Somehow the whole zenphoto has crashed and the admin page no longer comes up to allow us access -we just get a white page.

I understand from a previous forum post that -

White pages generally indicate PHP errors. Check your CGI logs and see what shows up.

But I have no idea what that means !!

Any step by step thoughts?
Anything need to be "on"?
sorry very uneducated in this area

You need to check the server error log. Contact your host if you have no idea what that means.

OK - I found the error logs - lines and lines and lines of errors....
sorry no idea where to turn to

Is it possible to back up data and do a re-install?

Zenphoto normally does not just crash out of nowhere. The easiest would be to tell us the errors so we might see if it is indeed a Zenphoto related problem or just your server crashed.

You find info on how to install on our installation page:
http://www.zenphoto.org/news/installation-and-upgrading

Read the part about the files and folder, too. You should not overwrite/delete the /albums folder as that is were your images and albums are stored. Other data is stored in the MySQL database which you would have to backup manually using tools like phpMyAdmin. You probably will have to ask your host about that.

Happy to send you stuff -how? Have the last couple of days as a .rtf file

You could open a ticket on the bugtracker and attach it there. Or just post the latest errors (if the same all over again anyway) directly here (be sure to anonymize the paths if needed).

Thu Sep 22 10:53:35 2011] [error] [client **.**.**.**] sh: /usr/bin/readlink: No such file or directory

[Thu Sep 22 10:53:20 2011] [error] [client 69.36.***.***] sh: /usr/bin/readlink: No such file or directory, referer: http://206.130.***.***/fm/FileManager/FileManager.cgi?action=dir_listing&path=/var/log

[Thu Sep 22 10:53:18 2011] [error] [client 69.36.***.***] sh: /usr/bin/readlink: No such file or directory, referer: http://206.130.***.***/fm/FileManager/FileManager.cgi?action=dir_listing&path=/var

Thu Sep 22 10:53:04 2011] [error] [client 69.36.***.***] sh: /usr/bin/readlink: No such file or directory

hu Sep 22 10:32:18 2011] [error] [client 65.52.***.***] Negotiation: discovered file(s) matching request: /var/www/html/brilliant.**/index.html (None could be negotiated).

These errors all sound like a server configuration error. None of the files have anything directly to do with Zenphoto. I suggest you discuss these with your service provider.

OK - thanks so much for looking - doing that right now on live chat...still have a white screen for zenphoto though;-)
ho hum - technology !