Support

Have you tried https://www.akeebabackup.com/documentation/troubleshooter/prbasicts.html

Houston,

My software finished running successfully after it extracted your backup archive, restored your site's database and created the new configuration.php file. Therefore you have an issue with a third party extension running on your site or an issue with a .htaccess directive running on your site. I can't possibly know which issue, unrelated to my software, is going on on your site if you only tell me that you get a blank page. A blank page means "server error". That's all the information it contains.

Yes, you are paying me for support. But this doesn't mean anythign. If you called a mechanic and told him "my car doesn't work" could he possibly know why? Paying him wouldn't change anything. He would either need access to your car or guide you through a troubleshooting process. I'm the mechanic. Your site is your car. I can't have access to it. This leaves us with one choice: follow my instructions so that we can troubleshoot your site.

Do note that the troubleshooter instructions is the culmination of 6 years of doing support. It's nowhere near the silly replies you get on a free forum. It's like comparing a Dodge Viper with a Ford Escort. You can say the are similar because they are both cars, but that's the end of all reasonable comparison.

Now, can we get back to following my instructions so that we can help you figure out what doesn't work on your site? The first two instructions don't apply to you so start with the .htaccess Directives. FYI, the instructions are prioritised based on experience. The most likely causes of issues are listed first, the least likely are listed last.

You are on a Mac (like me). Mac OS X is a UNIX-derivative operating system. In fact it's a FreeBSD clone with a Mach kernel and a custom graphics environments. As with all UNIX-derivative operating systems' filesystems dot-files are hidden. "Dot-files" are files whose name begins with a dot, e.g. .htaccess (pronounced "dot htaccess" for no less reason than its name begins with a dot). As a result, Finder will NOT show you these hidden files. Just because you don't see something it doesn't mean it doesn't exist and doesn't play a role. On the contrary. By extracting a ZIP archives .htaccess DOES get extracted (if it exists) and DOES have the potential to screw up the restoration.

If you want to see these hidden dot-files just google "Mac Finder show hidden files". You'll get a page like this: http://lifehacker.com/188892/show-hidden-files-in-finder If you do that you'll see the eluding .htaccess.

IMPORTANT: For EXACTLY the same reason you will NOT see the .htaccess in yoru FTP software unless you specifically tell it to show you hidden files AND your server supports showing hidden files.

Now, as to why the .htaccess can interfere with your restoration I could write a huge essay to explain it. It's well beyond the purview of software support providing personalised coaching on how Apache works. It suffices to say that .htaccess tells your web server how to work. You're using MAMP, XAMPP or any other pre-packaged local server package (or even Apple's built-in web server) which is a web server. By default they are set up to only serve pages to localhost but this doesn't change the fact that they are all using the Apache web server and that .htaccess files do modify the way it behaves.

Now, let's take it from the start.

Begin by COMPLETELY DELETING the directory where all these files and folders are extracted to. If this is not an option, follow the instructions in the link I posted above to display hidden files and remove the .htaccess.

Then please use Kickstart to extract the archive. Kickstart does something very smart to avoid this kind of tickets. Instead of stupidly extracting .htaccess as .htaccess and killing the extraction and/or restoration process it extracts it as htaccess.bak (which is NOT a hidden file).

After Kickstart finishes the extraction and BEFORE clicking on "Run the Installer" open Finder, find the extracted htaccess.bak file and delete it. Then click on "Run the Installer" and proceed with the restoration.

Please no that no amount of money thrown at me can change how Apache is designed to work. As long as your .htaccess file contains AddHandler directives (which are not portable across different servers) you will have the problems you described. I hope that's more clear now.

I'm going to leave that ticket open so that you have the chance to reply despite the fact that your subscription expired.

You're welcome, Houston :)