responses in the support boards.  Thank you.

"Loki is not evil, although he is certainly not a force for good. Loki is... complicated."

Finn_958

The support says there's no error but that it may be CloudFlare (external DNS server).. I will keep you informed once I reverted back to my server's nameservers.

engrz

This same issue happened to me few days before, my host said there were hacking attempt and i have check with programmer. but i found my ip pointed was changed by someone with another host. i dont know who done this.

Kindred

here's the deal...

a white screen of death (white screen, no text at all) is a server side failure - a critical failure of php.
If your server is not logging these incidents into a server-side error log, then you need to slap your host upside the head.

The server side error log is the ONLY way you are going to figure out what causes the issue.

and no... it is unlikely to be cloudflare.  This is a php failure...   so, before it even gets to the cloudflare cache.
Слaва
Украинi

Please do not PM, IM or Email me with support questions.  You will get better and faster responses in the support boards.  Thank you.

"Loki is not evil, although he is certainly not a force for good. Loki is... complicated."

drewactual


drewactual

also... you have something incorrect with your settings in that the approach is port 80 (NON ssl) while using a https (forward in your htaccess possibly?) address. 

i didn't see any cache's set in php, but... the reason it likely 'worked' and then 'didn't' is the cache expired.  whatever alteration was made didn't manifest until the cache updated.  there are several cache's that operate outside of php, and some that live on servers in between (to make frequently requested pages load faster).

i'm guessing you have a redirect set up in your htaccess to forward to a SSL that is mis-configured.  you need to specify port 443.

Finn_958

Thank everyone. I will first try this solution:
Quote from: drewactual on April 24, 2018, 02:01:12 PM
also... you have something incorrect with your settings in that the approach is port 80 (NON ssl) while using a https (forward in your htaccess possibly?) address. 

i didn't see any cache's set in php, but... the reason it likely 'worked' and then 'didn't' is the cache expired.  whatever alteration was made didn't manifest until the cache updated.  there are several cache's that operate outside of php, and some that live on servers in between (to make frequently requested pages load faster).

i'm guessing you have a redirect set up in your htaccess to forward to a SSL that is mis-configured.  you need to specify port 443.
It was my host who configured htaccess this way:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{ENV:HTTPS} !on
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://consapevolezzamaschile.com/.*$      [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://consapevolezzamaschile.com$      [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://coscienzamaschile.com/.*$      [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://coscienzamaschile.com$      [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://www.consapevolezzamaschile.com/.*$      [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://www.consapevolezzamaschile.com$      [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://www.coscienzamaschile.com/.*$      [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://www.coscienzamaschile.com$      [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^https://consapevolezzamaschile.com/.*$      [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^https://consapevolezzamaschile.com$      [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^https://coscienzamaschile.com/.*$      [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^https://coscienzamaschile.com$      [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^https://www.consapevolezzamaschile.com/.*$      [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^https://www.consapevolezzamaschile.com$      [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^https://www.coscienzamaschile.com/.*$      [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^https://www.coscienzamaschile.com$      [NC]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/[0-9]+\..+\.cpaneldcv$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/\.well-known/acme-challenge/.+$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/\.well-known/pki-validation/[A-F0-9]{32}\.txt(?:\ Comodo\ DCV)?$
RewriteRule .*\.(jpg|jpeg|gif|png|bmp)$ - [F,NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^consapevolezzamaschile\.com$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.consapevolezzamaschile\.com$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/[0-9]+\..+\.cpaneldcv$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/\.well-known/acme-challenge/.+$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/\.well-known/pki-validation/[A-F0-9]{32}\.txt(?:\ Comodo\ DCV)?$
#RewriteRule ^(.*)$ "https\:\/\/coscienzamaschile\.com\/$1" [R=301,L]

drewactual

copy the contents of the htaccess file and set them safely aside in the case this doesn't work... that is a mighty busy redirect.

change:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{ENV:HTTPS} !on
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://consapevolezzamaschile.com/.*$      [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://consapevolezzamaschile.com$      [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://coscienzamaschile.com/.*$      [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://coscienzamaschile.com$      [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://www.consapevolezzamaschile.com/.*$      [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://www.consapevolezzamaschile.com$      [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://www.coscienzamaschile.com/.*$      [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://www.coscienzamaschile.com$      [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^https://consapevolezzamaschile.com/.*$      [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^https://consapevolezzamaschile.com$      [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^https://coscienzamaschile.com/.*$      [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^https://coscienzamaschile.com$      [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^https://www.consapevolezzamaschile.com/.*$      [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^https://www.consapevolezzamaschile.com$      [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^https://www.coscienzamaschile.com/.*$      [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^https://www.coscienzamaschile.com$      [NC]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/[0-9]+\..+\.cpaneldcv$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/\.well-known/acme-challenge/.+$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/\.well-known/pki-validation/[A-F0-9]{32}\.txt(?:\ Comodo\ DCV)?$
RewriteRule .*\.(jpg|jpeg|gif|png|bmp)$ - [F,NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^consapevolezzamaschile\.com$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.consapevolezzamaschile\.com$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/[0-9]+\..+\.cpaneldcv$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/\.well-known/acme-challenge/.+$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/\.well-known/pki-validation/[A-F0-9]{32}\.txt(?:\ Comodo\ DCV)?$
#RewriteRule ^(.*)$ "https\:\/\/coscienzamaschile\.com\/$1" [R=301,L]

