Hi,

I just recently updated to the latest version of XOOPS on my host server. My host server provided an automatic install of XOOPS with Fantastico. However, I had to upgrade it, since it installed the previous version of Xoops.

I had no problem with the update. When I logged in, the administration menu and user menu appeared, as normal. However, after I updated my system preferences to use a different theme, the problem started.

I went into the system module and preferences, and changed the default theme setting to a different theme (other than the default theme). After making that change, I tried to log in, but the only things that were displayed were the top banners and the footer. There were no menu blocks showing, which meant I had access to nothing.

I went into my MySQL database on my host server, and went into the xoops_config table, where I changed the _MD_AM_ Dtheme field value back to "default". The value had previously been set to the custom theme I switched to in the system preferences page (when I was still able to access that page through the menu system). Now, after changing that field value to "default", I receive a completely blank page when logging in. The banners and footer are not even there now. I'm not an MySQL or PHP expert here, so I have no clue what is going on, or how I even made it worse.

There are a few things to note here:

1) The custom theme is not the problem, since it worked fine with my other XOOPS installation.

2) There are no modules installed yet, except for the system module.

3) I did make a change in one of the newbb files within the templates folder of the newbb module. However, I made this same change within my old XOOPS site, and it worked fine. Basically, I just added a reference to a color class in my style.css file. I don't really think this is the problem, but I'm mentioning it anyway. The Newbb module is not even installed yet, which further makes this an unlikely cause.

4) Before I updated the preference page in the system module, I selected the option where new files/templates are automatically updated. I forget the exact title of that option.

Anyway, I'm wondering what is going on now, and how I should fix this problem. Any help would be appreciated.

** I just noticed that when I log in and the blank page appears, my URL appears this way:

http://mysite.com/index.php?PHPSESSID=24faa420941f4c74430f68345e9a7bed

Just wondering if this gives anyone any clues, since it is the last rendered URL upon the site going dead.

I tried setting the error_reporting to display errors, but no errors show up.

Dave

Here is another observation regarding my problem. I have my site turned off, which means that the page which provides a message that the site is temporarily turned off is displayed (along with the login boxes).

I noticed that the XOOPS banner graphic is correctly appearing in this page, and correctly mapped to the "default" theme, which I reset it to through the MySql database. It is only when I login that a completely blank page is rendered. Earlier, when I had changed from the default theme to a different theme, the banners and footer were showing, but the remainder of the page was blank. When I manually changed it back to the default theme through the PHPAdmin of MySQL, the banners/footer stopped displaying too.

Anyway, I'm wondering if something was incorrectly written to the database when I initially changed my preferences.

The entire problem started when I changed the default theme setting from the default theme to another theme, and set Update module template .html files from themes/your theme/templates directory?to "Yes".

What occurs when the module template .html files are updated? Could something have gone wrong there?

Also, one other question. When I upgraded to the latest version of Xoops, I did this by overwriting all the old files with the new files. However, I never updated the system module in the "modules" administration page. Was I supposed to do this? And, could this by why my site has corrupted. Am I supposed to update other modules too, even though they have not been installed yet?

I'm trying to avoid starting from scratch again and reinstalling this. The upgrading process is very tedious, especially on a host server.

Dave

To answer your question about the system module, yes, after upgrade you need to update the module. Can you try to log in to you site then type:

http://ursite.com/admin.php and see if you can get to the administration control panel. From there try and update the module in the module administration page.

Then see if it works.

Hi jdseymour,

I was able to get to the adminstration page, and update the system module. Well, the site now works some of the time. However, when I logout, I end up with a blank page again. Or, if I try to go back to the home page from another section, I receive a blank page again.

When I try to refresh the home page or retype the url to the home page, I keep getting the blank page. However, when I close the browser, reopen it, and then enter the URL, the home page comes up fine. For some reason, XOOPS renders a blank home page when logging out or returning to the home page from another section.

Dave

Well, I fixed the problem. I was able to turn on the PHP Debugging, and received the following error message:

Warning [PHP]: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /...../...../public_html/include/common.php:296) in file index.php line 39

As it turns out, the above error was unrelated to my first problem, which was that I didn't update the system module after upgrading to the latest XOOPS version.

Early on when I was having the first problem, I tried to set the debugging on by changing the setting of the error_reporting variable in the common.php file. I did this because I could not access the admin preferences page at the time. Well, when I changed the error_reporting setting, my server added extra spaces to the end of the php script. This is what generated the second error. I went back into the script, deleted the spaces at the end of the script, and now the problem is gone.

Actually, my host server adds the extra spaces as soon as I open a php file for editing. Thus, my problems originated from two errors, one was because I did not update my system module, and the other was because extra spaces are added when I edit php scripts.

Anyway, just wanted to share this in case others run into the same problem.

Dave

Thanks for reporting back, glad all is well.

These websites can be a little touchy at times.

I had a very similar result after making somewhat similar changes...

I selected a different default theme, while making several other changes as well. I didn't remember which admin changes I made, as I wasn't mentally in "debug" mode. I logged out to see what my public site, and I got the blank page mentioned above. I couldn't access any page (not admin.php, or anything else -- admin.php sent me back to index.php, which was blank).

Using MySQL in the xoops_config table, I changed the default theme back to "default" (where conf_title = '_MD_AM_DTHEME'). I was then able to access my site.