Thread

donats,

Is it possible for you to update to most current version of EE 1.6.8 so that we are troubleshooting from the same page. Be sure to do a full backup if you do so.

Frankly, I don’t want to do that because this was recommended the last time (when I updated from 1.6.6 to 1.6.7) as a ‘solution’ to my blank page problem and it did not work and only caused me a headache of glitches on my website, some of which I have yet to iron out. Since I have lost my usual tech guy (moved and has a full-time job) I don’t want to risk more glitches after the update that I will not be able to fix. I hope you understand. My site is very low tech and since the actual public site is loading fine (if a little slow) I don’t think upgrading to 1.6.8. will resolve anything (i.e. updating a file is such a basic funciton that 1.6.7. version should be able to handle that…though I will eventually try to upgrade before my license expires in May). Since the problem is only from within my admin page the problem must be elsewhere, some type of database setting. Are there any setting from within my database that may help rectify the problem?

On second thought, if you really think that upgrading to 1.6.8. will resolve the blank page issue then I am willing to take the risk of the glitches….

Hi donats,

My first suggestion is to get your host on the phone, recreate the blank page error, and have them looking at the server logs at that moment to try to track down what is happening.

All of the symptoms you are seeing (“Page cannot be displayed”, Error 324 (net::ERR_EMPTY_RESPONSE): Unknown error, etc) are lower-level than ExpressionEngine, and indicate a server issue.

If they aren’t able to help you track this down further, I would seriously consider looking at other hosting options.

My server has suggested that I try moving my site over to a panel architecture server. I’ve pasted in below his email. I want to get your opinion on whether EE would work better on this type of server. And whether it is better to update to 1.6.8. now or wait until after the server change, to minimize the amount of changes:

“Hello,

The Panelbox servers are using recent versions of Apache, MySQL, PHP,
etc. Recent applications such as expressionengine will run more smoothly
with recent versions of the required modules.

Expression Engine is not in our list of supported software though. We
can not 100% guarantee that it will be functional on either of our
shared hosting architecture but chances are that it should run smoothly
on Panelbox because it is using cPanel which is used by 80% of web hosts.

Let me know if you want to try it on Panelbox and see how it goes.”

donats, I’ve run EE1.6.8 and earlier on other hosts with cPanel. Give it a shot!

Hi John. I’ve done the migration and things seem to be much better. The site loads faster and no more blank pages. The only problem are some glitches that I’ve been finding out from readers. One I noticed is that all of a sudden there is a comma after the name of the author, at every page it seems. I’ve checked the template and there is no comma there. Any idea on how I can get rid of this glitch?

Ouch I’m finding more really bad glitches. I had a few issues where I loaded pdf files as essays and all those essays are gone. I wonder whether this new architecture doe snot support pdf files, or is it merely a case of an adjustment? Have you come across this before? Now I am in a conundrum. The site seems to be smoother, quicker now, but what about all these glitches? I’ll try speaking to the server company too, but any advice you can give me would be great. Thanks.

Hi John. Sorry for the run of queries, but I’m finding more and more glitches, really bad ones. My essay pages now load without the frame box that had all the pertinent information (author, email, word count, printing,  etc.). I am overwhelmed with work right now (and a newborn!) so I don’t have the time to learn all the EE language/coding to be able to fix all these glitches. I don’t know if this is the right place to ask, but how do I go about hiring someone (I’d pay an hourly rate) who knows EE well to help me fix all these glitches? The person who set it up has since left the country and is too busy to help out, so I’d like to find someone to replace him as my tech support person, at least until I have the time to learn things myself. My other option is to ask them to put the site back on the previous server, but who knows, that may cause glitches too. And, as I said, outside of the glitches, the pages are loading faster….just not correctly! Thanks.

My site again is http://www.offscreen.com

Ouch I’m finding more really bad glitches. I had a few issues where I loaded pdf files as essays and all those essays are gone. I wonder whether this new architecture doe snot support pdf files, or is it merely a case of an adjustment? Have you come across this before? Now I am in a conundrum. The site seems to be smoother, quicker now, but what about all these glitches? I’ll try speaking to the server company too, but any advice you can give me would be great. Thanks.

Those issues are probably due to paths changing for your file uploads.

Well it is not just missing files but formatting errors. Can that also be caused by changing paths?

Hi donats,

What kind of formatting errors? Can you give us a specific example and a link to it on your site?

Cheers

Greg

Ok Greg I’ll try to outline the many formatting errors as accurately as possible with links.

