Site has disappeared

https://weblogtoolscollection.com/archives/2010/08/17/wordpress-and-the-white-screen-of-death/

thanks so much for getting back to me. I tried both the renaming of the plugins directory to disable those, and I renamed my theme directory to try and disable it, and that didn’t work either. I still have “the white screen of death,” and the article you linked to said to consult the forums for more ideas. So is there anything else I can try?

You might try removing entirely (via FTP) the theme you were using (copy it to your hard drive, then delete the original). This will force WP to go to the default theme. But don’t rename the folder wp-content/themes/, just remove the theme you were using.

Remember that in renaming the plugin directory you must (I am citing from the link above):

1. rename the folder “plugins” to “plugins.hold”
then
2. Via FTP or your host’s control panel, create new folder called “plugins”

I.e., don’t forget to create the new folder.

If none of this works, you might try searching “white screen of death” at Weblog Tools Collection – there are other pages as well.

See if these steps yield anything.

yeah, i did make the other plugins directory. No dice. And I deleted all the themes except the default one. Still nothing. Will see what other pages yield, but any other links to other articles are welcome.

Another idea – if I were to take the content folder – with all my posts, and then delete the version of WordPress I have on my site now and re-install the latest version of WordPress on my site, could I just copy over the posts like that, and it would auto-populate my “new” blog with my old posts?…

Sounds reasonable, but I’ll have to yield to someone more familiar with how WP installs itself. It’s a good question, and certainly we all need more options if the usual steps do not work.

BTW there are some other useful responses in the link above to the Weblog Tools Collection (below the article).

OK, I have now tried everything associated with that article “WordPress and the White Screen of Death” that I can, (both in the article and comments section) and have searched for other solutions, and those aren’t providing anything new. Simply put, I am stuck.

Are there any other ideas out there, or does my idea of moving the posts to a newly installed version of WordPress have some merit? Can anyone chime in on that concept please?…

I guess a follow-up question to that would be – how do I do this? Do I just take the wp-content/cache directory and insert it into the new Worpress files? Would the posts be saved that way? Or are the content of the posts actually stored elsewhere that I have to go get them?

Matt,

All your content is stored in your database. So re-uploading files on your server will not make you lose your settings, posts, pages, links, or comments.

Try logging into your server via Filezilla and uploading all WordPress 3.2.1 files again, just overwrite what is already on there.

I did a search on your site and even your readme.html file is missing. Are you sure all your WordPress core files are there?

Thanks so much. The readme.html file is there – it just also comes up as the white screen of death. Which seems odd to me. The files are all in https://www.sportscurmudgeon.com/blog…

I wasn’t running WP3.2.1 though, I was running an older version which I hadn’t updated, so that could be part of this problem.

So if I upload the new 3.2.1 into the /blog/ directory directly, it should all come back into place with all my posts and everything?

You can do a manual upgrade, which will not remove any content in the database. You can find step-by-step instructions here:

Upgrading_WordPress_Extended

It’s the method I use whenever I upgrade my WordPress sites.

wpsecuritylock:

Thanks for these remarks; very helpful.

wpsecuritylock,

So I have done all the steps to upgrade my blog as you said, but it says that it needs a higher version of MySQL – that is, a new database.

https://www.sportscurmudgeon.com/blog/wp-admin/upgrade.php

But all the help sections say that if WP needs an upgraded database, it will give me a link to follow. The only link it gives me to follow is a link about upgrading my WP software, and nothing about upgrading my database. It’s like an endless loop that’s not helping me.

My site is hosted by Yahoo, and they allowed me to upgrade to PHP 5, which I did. But do I have to contact them about upgrading to MySQL 5 as well?…

OK, I spoke to Yahoo, and they are doing the upgrades to the servers simply because they realize they need to do this in the wake of the tons of WP customers who need this. They don’t have a timeline, but they are working on it.

Hi Matt,

Yes, the requirement for WP 3.2 is MySQL version 5.0 or higher. Since you’re running version 4.1.14, be thankful this happened so you can get your host to upgrade for you or you might of missed it.

MySQL 5.x is much more secure and closed many vulnerabilities found in 4.x. Plus, your site will run faster and operate smoother too.

Once they’ve upgraded you, click the link again to finish your upgrade.

Matt,

hope this works for you; I confess I did not think of this problem; my own MySQL has been 5 for a while now; didn’t WP recently have a test of some sort to see if a site’s MySQL was up to date?

Quick edit: just noticed your site is back up. Excellent.