White page after failed Automatic Update; can’t get to admin page

upload the 2.8 files manually using your ftp client.

I tried manually uploading; I still get a blank page. So I went back and uploaded 2.7.1, still get only a blank white page.

Thanks, whooami, for the suggestion. Unfortunately, I did the same as TempestT-37 and had the same result.

There must be some flag set in the database that is causing this. I can point my browser directly to index.php, which I know from looking at it via FTP is present and contains code, and get nothing in my browser. View Source = Nothing. I know index.php points to another PHP file, which in turn points to another … somewhere in there there must be a database call, and something isn’t right.

try adding this to top of your wp-config.php

define('WP_MEMORY_LIMIT', '64M');

samboll, thank you so much for your suggestion. Unfortunately, this solution also did not work. Here is the relevant portion of my wp.config file:

<?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
 */

define('WP_MEMORY_LIMIT', '64M');

// ** MySQL settings - You can get this info from your web host ** //
/** The name of the database for WordPress */

it was just a shot -thought maybe you were running out of php memory

First, check which version of PHP you’re running. WordPress 2.8 requires PHP v5.0 or higher.

Next, make sure that it’s not the theme that’s causing the whitescreen. You can use the following query to change the theme back to default:

UPDATE wp_options SET option_value='default' WHERE option_name='template' OR option_name='stylesheet' LIMIT 2;

All of your posts are stored in the database, the only stuff you’ll have to worry about are pictures, themes, and plug-ins.

If it’s still giving you trouble, then your best bet is going to be to reinstall the blog. If you’re on a Linux machine, you can use the following commands to back up your existing install, then get a fresh install from WordPress:

cd ~/dir_name>
mkdir backups
cp -R htdocs/ backups/htdocs_bak
mysqldump <dir_name> > backups/wordpress_bak.sql
chown -R <user>:<user> backups/
wget https://www.ads-software.com/latest.zip
unzip wordpress-2.8.zip
cp -R htdocs/ htdocs_bak/
yes | cp -r wordpress/* htdocs/
rm -Rf wordpress/ wordpress-2.8.zip
chown -R <user>:<user> htdocs/

If all else fails, tail the logs and let us know you get.

tail -fn0 <path to error log>

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Typo in the block:

cd ~/dir_name>
mkdir backups
cp -R htdocs/ backups/htdocs_bak
mysqldump <database_name> > backups/wordpress_bak.sql
chown -R <user>:<user> backups/
wget https://www.ads-software.com/latest.zip
unzip wordpress-2.8.zip
cp -R htdocs/ htdocs_bak/
yes | cp -r wordpress/* htdocs/
rm -Rf wordpress/ wordpress-2.8.zip
chown -R <user>:<user> htdocs/

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Joseph, changing the theme using your SQL query worked! I typed …

UPDATE wp_options SET option_value=’default’ WHERE option_name=’template’ OR option_name=’stylesheet’ LIMIT 2;

… as you instructed and now the site is back up (albeit with the default theme!):
https://johnfulwider.com/polisci

This came after I had done a fresh install of 2.7.1. I am going to make some backups before I try updating to 2.8 again.

Thank you so much for your help.