Dayna Leigh Cheser

Thank you for responding.
I’m really too tired to deal with this tonight, so I’ll look it over in the morning. Suffice to say, I’m not a computer guru, so this is venturing into all new territory – a bit frightening. That, and I’ve got 30+/- plugins. I haven’t added any recently, except the one GoDaddy recommended, now that they are venturing into supporting WP.
Tomorrow …

Samuel Woods (Otto)

12/26/2013 – Please check your email.

Thanks.

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.

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???

Samuel Wood.

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

Actually, I installed the WP program by punching a button that said ‘Install.’ Then, I went in, as a program operator, and, screen-by-screen, made the changes I wanted.

Ditto for the Theme, and every plugin I’ve put in. I had to re-install the Theme many times as originally, it was corrupt and had nasties in it. Finally, they cleaned it up and fixed it. The next time was the charm.

Not once have I ventured into guru-land, then, or since. The idea of mucking in guru-land frightens me.

It took me a long time before I ventured into GoDaddy’s servers and even now, if I have to go there, all I do is LOOK … I don’t change a thing. I wouldn’t dare. Guaranteed, I’d screw something up, big time.

KMessinger – Thank you for chipping in, too.

I’m afraid I have no idea what you’re talking about. I’m not a computer guru although I am picking up bits and pieces here and there. I’m a 65-year old retiree who is fair to middlin’ at operating programs (I taught myself most of MS Office and parts of Adobe CS3, among others), but what you’re talking about is not plug-&-play, it’s guru-land.

Samuel Wood – Thanks for chipping in.

“What kind of GoDaddy hosting account do you have?
– Windows or Linux?
– Shared hosting?
– Economy, deluxe, premium?”

I’m not 100% certain, but I believe it’s Linux.

I don’t think I’m sharing hosting as I don’t have any idea what that is. Is it something like the old telephone party lines where you shared a phone line and the rings were different for each household? How would that even work on a website?????

I believe it’s the economy. Money is very tight …

All that said, however, the site has been up and running since Sept 2012 without this problem. I understand you needing to cover all your bases, but it’s been fine for 15 months. Why would this start all of a sudden? This is not a GoDaddy problem … they host – period … they have nothing to do with the WP programming!

Please, can we just fix this thing and spend less time trying to blame everyone else???

OK, I just spent another hour on the phone with GoDaddy. They have bent over backwards to help me with this – 3 hours last week and another hour tonight! The tech gave me his email address and I sent your message to him, which he showed to ‘the team.’

‘The team’ reviewed my error logs and there are no php or WSOD errors in them – in fact, there’s absolutely nothing in them (note the ‘0B’- that equals zero bytes in each of the files). Whatever the error is, it’s tripping the logs (and then only 4 of the 8 errors I generated). but there’s nothing in the files.

I’m a quality freak (after a lifetime of working in commercial printing) but tonight’s post is going up (I was finally, after several hours, able to SAVE DRAFT, then PUBLISH, but that was it … my next attempted move gave me a white screen. So this post may be crap, but it’s going up tonight. (I just got the email I have sent to me confirming that the post is live for better or worse.)

OH NO!!! I just checked … I entered my website address into the URL box in the browser – and got a white screen. That’s not good, not good at all! I’m not at all happy about all this. I’m losing readers because of this. That doesn’t make me happy, not at all.

Let’s get this fixed soon!! PLEASE!!!!!

Now, it’s late and my eyes are really tired (along with the rest of me) but I’ll be back on in the morning as I have a ton of work to do. Some of it is on WP so I really hope I can actually get some of it done.

OK, I did the plugins and theme thing today.

And, I did the browser’s cache and cookies just yesterday because of an AOL problem that is TOTALLY not related to WP and the white screens – it’s a graphics manipulation problem.

I just reproduced the white screen thing 8 times and sent you my log.

And, last night, I upgraded to the latest WP – which was a mistake as the problem got a worse after that – a lot worse.

Before I upgraded, I would get the white screen occasionally, and if I waited a bit, I could come back and get a few moves in before it went west on me. Now, I’ve gotten back into the program and into the post I was working on where I put in all the changes I’d made when I edited the post – AGAIN – but now I can’t save it – again. The SAVE DRAFT and PUBLISH are greyed out – unusable.

I just want to cry I’m so frustrated.

