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: 2.5.14
PHP version: (unknown)
MySQL version: (unknown)
Host: (optional, but it helps us help you)
Akeeba Backup version which took the backup: Akeeba Backup Professional 3.7.10
Kickstart version used to extract the backup: (unknown)

Description of my issue:
After copying an upgraded Joomla version of my site (v.1.7 to 2.5.14) from a test domain to root domain, the Extensions Manager and the components/ Akeeba backup pages are blank in admin panel. I see in the troubleshooting that there are some problems related to this and wonder how I can get it up. Everything else seems to be ok.

Best regards,
heiro

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.

Hi again,
When setting Error reporting to 'development in global configuration, I get the following messages:


Strict Standards: Only variables should be assigned by reference in /home/username/public_html/plugins/system/sh404sef/sh404sef.php on line 30

Strict Standards: Only variables should be assigned by reference in /home/username/public_html/administrator/components/com_sh404sef/sh404sef.class.php on line 27

Strict Standards: Redefining already defined constructor for class sh_Net_URL in /home/username/public_html/administrator/components/com_sh404sef/sh_Net_URL.class.php on line 124

Strict Standards: Only variables should be assigned by reference in /home/username/public_html/administrator/components/com_sh404sef/sh404sef.class.php on line 287

Strict Standards: Only variables should be assigned by reference in /home/username/public_html/plugins/sh404sefcore/sh404sefsocial/sh404sefsocial.php on line 24

Strict Standards: Only variables should be assigned by reference in /home/username/public_html/administrator/components/com_sh404sef/helpers/extplugins.php on line 94

Strict Standards: Only variables should be assigned by reference in /home/username/public_html/administrator/components/com_sh404sef/helpers/extplugins.php on line 56

Strict Standards: Only variables should be assigned by reference in /home/username/public_html/plugins/system/sh404sef/sh404sef.php on line 137

Strict Standards: Only variables should be assigned by reference in /home/username/public_html/plugins/system/shmobile/shmobile.php on line 64

Thanks,
heiro

Did you copy your site from the test location to the live location or did you restore a backup to the live location? Simply copying the site would leave some of the pointers going to invalid locations. In configuration.php, the log and tmp paths would be wrong, in Akeeba Backup's configuration, the default backup path would be wrong. You may need to manually edit configuration.php to repair the log and tmp paths.

None of those errors seem to be ones that would cause a white page.

Dale

I restored a backup to live location with kickstart.php. The log and tmp paths were set to root directory and are right in the configuration.php file. When first time restoring with blank pages, I had upgraded from Joomla 1.7 to Joomla 2.5.14.

Thanks,
heiro

Oh, I am sorry I couldn't find anything about that in the documentation. Do I also have to delete the database tables?

Is that the best way to do when upgrading to new versions and wanting to test on a subdomain first, or do you recommend other ways to do it? Is there anything about that in the documentation?

Thanks,

heiro

Thanks a lot! It seems to be ok now :-)