Cryptic Blank Page of doom!

andrewsmith

Hey all,

I've installed Zenphoto before a few times, and, aside from a few issues, was able to get it up and working properly. However, one of my old installs of Zenphoto has gone horribly wrong. When you try to visit it, all you get is a blank, white, completely empty page. You can log into the admin panel, but there does not seem to be any albums when you click on "Edit", although the images are still on the server.

So I tried installing Zenphoto again, on another domain. Same thing: if you look at the gallery, you are greeted by a faceless blank page (no error messages or anything). You can observe it in action here. I'm pretty sure I followed the instructions right. The folders Albums and Cache are set to 777.

I've tried:

1. Turning mod_rewrite off. No change.
2. Defining the webpath and serverpath. Still no change.
3. Uploading something, doesn't work at all.

Any ideas here?

Thanks,

--Andrew

trisweb

Hmm... an error message would be great. Maybe it's being supressed?

Is there any way you can change the PHP error level, or at least find out what it is? Try putting a phpinfo() test php on your server and find that out...

`<?php phpinfo(); ?>`

andrewsmith

I ran the `phpinfo();` function, and I've transcribed all the stuff that has to do with errors:

display_errors: Off

display_startup_errors: Off

error_append_string: no value

error_log: no value

error_prepend_string: no value

error_reporting: 2039

html_errors: On

Ignore_repeated_errors: Off

Ignore_Repeated_source: Off

log_errors: On

log_errors_max_len: 1024

track_errors: Off

xmlrpc_error_number: 0

xmlrpc_errors: Off

By the way, I should probably note that, even though `phpinfo()` says that `display_errors` is off, I have gotten PHP errors quite recently on this server.

Thanks for getting back with me so quick.

--Andrew

trisweb

Try opening index.php in the root ZP directory, and add this to the top right after the `<?php` :

`error_reporting(E_ALL);`

Might get something more from that.

Another possibility, are there any blank lines or whitespace outside your `zp-config.php`'s `<?php` / `?>` ? That would cause problems...

andrewsmith

Adding `error_reporting(E_ALL);` didn't seem to affect anything. Also, there was one blank line below the `?``>` in the zp-config.php file. I removed it, but it didn't change anything, either.

Any other ideas?

flufftronix

I've got a very similar problem, except mine is a new install and the admin works fine. It's just the front end index.php doesn't seem to want to do anything. Tried deleting the blank line in the config file, adding error reporting (with no errors reported, like above), and all the stuff andrewsmith tried. My gallery's here.

trisweb

Very weird... I'll do some more analysis later... there aren't very many possibilities, so we'll see what I find... Sorry for the time being. :-/

ZKDSmith

I'll ditto this problem. I installed new this morning. Created the DB, altered the zp-config.php, modified the .htaccess to reflect the correct basedir.

I can login to admin and upload pics with no problem but when trying to access *any* .php page in the zen dir (except for admin.php) for example: sortable.php just to pick one, or even a non-existent php file (like dogbone.php), I get a totally blank page.

This is true in both FF and IE6/7. A look at the source of the page in FF reveals nothing. No html, nothing.

Hope this helps.

KDS

EDIT: I just looked at the db. It appears to be populated correctly. Judging by the behavior, I wouldn't think it's a db problem, but I thought I'd check anyway.

Site is ArgusLight

ZKDSmith

This is interesting. While fooling around waiting to see if there comes a solution, I decided to re-install plogger; just to see how it's progressing. Once installed I got very much the same symptoms but kind of backwards. The public browse screen shows up fine but any admin pages give blanks. Just the same as ZP but on the admin instead of public pages.

My hosted machine is a standard LAMP server, as far as I know.

Just more of my 2 cents worth.

k

trisweb

Need to look at this more, but it seems like a configuration problem

Check include paths in php.ini, maybe something else is being included that's not supposed to be?

ooberjames

Hi,

I'm getting this same problem - with a clean install. Did anyone ever get round to working out what's wrong?

Cheers.

trisweb

ooberjames -- file a bug report at http://www.zenphoto.org/trac/newticket with as much information as possible -- this is still a mystery to me and I have no idea why it happens, so I'd love to get your info. Thanks!!

aleval

Hi, my index.php still blank. Admin pages seems to be fine. Still anyidea?
Thanks and sorry about my poor english.

Makenosound

I'm having the same problem. Downloaded zenphoto last night and it all worked smoothly, but this morning it just crapped out and stopped displaying anything on the index page. Admin section still works, just no photos. I didn't seem to do anything major to have it freak out.

I'm hosted through Dreamhost if that's relevant.

trisweb

Hm, this is very strange. I'm going to have to modify the code to print extremely verbose debugging text and post it for you guys to test... then we can narrow it down to the exact line that's causing the problem.

I'll try to have it for you all this week if possible.

Makenosound

I've reinstalled on a sub-domain rather than just in a folder and it seems to be completely solid now. Though the last installation was solid for about 12 hours before it died.

trisweb

Geez that's really weird too... shouldn't make a difference right? This is sounding more and more like a configuration problem, but I'd love to know exactly which line it's dying at so I'm still going to give you all a debug setup to test.

Marcel55

Just to come back to that again, I'm having the same problem with a brand fresh installation of the gallery... weird...

But I dunno what to do as I'm not really gifted in all those PHP programmation things... :-S

My gallery : www.goat-rock-band.ch/zenphoto

Could it be a server configuration problem ?