Showing GoDaddy that dummy log you made up will be difficult as I talk to them on the telephone. They may have an email I can send it to, I don’t know. I’ve never emailed anything to them before.

This is what the 4 entries say:
1275a/aa-error.log 0B 12/18/2013 5:25:57 pm
27a9bcb9-error.log 0B 12/18/2013 5:27:46 pm
319a0e-error.log 0B 12/18/2013 5:26:41 pm
aa4a900c-error.log 0B 12/18/2013 5:26:36 pm
That’s it. That’s all the information I have.

OK, I have logs.
7:26 – clicked on Save Draft, then back arrow
7:27 – clicked on Preview, then back arrow
7:27 – clicked on Reload, it dumped my post and gave me All Posts
7:28 – clicked on Post I had up, then back arrow
7:29 – clicked on Dashboard, then back arrow
7:30 – clicked on Reload, it went to Dashboard
7:31 – clicked on Reload, it went to Log-in Screen
7:31 – clicked on Log-in Screen – I’m out of the program, period.
Back arrow usually, but not always, takes me back to the screen I was just on.
Before you say I went through this ‘too quick,’ I didn’t – I waited a long time given that it should be instantaneous.
I did 8 moves – the error logs logged 4, and the time on every one is before I started logging my time, AND none of them say anything close to ‘WSOD.’ I can make a screen shot of the logs but have no way to send it to you.

I didn’t look at the logs – I had GoDaddy look at the logs. The tech I talked to talked about that ‘WSOD’ thing, so I can only assume they were looking for that, too when they looked at the logs. They didn’t mention seeing that – or not – when we talked about the logs. Those logs have since expired and disappeared. (They are timed by the week when they happen.)

I’ll have to try to remember how to get in and turn on the logs again, then compare times. ………. OK, I think I found where the error logs are and have them running for a week. But, I should have something for you soon as …

… Right now, I’m totally crippled … I can’t move from screen to screen at all. I have the edit screen open and un-save-able – and this post is supposed to go live at midnight tonight.

I’m not going to get into history here except to say, as my mother is famous for – ‘I told you so!’ You gave no indication that there was anything to come after the stock plugins and theme thing. It seemed to me that was all you had, and I knew, from experience it wouldn’t work. END OF TOPIC

I appreciate that you are a volunteer, and if I were a computer guru, I might just volunteer, too. You’re just not given the tools you need to help people.
This isn’t personal, believe me.
WP has a good product – when it works the way it should. I love my site, and others do to. It could be better but I’m a retired typesetter so anything less than Adobe CS is not up to snuff for me, but you use what you can come up with for the least money (I’m retired and on Social Security – not made of money or able to hire my own personal consultant.)
The fact remains, dismantling the site doesn’t fix it. It never has for me over the last 4 years, and I just don’t have the time to muck with it now, especially knowing the odds are against it fixing the problem. Would you want to waste the hours it takes to do this?
It’s too bad you don’t have a supervisor or some other person to help you help people.

esmi wrote:

what is FWIW
For What It’s Worth

THANK YOU! Learn something new every day!

I will defend Go-Daddy strongly.

We’ve been dealing with GD for almost 10 years and, at one time, had a dozen websites up. We wouldn’t keep working with them if they were a lousy company. When I tell them I’m not a computer guru, they patiently walk me through what I need to do, step by step. That’s important to me.
Every time we call them, the situation is handled promptly and professionally, whether it be a purchase, a technical problem, or whatever.
Take this instance as an example. They said this is a WP problem because it takes place INSIDE the WP program … and yet, a CSR worked with me for 2 hours, involving several computer technicians in the process, just to make absolutely sure it wasn’t their problem.
We have NEVER had a problem with GD, yet every time I have a problem with WP, I have nothing BUT problems trying to get the program working properly again. It’s WP who wants to blame everyone else … GD (and probably all the other hosting companies, too) plus plugin creators, included. In the 4 years I’ve use WP (.com and .org), I have yet to be satisfied with the response of WP to my problems. It’s always the same thing – kill the plugins and switch themes – in essence, dismantling the website over a period of hours, or even days, and, so far, EVERY TIME I’VE DONE ALL THAT, ITS BEEN FOR NOTHING BECAUSE IT’S NEVER SOLVED THE PROBLEM. It’s just WP sending their clients on a wild goose chase rather than solving the problem.