Topic on Project:Support desk

Error running the update script

20
174.30.7.246 (talkcontribs)

So I'm not the most savvy person when it comes to this sort of stuff, but I've made due in the past. But when things go wrong, I typically am at a loss. Case in point:

I've got a wiki http://mafia-town.net/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page PHP version 5.4.31 MySQL version 5.5.37-cll

Now, I installed this wiki about two years ago at version 1.20.6, using Softaculous via my cpanel. When a new update came out for my MediaWiki installation shortly thereafter, I went to Softaculous to update. I ran the updater, and was prompted to navigate to run the update script. I selected my language, and hit next... and the screen went white. There was no option to proceed with the update. My entire wiki was unresponsive, too. All empty white pages, no content, no titles, no logo, no nothing. (Much like it is at this moment, if you navigate to my wiki right now).

At the time, I just restored my backup and opted not to really do anything about it. I looked into it a bit, but never could figure it out, so I just kept an outdated version for a while. That is until now...

Suddenly, the content of my wiki went missing. The pages were still there, the titles were still there, but no content. When I click to edit a page, the content shows up ready to edit. I googled my issue and found: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Errors_and_symptoms#You_see_a_Blank_Page (In the section called "All pages have no content, but when editing a page the wiki text is there.") The fix? Update your wiki!

However, the same issue occured. I again restored a backup and tried to perform an update manually (as per http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Upgrade). I downloaded the files, uploaded them to my server, unzipped them, added the files from the old install it says I need to move, renamed it to the old pathway name, and went to run the update script. Aaannndd... white pages. Everywhere. I can't seem to run an updater at all.

The recommendation to rename .htaccess seems to be a different issue. So my question is can you help little old me fix this and update my wiki so that we have content on it again?

-Shawn

88.130.96.32 (talkcontribs)

Hi!

First: On single step might not be enough to solve this problem. It might be that you need to do several steps until this problem is solved.

At the point when everything is there, only the content seems to be missing, but when you click "edit" you can see it, this points to a version of PCRE on the new server, with which your MediaWiki version is not compatible. This problem is solved in the current version of the 1.22 branch and in 1.23.2. Updating MediaWiki is the solution for that problem.

A blank page (which you see when you updated) points to a PHP error. Activate error reporting by adding these two lines to LocalSettings.php

error_reporting( E_ALL );
ini_set( 'display_errors', 1 );

and view the updater again... Which is the error message/are the error messages, which you get?

174.30.7.246 (talkcontribs)

Unless I am doing something very wrong here... there are no error messages. I added the lines to the bottom of my LocalSettings.php file, saved it, and navigated again to my http://mafia-town.net/wiki/mw-config/ page. It's blank, white, nothingness. I see no error messages.

AKlapper (WMF) (talkcontribs)

It's unclear to me which exact MediaWiki version you upgrade to, and which PCRE version is on your system.

128.223.223.233 (talkcontribs)

I'm trying to upgrade to the latest stable release (1.23.2).

I don't know what PCRE is, if I'm honest. I believe my Perl version 5.8.8.

Nsgaeverine (talkcontribs)

PCRE stands for Perl Compatible Regular Expressions.

I just downloaded the program, but where to place it on the wiki.

Ciencia Al Poder (talkcontribs)

PCRE is a library, which is usually part of your system (on Linux at least). PHP is compiled with links to that library. To install a different version of PCRE you should usually install it (read installation instructions of that library) and then recompile PHP.

But usually you won't need that, and just upgrade your MediaWiki, or apply the patch that solved that problem.

Ciencia Al Poder (talkcontribs)

Adding that code won't help if the error is happening in the mw-config directory, since it doesn't load LocalSettings.php.

You should set up them on php.ini. If you can't edit that file, you might try to change them in .htacess .

Even when error reporting is disabled, those fatal errors are usually logged in the apache error_log. Check your cpanel for any sort of "error logs" to see if you get a descriptive error there.

174.30.2.215 (talkcontribs)

you...are overestimating my capabilities, I think.

I can found both my php.in and .htaccess files, and found I can edit them both. I'm not sure what you'd have me do with them. They both are practically empty.

I added the code suggested to me above into the files

error_reporting( E_ALL ); ini_set( 'display_errors', 1 );

That...did not work. So I removed it.

As for error logs, it's empty. I tried to access the updater again, and checked back at the log and it still didn't have anything other than the errors from me adding that code to those files.

-Shawn

Ciencia Al Poder (talkcontribs)

From Manual:How to debug:

For php.ini:

error_reporting = E_ALL
display_errors = On

For .htaccess :

php_value error_reporting -1
php_flag display_errors On
174.30.0.4 (talkcontribs)

Thank you.

I edited that into the php.ini file and saved it. I ran the updater again. It's still white and empty. I see no error messages.

Florianschmidtwelzow (talkcontribs)

Have you restarted your webserver?

174.30.5.221 (talkcontribs)

"Restarting my webserver" is not something I know how to do. I googled it... and honestly I still don't know how to do it.

I did contact my host, however. They were able to confirm there is an issue. But they don't know what it is. This is what they did say:

"I have looked into this a bit and I see that your php.ini file is custom and incomplete. I have updated your php.ini file to see if that would fix the issue but there is still a white screen problem. In the php.ini file I have turned on display_error so that if there was any php errors they would display instead of the white screen but no errors are displaying so I do not think that this is a php issue. I have checked the server and there does not appear to be any server problems that would cause this issue for you. This appears to be an issue with 3rd party software which is not something that we have Support for."

Does anyone have any idea?

Florianschmidtwelzow (talkcontribs)

Sorry, i have to ask this: Did he really mean "display_error"? If so, please try the correct one "display_erros" :)

174.30.5.221 (talkcontribs)

I went ahead and looked and the php.in file. A search for the term "erros" turned up no results in the document, but I did find this:

display_errors = On

Which I changed to this:

display_erros = On

I ran the updater again and nothing new happened.

Florianschmidtwelzow (talkcontribs)

Argh, that's my fault :/ "display_errors" was correct...

Ciencia Al Poder (talkcontribs)

Try also setting:

display_startup_errors = On
174.30.5.221 (talkcontribs)

Still nothing...

Let me ask this. While I'm happy to try everything you guys suggest, could there be a different option? What if I uninstall MediaWiki and then install the latest version? Would all the content and users be retained?

GeorgeBarnick (talkcontribs)

Reading through what you've said so far, you said you installed MediaWiki originally from some control panel on your web host? I wouldn't suggest uninstalling it from there since it might delete the databases. I don't know but I can't be certain. If you have access to FTP on your server, try to log into that. You should be able to download the latest tarball version of MediaWiki from the main page, extract it, and replace the contents of your server's MediaWiki directory with the new version you download. Make sure you keep the LocalSettings.php file on your server though! This isn't guaranteed to work, so I wouldn't suggest doing it if you don't want to take a risk. It's kind of an inefficient way to update MediaWiki, but it is a way to update it.

184.3.55.100 (talkcontribs)

So I installed MediaWiki using Softaculous, an option given to me through my cpanel. When you uninstall software, it does give you an option to keep the directory in the database.

I do have access to my FTP through my server. I believe that what you suggested is how I tried to update it the second time (the first time being using Softaculous's autoinstaller). I kept my LocalSetting.php file and extracted the new files into my server's MediaWiki directory, overwriting old files.

Regardless of what method I use, I encounter the same problem when I get to the updater. The first page of the updater worked fine (I was able to select my language). After that page, the updater, and the entire wiki, are blank white pages.

-Shawn

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