Support

Mandatory information about my setup:

Have I read the related troubleshooter articles above before posting (which pages?)? yes
Have I searched the tickets before posting? yes
Have I read the documentation before posting (which pages?)? yes
Joomla! version: 2.5.8
PHP version: (unknown)
MySQL version: (unknown)
Host: inmotionhosting
Admin Tools version: (unknown)

Description of my issue:

Hello,

When accessing my sites backend, I try logging in with my super admin username and password, it delivers a blank page. I cant view or access anything in my backend. It was working fine a couple days ago. I didn't upgrade or anything of that nature. It stopped working out of nowhere. Can I please get some insight? I tried many different tips to fix the issue but have had no luck. Maybe you might know what may cause this?

Thank you!

A white page or a page with a 500 Internal Server Error is, in fact, either a .htaccess issue to a PHP fatal error in disguise.

First, let's see if it is a .htaccess issue. Try renaming the .htaccess file in your site's root to htaccess.bak If there is a .htaccess file in the site's administrator directory, try renaming it as well. If that solves the problem, the issue was with a directive in your .htaccess file. We'd like to recommend you to try removing directives from your .htaccess until you find the one which causes the problem.

If that doesn't help, the error you are receiving is in fact a PHP error in disguise. First, check your server's error logs (not the access logs) immediately after visiting the page which throws the error. There should be an exact description of the PHP fatal error which occurred. Sometimes you can find the error messages in files called error_log or error.log inside the site's root and/or administrator directories. If unsure about the error log location, please consult your host. Most likely the error logs are available in your site's cPanel, Plesk control panel or similar hosting account management facility.

If your host does not give you access to the error logs and you have access to the Joomla! administrator area, please log in to your site's back-end, go to Global Configuration, click on the Server tab and set the Error Reporting to Maximum (Joomla! 1.5) or Development (Joomla! 2.x and later). Try visiting the problem page again.

If you still get a blank page, edit your configuration.php file and put the following code right after the final closing curly brace ( this is what a curly brace looks like --> } ) but before the closing PHP tag (it looks like ?> that is a question mark and a greater-than sign):

ini_set( 'display_errors', true );
error_reporting( E_ALL ); 

Try visiting the problem page again.

If you still get a white page, please remote the two lines from your configuration.php file. Edit the .htaccess file in your site's root. If you don't have a file named .htaccess create a new one. Beware that htaccess.txt is a DIFFERENT FILE and will NOT work! Add the following to the end of the file:

php_flag display_errors On
php_value error_reporting 32767

and retry loading the problem page.

If you still get a white page, remove the two lines from your .htaccess file. Now, create a file called php.ini with the following content:

display_errors=on
error_reporting=E_ALL

and upload it into your site's root and your site's administrator directory. Retry loading the problem page.

IMPORTANT: Sometimes the error won't show. Edit your configuration.php and find the line starting with public $error_reporting and set it to:

public $error_reporting = 'development';

This instructs Joomla! to enable maximum error, warnings and notices verbosity. In 99.9% of cases it will result in the error messages being shown on the browser.

If you still get a white page, delete the php.ini files your created and choose a different host. If your host doesn't allow you to debug any PHP-related issues there is no point paying them.

Please note that if you can not understand what the PHP error message means, just copy and paste it here verbatim so that we can take a look and point you to the right direction.

Hello,

Thank you for your response. My front end works fine. It is only when logging in to the admin area is where I get a blank page. I have tried all your troubleshooting tips and have found some errors:

Strict Standards: Declaration of JFBConnectProfileData::bindData() should be compatible with that of JRegistry::bindData() in <server>public_html/components/com_jfbconnect/libraries/profile.php on line 179

Strict Standards: Declaration of JParameter::loadSetupFile() should be compatible with that of JRegistry::loadSetupFile() in /<server>public_html/libraries/joomla/html/parameter.php on line 512

Strict Standards: Only variables should be assigned by reference in <server>/public_html/plugins/system/rokextender/rokextender.php on line 32

Fatal error: Uncaught exception 'Exception' with message 'String could not be parsed as XML' in <server>/public_html/plugins/system/jomsocialupdate/jomsocialupdate.php:195 Stack trace: #0 <server>/public_html/plugins/system/jomsocialupdate/jomsocialupdate.php(195): SimpleXMLElement->__construct('http://cloud.jo...', 0, true)
#1 <server>/public_html/plugins/system/jomsocialupdate/jomsocialupdate.php(125): plgSystemJomsocialUpdate->_getCurrentVersionData()
#2 <server>/public_html/plugins/system/jomsocialupdate/jomsocialupdate.php(101): plgSystemJomsocialUpdate->_getButton(true)
#3 <server>/public_html/plugins/system/jomsocialupdate/jomsocialupdate.php(38): plgSystemJomsocialUpdate->_renderStatus()
#4 [internal function]: plgSystemJomsocialUpdate->onAfterRender()
#5 /home/txmspo5/public_html/libraries/joomla/event/event.php(71): call_user_func_array(Array, Array)
#6 /home/txmspo5/public_html/libraries/joomla/event/dispatcher.php(161): JEvent->update(Array)
#7 /home/txmspo5/public_html/libraries/jooml in /<server>/public_html/plugins/system/jomsocialupdate/jomsocialupdate.php on line 195

These errors were displayed on my blank page. Whats your insight on this? Is it these components that are delivering the blank page issue??.....I am new to this so your guidance is greatly appreciated.

Thank you

The strict standards messages are not a problem, you can see them because the error reporting is set so high. After you get this figured out you will want to return the error reporting levels back to normal. The third error, the fatal error, is your problem child. It looks like it is coming from a JomSocial plugin. I'm not familiar at all with JomSocial, but I would guess that it is checking for a program update, the same as Akeeba does on loading.

You might be able to get more help by posting the error in JomSocial's support forum. I'm sorry I can't be of more help.

Dale

Hi Dale,

Thank you for your help. I greatly appreciate your guidance and insights .

Thanks again,
Pete

You are welcome!

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