Akismet plug-in produces White Screen of Death

  • I have been using the Akismet plug-in to blog comment spam from my blog for many years. In the last few days a new problem has occurred. When I attempt to go to my home page (https://theglitteringeye.com) I only get a white page. This does not occur when I access any other of my pages via direct link. I can access the admin dashboard.

    I have isolated the problem to Akismet. I deactivated all of my plug-ins–the problem went away. I reactivated Akismet–the problem recurred.

    My web host says that, since the plug-in is third-party, it’s not their problem.

    If I deactivate Akismet, I get several hundred comment spam per hour. If I activate Akismet, I can’t reach my home page.

    HELP!!!!!!

    https://www.ads-software.com/plugins/akismet/

Viewing 15 replies - 16 through 30 (of 43 total)

  • Since installing Akismet 3.0.0 I get the white screen on these pages:

    /wp-admin/update-core.php
    /wp-admin/plugins.php

    Plugin Author Christopher Finke

    (@cfinke)

    If deleting the akismet/ folder via FTP didn’t help, then either you’re running an APC cache that is caching the files, or the error isn’t related to Akismet.

    Try deleting the contents of the file via the plugin editor and/or deleting the folder (and any akismet.php file in the same directory) again and let me know if that allows you to see what plugins you’re running.

    It’s gotta be something to do with Akismet. Before I hit Update I didn’t have a white screen.
    I do not believe I am running any caching software.

    So go into Plugins > Editor and select Akismet and delete the PHP in there?

    Here are the plugins I can see via FTP (of these, I am not sure which are active):
    add-logo-to-admin
    addthis
    akismet
    all-in-one-event-calendar
    all-in-one-seo-pack
    backupbuddy
    captcha
    cms-tree-page-view
    contact-form-7
    contact-form-7-to-database-extension
    elegant-theme-updater
    email-encoder-bundle
    ithemes-sync
    jetpack
    post-types-order
    really-simple-captcha
    ultimate-coming-soon-page
    wordpress-seo

    There are all these files accessible by the editor.

    akismet/index.php
    akismet/class.akismet.php
    akismet/wrapper.php
    akismet/readme.txt
    akismet/class.akismet-admin.php
    akismet/class.akismet-widget.php
    akismet/_inc/akismet.css
    akismet/_inc/akismet.js
    akismet/_inc/form.js
    akismet/views/start.php
    akismet/views/stats.php
    akismet/views/strict.php
    akismet/views/notice.php
    akismet/views/get.php
    akismet/views/config.php
    akismet/akismet.php

    Plugin Author Christopher Finke

    (@cfinke)

    > So go into Plugins > Editor and select Akismet and delete the PHP in there?

    Yes, just delete everything you can from that file; that should prevent Akismet from running at all.

    Plugin Author Christopher Finke

    (@cfinke)

    Just removing the code from akismet/akismet.php should be sufficient.

    Well, I deleted the code that was part of akismet/akismet.php and clicked Update File. Then clicked on Installed Plugins, still white screen.
    Then went back to Plugins > Editor and Akismet is no longer an option.
    I have never encountered anything like this (white screen in some places) before. Truly baffled.

    Plugin Author Christopher Finke

    (@cfinke)

    The next step I would take would be to contact your webhost and ask them to restart Apache (or whichever Web server software you’re running) on your site. In the case that there is some cache software running that you’re not aware of, that usually helps to fix problems with it.

    Plugin Author Christopher Finke

    (@cfinke)

    For what it’s worth, I installed and activated all of those plugins and wasn’t able to get a white screen. My top guesses are either that you’re running a version of WordPress that your host has modified, or that a cache somewhere thinks that some plugin files exist that really don’t. Either way, contacting your host is the way to go.

    Apache restart didn’t fix it.

    Plugin Author Christopher Finke

    (@cfinke)

    The next step would be getting ahold of the error log and see what errors show up there when you try to access any of the pages that are white-screening.

    This site has been sitting here for a bit. I went in tonight to add some content and saw some updates. The first plugin I went to update was Akismet. Got the white screen. I thought maybe updating to 3.9 might right the ship. That too gave me a white screen.

    I have a Dedicated Virtual server with MediaTemple.

    When I view the error log for the offending /plugins.php it too is blank.

    Same with /update-core.php

    Thinking I need to restore from a backup.

Viewing 15 replies - 16 through 30 (of 43 total)
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