Thread

This is a clean install with version 1.6.1.

Blog seems fine although I haven’t tested it much.

My problem is that I cannot login to the control panel. When I put in my username and password and press submit all I get is a blank page in FF and ‘page cannot be displayed’ in IE6 and IE7. I’ve tried clearing cookies and starting all over again with new install (including dropping EE db tables).
With my original installation the Login worked some of the time to begin with but then stopped completely. Now it just doesn’t work at all.

I have limited experience with databases and php… just thought I better warn you.

I hope someone can help me.
Thanks.

It almost sounds like an ISP issue- but that shouldn’t result in a 404.  Wonder if there’s a problem with file corruption on upload.  Let’s see if we can get a php error.  Go ftp in, grab the system/index.php file.  Take a look at this kblog entry- but note, we’re editing the index.php file INSIDE the system folder.

So- grab that file, open it up in a text editor- notepad is fine- and change:

error_reporting(0);
to
error_reporting(E_ALL);

See if you get an error.  And just to be clear- the backend login page opens fine- but when you put in your password info, it 404’s/whitescreens.  Correct?

...the backend login page opens fine- but when you put in your password info, it 404’s/whitescreens.  Correct?

Correct.

I’ve changed the file but there’s no difference… no error message.

Thanks for answering so quickly.

Hm- ok, do you mind pm’ing me the url to the cp, the username and password?  I just want to see whether it’s a local issue on your end or something else.

OK- I confirm.  With FF I’m getting a white screen.  I turned ‘live headers’ on and compared with what I get logging onto my site.  All seems fine- until after the 301 redirect to the page logged in- it just stops after getting the 200.

I’m thinking there’s an error being thrown but errors aren’t displayed at the server level- thus the white screen.  What I’d do- upload a fresh copy of the latest files in case there was a file corrupted during the upload.  Start with the system/cp folder- that might be enough to take care of the problem. 

If a new upload doesn’t do it- what ftp program are you using?  And can you contact the host to see if they can turn php error display on?  W/out an error, it’s hard to pin down exactly what’s going wrong.

OK… this is where I really show my ignorance…

You’re asking me to overwrite the system folder with a fresh one which hasn’t undergone the install process and consequently has considerably less in it? 

I’m using SmartFTP.

No- don’t overwrite the whole system folder- you need the copy of system/config.php that was created when you installed EE.

Try this- go into system and delete the cp folder.  Then upload a fresh one.  If that doesn’t work, we’ll go from there.  In the meantime- contact your host and tell them you don’t think you’re seeing php errors and can they tell you how to make sure they’re displayed.  If we had an error?  We’d know exactly what needs fixing.

Oops… reread your post and realised my mistake.

replaced the system/cp folder and now don’t even get the login page in FF.

...I get the login page now.

As far as the php errors goes, I don’t think it can be that… I tried to generate an example and got parse errors and warnings showing… is that the sort of thing we’re talking about?

thriva, can we start over? What exactly happens when you visit the control panel login page?  Are you able to log in?

Hi Lisa,

Ok so I go to the control panel login page and type in my username and password and then hit the submit button. A new page appears to load (according to the status bar) but then all I get is a blank page… really blank.
Actually this is what used to happen before I replaced the system/cp folder (see above)... now I’m having difficulty getting the login page.

Ok, and you do get PHP errors when forcing them to show?  Have you checked your server error logs for any errors?

Now, is this a fresh, new installation?  Or is it an import with previous data?  Or an upgrade from an old install?

Fresh and new…yes.
Imported/upgraded…no.
I’m going to have to apologise again for my lack of knowledge in the area of php and MySQL… where would I find server error logs?

That depends on your server so you’d need to ask your host.  Can you take us through the exact steps you went through during installation? Did the login ever work?

I followed the steps in the documentation:
I renamed the the system folder, uploaded to server everything but system/updates/ and system/updates.php.
I 666ed path.php, system/config.php and system/config_bak.php. I 777ed images/avatars/uploads/, images/captchas/, images/member_photos/,images/pm_attachments/, images/signature_attachments/, images/uploads/ and system/cache/. I used the default theme so added nothing to the themes/site_themes/ folder. I navigated to the install.php file and ran the Installation Wizard. I then deleted the install.php file.

For a while I was able to access the control panel but not every time I attempted to login. It just got worse and worse until I was completely unable to access the control panel. The site seemed to work OK although I did notice that it took sometimes up to 10 seconds to load which I felt was a tad long.