As the original poster, I actually very much appreciated knowing that others were having the same problem, first of all, not that my opinion on that matters in the least. But there it is.
When I say “FTP screen inside my admin area” I figured you knew what I meant. My bad. Hmm, I’m not sure what it’s actually CALLED, but I ALWAYS entered my FTP creds into the actual WP-ADMIN area itself whenever I 1) installed a plugin; 2) updated a plugin; or 3) updated WP itself. I can’t be the only one doing this? It’s been this way forever, too. And of course, the first thing I did was disable all plugins on a test site and try the update; no luck, hence my posting here to see if anyone else was getting the “non-updating” “just blank” “no success page” “update.”
And sure enough, it appears to be happening to others. Good to know!
So, again, thanks to everyone, and especially for letting me know it is a bug with the update.
I think the best course for me is just to wait and see if the devs get a grip on this one soon. I did updated one site manually (i.e., the old-fashioned way, heh) and of course that was fine. But tedious, because I’m used to clicking update and entering my FTP creds in the admin area as I explained above.
I will wait to do the other 20 or so sites ’til the bug is … addressed. It isn’t hurting anything for me to check and click “update” in my WP-admin area from time to time and see if the screen changes (i.e., if it actually DOES ‘update’).
Also, I would guess (?) that if enough people open individual “cannot update, blank screen in wp-admin is actually doing nothing” threads, perhaps it will receive attention from the devs a bit sooner? Shrug.
??
Thanks so much, again, all.
Kay