1) The first thing I noticed is that all of a sudden a comma appears after the name of the author, everywhere an author’s name appears, in the front/index page (http://www.offscreen.com/) and in the past issues section (http://www.offscreen.com/biblio/pages/past_issues/P20/). This seems to have caused havoc on the essay pages themselves (see below).

2) And then if you open any essay (http://www.offscreen.com/biblio/pages/essays/do_genres_exist/) there are formatting errors at the top and the bottom. All the info that should be at the top of the essay in a frame box is missing. All we see on top is the title and the essay photo, but missing are the author’s name, email, the word count, and the printing options. All of this info, along with title and photo were in a frame box with the title on top and photo to the right. Here are the template codes:

<div class="inforight">
<a href="http://www.offscreen.com/images/logos/b{entry_id}.jpg">http://www.offscreen.com/images/logos/b{entry_id}.jpg</a>
</div>
<div class="infoleft">
<span class="tit">By:</span> {url_or_email_as_author}{authors limit="50"},  <a href="mailto:{col_2}">{col_1}</a>{/authors}
<span class="tit">Word count:</span> {07_wordcount} words
<span class="tit">Print:</span> <a href="http://www.offscreen.com/biblio/pages/print_img/{entry_id}/">W images</a>,<a href="http://www.offscreen.com/biblio/pages/print/{entry_id}/">W/o images</a>
</div><!-- end infoleft -->

Also on the essay page the ‘element-footer’ on the bottom with all the information regarding where the essay is archived, the author bio, etc. is also missing, and instead there is the dead author link which looks like a link I used for some odd essays that were loaded as pdfs (see below).

3) As you may have noticed in the link to the ‘past issues’ section, from Volume 12, Issue 2 to Volume 11, Issue 3, the essays are no longer linked to the issue, even though the essays can still be accessed from other pages. If you open one of these issues (http://www.offscreen.com/biblio/pages/index/1019/) you will see the intro text, but not the five logo photos that should be on the right or the essay titles linked in the bottom frame (as they should, like in the issue linked in #1 above).

4) The only essays that can not be accessed at all are ones that were uploaded as pdf files. There is a special sound double issue, Volume 11, Issue 8-9, which had brief introductions and then links to the actual essays as pdfs, but the links (which looked like the ones now at the bottom of all the essays) are dead.

5) What is strange with this latter glitch is that inside the EE admin publish page, the actual pdf field which was separated into four boxes, with the essay title, author name,  author email and pdf link, has changed.

With my limited technical knowledge it looks like the main problem is the linking or relationship between certain issues and essays and the missing info at top/bottom of each essay, probably caused by the magically appearing comma.

I should add that these formatting errors are only with the site’s new design which began on March 2007, Volume 11, Issue 3. The issues before then are not affected.

I’m sorry for making this so long-winded and perhaps not technically accurate, but I hope you have a better idea now. And if you need more info, more guidance, more links, etc., please let me know. I am really anxious that my site is public in such a messed up state -essays without author assignation makes me feel really bad-  and would like to get this resolved quickly.

In a related issue, can you tell me how I would go about hiring someone from the EE community as a technical support person for my website? Thanks again.

donats,

Can you list any third party plugins and extensions you are using?

Goto Admin ›  Utilities ›  Clear Cached Data and clear all caches.

Tehn can you also clear your cache manually by FTPing into system/cache and deleting all folders in there except index.html

Ok I did the clear cache from within (which I did already earlier) and the cache at the FTP. I got rid of a bunch but there are three folders (db_cahce, page_cahce, sql_cache) which I can’t seem to clear. I delete but then more folders seem to appear.

I found the Extensions Manager in my Admin but could not seem to find the plug-ins Manager (is it Modules? if so how can you tell which are third party?). In any case I verified also by comparing the folders in the FTP to the original EE folders and these seem to be the third party Extensions and Plug-ins:

Extensions:
/offscreen/update/extensions/ext.custom_fields_in_ee_tags.php
/offscreen/update/extensions/ext.multi_relationship.php
/offscreen/update/extensions/ext.multi_text.php
/offscreen/update/extensions/ext.template_images.php

plug-ins:
/offscreen/update/plugins/pi.ee_typography.php
/offscreen/update/plugins/pi.randomlorem.php
/offscreen/update/plugins/pi.replace.php
/offscreen/update/plugins/pi.replacestring.php
/offscreen/update/plugins/pi.textile.php

What seems wrong is that in the Extensions Manager these four above extensions are listed as Status Disabled, which (I think?) would explain why the relationship between certain fields is not working? Can this be the source of the problem?