White screen instead of proper navigations

I’ve given you what I know about my hosting plan. I wouldn’t know where to look for anything else.

But I would, and that’s kind of the point. You’re not willing or capable of providing the kind of information that anybody here can use to help you. You repeatedly post things like “LOOK … I don’t change a thing” and “Please, can we just fix this thing” and so on, without seeing the fact that we can’t actually do that.

The thing is, we cannot wave some kind of magic wand and make the problem go away. Support doesn’t work like that. We have knowledge, but you have the problem. I don’t have your problem. I cannot see your problem. I can’t even reproduce your problem.

Whatever the problem is, it is specific to you and your setup. It’s not happening to me. So, there’s nothing I can do to “fix it”. The only person who can fix it is you, because you’re the only person having it. The best we can do is to offer advice and technical knowledge.

But if you’re not willing to make alterations, try things, find out information, and generally tinker with the site and setup, then no amount of you posting here and us replying to you can possibly get anything done. You can post all you like and complain about the problem until you run out of words, but since the only person who can actually *do* anything is also you, if you’re not willing to do that, then nothing can ever be done.

So I suggested that you email me, specifically because I wanted to ask you to tell me your login information to GoDaddy and to your WordPress installation.

Then I can log in as you and see the problem for myself and try to figure out what is wrong. Obviously sending login information is a bad thing to do and you should never ever do it. Even I always tell people not to do it. But if you trust me, then I can indeed take a look and try to find the problem. And then I can tell you to change the password afterwards.

Such exchanges of that sort of information are best conducted via email, not in a public forum.

@dayna Leigh Cheser,

You should most certainly let Otto have a look. His level of knowledge is without par on these issues. He is offering of his time to help you and likely help others here also.

bcworkz – thanks for chipping in here.

The idea of working outside a program is truly frightening to me. You guys are gurus which makes this stuff ‘easy’ for you. I worked my entire adult life in the commercial printing business, including running printing presses, even owning a small shop for 10 years – I’m really good at all that stuff – it’s ‘easy’ for me. However, I’m not a computer guru, and while I’m not averse to learning new things, I’d rather not learn on something like this or this way … I’d rather learn in a classroom setting or at the very least with my ‘teacher’ in the room with me to prevent my screwing things up before it happens.

I saw your note last night and nearly had a panic attack so I shut down and called it a day!

If I knew how to fix this myself, I would. You said it yourself “…trying to interact in this forum format, which is bad enough.” The stress is brutal! What other impossible (for me) task will I be required to do? Will this ever get fixed? I’ve called every computer fix-it place in 2 counties and no one knows (or admits to knowing) anything about WP – some even scoffed at my request – but I can’t afford a personal computer guru – not on Social Security. So, what am I supposed to do???

@dayna Leigh Cheser – have you emailed your site login info to Otto? He’s offering to help you with this – and he definitely knows what he is doing :)!

As he posted above:

Email me directly with information about your hosting account. I’ll take a quick look for you.

My email address is otto at wordpress dot org.

I second that.

Everyone here wants your installation to work and for you to just be able to use WordPress. Otto has generously offered to help you and his email address should tell you that he’s as good as you are going to get helping you. ??

Otto is a very special person in www.ads-software.com. He’s volunteering his time and is one of the few people where such an offer would even be permitted in these forums.

Really, please avail yourself of that offer.

Samuel Wood

I was very surprised when I discovered this problem had what name (White Screen of Death) – both WP people AND GoDaddy people are aware of it.

Ah-Ha! It has a name, so chances are it’s been around a while and a solution is available.

Well, obviously not because it’s the same old thing – the blame game. Who’s fault is it that this happened? THAT DOESN’T MATTER. It’s not GoDaddy’s fault – they host – period. It’s not my fault as I didn’t USE the program for most of November which is when this WSOD thing started, and I only use the program, not muck around with it. Any ‘setting up’ was done over a year ago. It’s not Obama’s fault, either (LOL). And, none of that matters … what matters is getting the program working properly. So, please, let’s work on THAT and not the blame game.

I’m the one who’s disappointed – very much so. However, I have no options. Local computer fix-it shops don’t know (or won’t own up to knowing) anything about WP (I’ve called every one in 2 counties). And I can’t afford a personal computer guru on my Social Security retirement.

