Blank front end – new install 3.3.1; Admin/dashboard okay – one possible answer

Scenario: brand new installation 3.3.1, new database, no previous content. PHP.ini is 64mb and not editable. Installation is all defaults, no plugins added yet. So, a virgin WP package. Installation went fine, back end seems to be working with the exception of previewing posts or previewing themes.

Front end is a blank page – no source code. Tried turning on debug? Still nothing. Tried a variety of the memory hacks? Nada. Just a blank screen from the front.

More digging… I *did* find this:

In the download package wp-config-sample.php — it starts like this:

<?php
/**
* The base configurations of the WordPress.
*
* This file has the following configurations: MySQL settings, Table Prefix,
* Secret Keys, WordPress Language, and ABSPATH. You can find more information
* by visiting {@link https://codex.www.ads-software.com/Editing_wp-config.php Editing
* wp-config.php} Codex page. You can get the MySQL settings from your web host.
*
* This file is used by the wp-config.php creation script during the
* installation. You don’t have to use the web site, you can just copy this file
* to “wp-config.php” and fill in the values.
*
* @package WordPress
*/

BUT ENDS WITHOUT A CLOSE PHP:

/** Sets up WordPress vars and included files. */
require_once(ABSPATH . ‘wp-settings.php’);

There is no:

?>

I naturally tried adding that, but I’m still getting nothing but a blank page. I’ve installed probably 100 wordpress blogs over the years, but this one has me stumped. It’s just a working installation so I can play with the code, but it’s on a fairly typical shared server (hostgator.com) and I’ve installed WP blogs on this particular server at this domain before, so I feel pretty confident that it should work.

In looking at individual pages, I did see that wp-app.php, wp-comments.php had an extra hard return after the closing ?> php tag. I thought that wasn’t kosher… and wp-chron.php is also missing an ?> … but haven’t checked another download to see if it needs one as well.