Marcel55

I managed to make an error appear on my page :

Warning: main() [function.main]: open_basedir restriction in effect. File(/usr/share/pear/classes.php) is not within the allowed path(s): (/var/www/vhosts/goat-rock-band.ch/httpdocs:/tmp) in /var/www/vhosts/goat-rock-band.ch/httpdocs/zenphoto/zen/template-functions.php on line 8

Warning: main(classes.php) [function.main]: failed to open stream: Operation not permitted in /var/www/vhosts/goat-rock-band.ch/httpdocs/zenphoto/zen/template-functions.php on line 8

Fatal error: main() [function.require]: Failed opening required 'classes.php' (include_path='.:/usr/share/pear') in /var/www/vhosts/goat-rock-band.ch/httpdocs/zenphoto/zen/template-functions.php on line

But don't know what to do with that... any idea ?

Thanks in advance

sbillard

Don't know what went wrong, but the classes.php file is in the "zen" folder and the first message seems to say that the allowed path does not include the "zen" folder.

thinkdreams

Definitely looks like a server config issue of some sort. References I found online related to the open_basedir and safe mode. Safe Mode has always caused issues with Zenphoto. Marcel, can you give us a phpinfo on your site please, as that will help us see how your host is configured, and give us more clues as to what might be the issue.

If you want to do some searching yourself as well, look for:

open_basedir restriction in effect

on Google.

Let us know when you get the phpinfo working, and we can take a look. If you don't know what phpinfo is or how to set it up, let us know and we'll walk you through the procedure on how to set it up.

Marcel55

Thanks thinkdreams, I'll have a look on Google...

By the way here is the phpinfo of my site :

http://195.70.4.138/phpinfo.php

Hope it'll help ;-)

thinkdreams

Marcel55-

Your safe_mode parameter is on. That's what I was afraid of. Safe Mode is not a very nice thing to have on at your host. It breaks a lot of things, including Zenphoto from working properly. Go here for more information about it: http://us2.php.net/features.safe-mode.

We also have a wiki article about Safe Mode as well here:
http://www.zenphoto.org/trac/wiki/ZenphotoFAQ#DoesZenphotoworkwithPHPSafeMode

The best and most ideal solution is to ask your host to turn off Safe Mode for your site. Let us know if you have any questions.

Marcel55

Okay, I saw that to but didn't know it was so important for Zenphoto to work proprely... I'll see with my host and let you know how it goes.

But before doing that, do you think it is possible to modify the PHP configuration by modifying the .htaccess file. In the FAQ of my host they say it is possible to modify php.ini by putting a .htaccess file in the application directory (here zenphoto directory). If this is true, what should I write in it ?

Thanks for your answers !

thinkdreams

I've never heard of being able to do that, but some of the others on the forum here might have.

Marcel55

Well I just read now that we should send a mail to the host if we want to switch safe mode off... That's what I did... and I now wait for their answer ;-)

Marcel55

They just informed me the safe_mode was off on my server because the phpinfo is a default one... :-S

So this brings the thing back to the beginning...

thinkdreams

Marcel-

Then we need for you to create a phpinfo.php file, place it in your root webserver directory, and then let us know when it's there so we can point to it with our browsers.

Here's what you can place in the file (and save it as phpinfo.php):

`<?php<br />
// Show all information, defaults to INFO_ALL

phpinfo();

?>`

I still suspect some server misconfiguration, but we'll help you sort it out.

Marcel55

Thank you...

Here you will be able to read the file : http://www.goat-rock-band.ch/phpinfo.php

Now, the support service of my host proposed me to ad this line in the .htaccess :

`php_value include_path .:php_value include_path .:/var/www/vhosts/goat-rock-band.ch/httpdocs/zenphoto`

Which I, of course, don't understand and which creates this error :

Internal Server Error

The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.

Please contact the server administrator, didicoen@bluewin.ch and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have caused the error.

More information about this error may be available in the server error log.

And with this I'm unable to access to administration panel anymore... Removing the line makes it OK. Which is still weird 'cause I'm able to administrate the whole thing without beeing able to see it :-S

Thanks again for your help !

thinkdreams

Still sounds like a webhost configuration issue. The articles I've been reading point to the open_basedir parameter, which is set to /tmp in your case, is presenting a problem. That's why they are asking you to add that line to your htaccess, to allow zenphoto code to work properly within the httpdocs directory.

It also sounds like they need to configure this for you from their end, not require you to "patch" your server configuration yourself through your site's htaccess. Zenphoto is definitely not doing anything out of the ordinary. Do you have other PHP/MySQL applications running that are having trouble too (like Wordpress for instance?). I'd be curious to see if the open_basedir restriction isn't causing issues with other PHP scripts too.

Marcel55

Well, I tried to install another gallery (Gallery 2... simply) and at a point in the installation I wasn't able to go ahead. The message was that, suddenly, I wasn't allowed to access to the "index.php" of the installation were I was already working on... :-/

I'm not sure that I've understood exactly what you said above. In your opinion my host should modify something on the server ? This open_basedir thing isn't really clear to me actually, but I'll try and have a look...

And if I find time, I'll try and install something else and report here if I meet problems ;-)

And as the week-end is coming, I don't hope they'll answer me before monday... so since then, wait'n'see...

Thanks !