Support

 Hello,

Yesterday I experienced unexpected behaviour of Admintools when trying to login to my backend. No login was possible as I got stuck with a totally blank (white) screen after the admin login phase.

So, everything went well up until the final entrance to my backend.

As far as I can remember I didn’t change anything in the setting of admintools the last time I logged in (last week Wednesday/ Thursday). But a week ago I entered some specific exceptions for the new template I am looking in to at the moment. That couldn’t be the problem though I was thinking.

I was able to login again after renaming main.php, and also after renaming admintool pro.php

As far as I could see my website configuration was not compromised. And I didn’t by accident blacklisted myself. So, although I could login again I didn’t know what to do next as everything seemed to be ok.

To have my website protected I changed the renamed files (which I did not renamed at the same time by the way, but in consecutive order just to check what would work and allow me to log in again) back to its original state after logging out again.

So, I ended up with a situation that doesn’t suit me quite well. Renaming a file over and over when I want to login in to my backend is not ideal. ;-)

What could have gone wrong last week? Can you please advise me.

Many thanks
Wim

First, clear your browser cache. It sounds like this has gone on long enough that cache shouldn't be the answer, but it is and easy thing to try.

It that isn't the solution, then we need to get into some standard troubleshooting.

A white page or a page with a 500 Internal Server Error is, in fact, either a .htaccess issue to a PHP fatal error in disguise.

First, let's see if it is a .htaccess issue. Try renaming the .htaccess file in your site's root to htaccess.bak If there is a .htaccess file in the site's administrator directory, try renaming it as well. If that solves the problem, the issue was with a directive in your .htaccess file. We'd like to recommend you to try removing directives from your .htaccess until you find the one which causes the problem.

If that doesn't help, the error you are receiving is in fact a PHP error in disguise. First, check your server's error logs (not the access logs) immediately after visiting the page which throws the error. There should be an exact description of the PHP fatal error which occurred. Sometimes you can find the error messages in files called error_log or error.log inside the site's root and/or administrator directories. If unsure about the error log location, please consult your host. Most likely the error logs are available in your site's cPanel, Plesk control panel or similar hosting account management facility.

If your host does not give you access to the error logs and you have access to the Joomla! administrator area, please log in to your site's back-end, go to Global Configuration, click on the Server tab and set the Error Reporting to Maximum (Joomla! 1.5) or Development (Joomla! 2.x and later). Try visiting the problem page again.

If you still get a blank page, edit your configuration.php file and put the following code right after the final closing curly brace ( this is what a curly brace looks like --> } ) but before the closing PHP tag (it looks like ?> that is a question mark and a greater-than sign):

ini_set( 'display_errors', true );
error_reporting( E_ALL ); 

Try visiting the problem page again.

If you still get a white page, please remote the two lines from your configuration.php file. Edit the .htaccess file in your site's root. If you don't have a file named .htaccess create a new one. Beware that htaccess.txt is a DIFFERENT FILE and will NOT work! Add the following to the end of the file:

php_flag display_errors On
php_value error_reporting 32767

and retry loading the problem page.

If you still get a white page, remove the two lines from your .htaccess file. Now, create a file called php.ini with the following content:

display_errors=on
error_reporting=E_ALL

and upload it into your site's root and your site's administrator directory. Retry loading the problem page.

IMPORTANT: Sometimes the error won't show. Edit your configuration.php and find the line starting with public $error_reporting and set it to:

public $error_reporting = 'development';

This instructs Joomla! to enable maximum error, warnings and notices verbosity. In 99.9% of cases it will result in the error messages being shown on the browser.

If you still get a white page, delete the php.ini files your created and choose a different host. If your host doesn't allow you to debug any PHP-related issues there is no point paying them.

Please note that if you can not understand what the PHP error message means, just copy and paste it here verbatim so that we can take a look and point you to the right direction.

Hi Dale,

Well,

I am not sure if I did things right but
a) in the cpanel of the host (DirectAdmin of Antagonist (that is the host)) there was nu error that appeared due to my disregarde trials to login
b) loging in with the main.php in the admintools renamed and setting the error reporting to development, this is what appears in the backend straightaway:

Strict Standards: Declaration of JParameter::loadSetupFile() should be compatible with that of JRegistry::loadSetupFile() in /home/xxxxxxxx/domains/aboutzoos.info/public_html/libraries/joomla/html/parameter.php on line 512

Strict Standards: Only variables should be assigned by reference in /home/xxxxxxxx/domains/aboutzoos.info/public_html/plugins/system/bigshotgoogleanalytics/bigshotgoogleanalytics.php on line 29

Strict Standards: Only variables should be assigned by reference in /home/xxxxxxxx/domains/aboutzoos.info/public_html/plugins/system/abiviaredact/abiviaredact.php on line 473

But I am absolutely not sure if this is the error reporting you are referring to

So, please tell me if this helps you explaining to me what I need to do next to solve the problem

OR

do I need to do something else to look for another error


regards
Wim

and now I did what was necessary the first time

(renamed the main.php in admintools again back to its original)

now I get the following message when trying to login:

Strict Standards: Declaration of JParameter::loadSetupFile() should be compatible with that of JRegistry::loadSetupFile() in /home/xxxxxxxx/domains/aboutzoos.info/public_html/libraries/joomla/html/parameter.php on line 512

Fatal error: Call to undefined function MaxMind\Db\Reader\bcadd() in /home/xxxxxxxxx/domains/aboutzoos.info/public_html/plugins/system/akgeoip/lib/vendor/maxmind-db/reader/src/MaxMind/Db/Reader/Decoder.php on line 252


the last one is the mean one I suppose

what do you suggest ?

many thanks
Wim

Bingo! The "Fatal error" was exactly what we were looking for. The error has to do with the GeoIP plugin. Those backslashes (\) shouldn't be there, they should all be forward slashes.

You can disable the GeoIP plugin, that should save you from renaming main.php and still keep most of WAF active.

I know what is wrong, but I don't know how to fix it. I'll check with Nicholas in the morning for a more permanent solution than disabling GeoIP.

All we need to do is update the GeoIP plugin. This is a bug that is fixed in the latest version.

Hi Dale,
Ok sounds good. When will the update be available?
Wim

We're pretty sure you aren't running the current 1.0.4 version that is available now at https://www.akeebabackup.com/download/akgeoip/1-0-4.html because that is the version that includes the fix.

You are absolutely right!!!
I've installed the current version and ....... it seems the problem is solved!

Thank you for the prompt and dedicated solution.

Wim

You are welcome!