FYI, Dayna sent me her information and I looked at the problem.

The long and the short of it is that it is a “MySQL server has gone away” issue. It’s a GoDaddy economy account on shared hosting. I was able to force this error by hitting refresh on 5 randomish admin tabs at once.

Either the database is overloaded or has so low of a connection limit that normal usage will cause a fatal from lack of DB connection, and thus, white-screen.

Recommendations:
– Better hosting is the only real solution.
– WP-Super-Cache as a band-aid if better hosting is not an option. It will reduce the db hits by eliminating pretty much all anon-viewing as causing queries, but if the db is overloaded from shared hosting, that won’t help a lot.

FYI

Found over 1000 domains hosted on the same web server as daynalcheser.com (50.63.49.1).

https://www.yougetsignal.com/tools/web-sites-on-web-server/

[edit] The server I am on has 201 sites.

Yes, over 1000 domains on a GoDaddy server is very typical. That’s not the issue here (though it is a real issue) because GoDaddy database servers are separate from their hosting accounts. Who knows how many accounts they load up on those! My GoDaddy experience comes from one client who signed up through a reseller before she realized what she was actually getting. She very likely has the same type of account as Dayna and I haven’t heard of any issues. I moved the PHP log where I could get to it despite the slight security risk, it remains empty after many months. I’m unable to get any errors using Otto’s stress test. I’m not defending GoDaddy, they’re awful, I’m just sayin’.

I doubt anyone would recommend GoDaddy, but the reliability you get seems to be luck of the draw. If you get a server with lower traffic levels, you may not have issues. If you are unlucky like Dayna and get an overloaded DB server, it takes nothing to blowup the connection.

Another possibility if alternate hosting is not a possibility is to request the database be moved to a different server. Maybe you will get lucky. I’ve no idea if GoDaddy would do that, but it wouldn’t hurt to ask.

I have known of GoDaddy WP users who have asked to move servers because of issues and GD moved then quite quickly.

No issues to report with a Ultimate Linux account hosting several sites…you get what you pay for I guess is the rule here.

Dayna, I’ll add my own remark, after reading the mentions of the “mysql server has gone away”.

– Your blog, do you invest yourself a lot in it ?
– Do you use your blog to generate some amount of money, even a small amount ?

If you reply “yes” to the two questions, or at least to one of them, you might want to consider moving to another web host.

Time is money. You have wasted several days’ worth on this issue, and, this is not your fault but this is a fact, solving your problem seems beyond your own personal reach in the present situation.

If you take a new hosting account with another web host, and update your domain to point to there, you will have to re-import your data, that will be yet another steep learning curve.

But, at least, hopefully, that will have solved the problem if it was because of Godaddy.
And if it was not because of Godaddy, you will have used the ONLY method to know this was a problem with your blog and not your web host.

There are very reliable web hosts who are very cheap and yet provide a great quality of service, known to be fully friendly towards wordpress, like hostgator for instance. (And, no, I don’t have shares of their company, haha).

– EDIT : just saw Esmi’s remark that Godaddy would agree to move users to another of their servers. This would be a fine and much easier way to test !

//gtmetrix.com/reports/pioneervalleywebdesign.com/QX6wIlHk 95/83
//gtmetrix.com/reports/seacoastwebservice.com/diDNBwZ5 86/87
//gtmetrix.com/reports/chadmlorion.com/5p81BhUY 91/88
//gtmetrix.com/reports/fournierssugarhouse.com/7BSLgA2F 90/83
//gtmetrix.com/reports/arseneaulandscaping.com/j6B14g9r 83/91
//gtmetrix.com/reports/swansonheritage.com/IGkH08h0 88/90
//gtmetrix.com/reports/swansonphotosonline.com/hvQVLAH7 88/78
//gtmetrix.com/reports/tree.swansonheritage.com/5hQqKfWU 99/97
(note the 3 sites inside the last one)

Hammer away?

Not going to play host debate tonight. The issues are 99.9% of the time based on poor code or a user who does not know how to setup the site correctly. That said, again, use an Ultimate Account and BTW PHP5.3 (they host those on their new racks) ??

Samuel Woods (Otto)

12/26/2013 – Please check your email.

Thanks.