[/quote]

to:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{SERVER_PORT} 80
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://www.coscienzamaschile.com/$1 [R,L]


if this doesn't clean it up (and work the same) simply revert it back... you're running apache2.4 on a pretty much standard fastcgi package... there is no need for all that clutter.  it's hard to hear what you need to hear through all that noise, ya know? we may know more about your issue(s) afterward. 

Finn_958

It gives the following error:

ERR_TOO_MANY_REDIRECTS

Please note that htaccess worked very well until yesterday when the website went down without any modifications on my part nor users activity.

Finn_958

You nailed it! 8)
I uploaded a totally blank htaccess file and now the website is visible again!
However I cannot leave it that way. The address bar rewrites these ways:
https://www.coscienzamaschile.com/index.php?wwwRedirect
https://www.coscienzamaschile.com/index.php?PHPSESSID=iivsmdqshaet9oltrctqdg45j1;wwwRedirect
Your help pages say that it's SMF core code that adds ?wwwRedirect, because I specified www in forum address (I want it to be www).
Before the issue wwwRedirect was not present, it may mean that something changed at host level and redirection (htaccess or other settings) no longer redirected correctly and SMF php performed www redirection.

I basically need to rewrite htaccess in order that both following conditions are respected:
all requests are sent to www AND https
all consapevolezzamaschile.com requests are sent to coscienzamaschile.com
Thanks

drewactual

in your htaccess, use this:


RewriteEngine on
# Force WWW & SSL
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\.(.*)$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://www.coscienzamaschile.com/$1 [L,R=301]


that is the simplest and cleanest means to force httpS and WWW while leaving a permanent redirect.

for one URL to another, you'll need to access either the domain issuer and redirect it there, or... host the site "consapevolezzamaschile.com" and either use a redirect in its own htaccess, or, splash page notice with permanent redirect notice and countdown... SEO doesn't like duplicate content on multiple sites, and if you don't handle it in a certain way it will ding you for it. 

Finn_958

https is not forced, I am able to open http by typing:
http://www.coscienzamaschile.com/index.php

This code works:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{ENV:HTTPS} !on [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www.coscienzamaschile.com$ [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www.consapevolezzamaschile.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://www.coscienzamaschile.com/$1 [L,R=301]


And this is the final code I will use (some cpanel config added):
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{ENV:HTTPS} !on [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www.coscienzamaschile.com$ [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www.consapevolezzamaschile.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://www.coscienzamaschile.com/$1 [L,R=301

RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://consapevolezzamaschile.com/.*$      [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://consapevolezzamaschile.com$      [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://coscienzamaschile.com/.*$      [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://coscienzamaschile.com$      [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://www.consapevolezzamaschile.com/.*$      [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://www.consapevolezzamaschile.com$      [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://www.coscienzamaschile.com/.*$      [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://www.coscienzamaschile.com$      [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^https://consapevolezzamaschile.com/.*$      [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^https://consapevolezzamaschile.com$      [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^https://coscienzamaschile.com/.*$      [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^https://coscienzamaschile.com$      [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^https://www.consapevolezzamaschile.com/.*$      [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^https://www.consapevolezzamaschile.com$      [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^https://www.coscienzamaschile.com/.*$      [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^https://www.coscienzamaschile.com$      [NC]
RewriteRule .*\.(jpg|jpeg|gif|png|bmp)$ - [F,NC]

This code allows links to forum but not direct links to images (to save bandwidth).

TLMB

Quote from: Finn_958 on April 24, 2018, 02:51:57 AM
Hi,
The forum coscienzamaschile.com always gives blank page, so I cannot access the forum and the SMF admin interface. No script modifications nor posts were made before it happened. The server support says it's all ok on their side and it's a php error.
I made a file restore with Filezilla (which may not include database), it usually worked in case of MOD errors or similar, but not this time, still blank page. I have no way to list the mods (which I did not add/modify) because admin interface is not accessible.
Any possible solution besides reinstalling the forum and/or losing all posts and cofingurations? :-\
I had this blank page problem. I deleted all the files in /forum/cache/ and the forum came alive again.
Hope that helps someone.

GigaWatt

If it's not a big forum and it's not that busy (5 to 10 posts a day), you could just disable forum cache ;).
"This is really a generic concept about human thinking - when faced with large tasks we're naturally inclined to try to break them down into a bunch of smaller tasks that together make up the whole."

"A 500 error loosely translates to the webserver saying, "WTF?"..."


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