Support

Site Restoration

#13859 Site is empty

Posted in ‘Site restoration’
This is a public ticket

Everybody will be able to see its contents. Do not include usernames, passwords or any other sensitive information.

Environment Information

PHP version
n/a
CMS Type
Other
CMS Version
n/a
Backup Tool Version
n/a
Kickstart version
n/a

Latest post by on Wednesday, 14 November 2012 18:00 CST

user9605
Mandatory information about my setup:

Have I read the related troubleshooter articles above before posting (which pages?)? No
Have I searched the tickets before posting? No
Have I read the documentation before posting (which pages?)? No
Joomla! version: 1.56
PHP version: (unknown) latest (bluehost)
MySQL version: (unknown) latest (bluehost)
Host: Bluehost
Akeeba Backup version which took the backup: (unknown)
Kickstart version used to extract the backup:3.5.2

Description of my issue: I am sorry i do not have many details. I am not a webmaster. I am a designer.

Our site was hacked. I tried to replace the site. I downloaded the .jpa file. Extracted it, then tried to copy over the existing site.

When I was done, I tried to open the site, the Kickstart page opened (though I did not have kickstart on the server) ut it asked me a few questions on getting the database replaced. I did it, then when it tried to bring me to my home page - NOTHING.

I can see the .php files. They are there. I can physically download a PHP to my local drive - it has data = but when I surf using Firefox - the page has NO CODE.

I am desperately trying to get back to where we were before a hack. This is the third time we were hacked. I am beyond annoyed because I am working 3 jobs. Is there a simple way I can just go back to where our site was a few months ago? I really wish I could NOT have replaced the database as we have had memebrs PAY since then - I just lost all fo that info. I think. I have a new database backup - but the code is hacked...

nicholas
Akeeba Staff
Manager
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.

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.

Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos

Lead Developer and Director

🇬🇷Greek: native 🇬🇧English: excellent 🇫🇷French: basic • 🕐 My time zone is Europe / Athens
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!

System Task
system
This ticket has been automatically closed. All tickets which have been inactive for a long time are automatically closed. If you believe that this ticket was closed in error, please contact us.

Support Information

Working hours: We are open Monday to Friday, 9am to 7pm Cyprus timezone (EET / EEST). Support is provided by the same developers writing the software, all of which live in Europe. You can still file tickets outside of our working hours, but we cannot respond to them until we're back at the office.

Support policy: We would like to kindly inform you that when using our support you have already agreed to the Support Policy which is part of our Terms of Service. Thank you for your understanding and for helping us help you!