update.php returns only blank page

When commented the "ini_set('display_errors', FALSE);" line, I suddenly realized what was going on:

During the setup phase, I found that the memory settings (and the script time execution) of my commercial host were not enough; adding these lines to the very beginning of the update.php script worked like a charm:

ini_set('memory_limit', '32M');
ini_set('max_execution_time', '180');

Indeed, the error displayed in the browser referred to "insufficient memory"; after that, the update.php could do its magic and voilá! my database was politely updated.

(it was hard to find but...) XD

Well,

I don't know how I did it, but I did. I somehow ended up with duplicate copies of most of my directory folder. Such as modules/modules/... files/files/... sites/sites/.....

Here are the steps I used to fix it.

First - back up your site and your database.

1) I deleted all of the duplicate folders (this went beyond modules. I found it in every directory.) (I think I screw up when using the cp command, but I'm not sure how - that kind of still scares me.)
2) Now, I queried the system table in the db and found that modules/modules/ had become the reference path for all modules in this table. So I ran this sql command on the system table of the db: UPDATE system SET filename = replace(filename,"modules/modules/","modules/");
3) I truncated all cache tables - in PHPmysql that would mean to select each of the following tables (one at a time) cache, cache_filter, cache_menu, cache_page, cache_views and then select the Empty tab for each. BE CAREFUL - do no Empty anything other than a cache table.

Test..Test..Test..

Ciao!
Cozzi

For all of you that get that blank screen, and don't want to go crazy figuring it out.

I use firefox and the add in module fireftp.

Place your site in maintenance mode.
goto your ftp program, log into where your drupal instal is.
Rename your module folder as oldmodules
download the drupal.zip that you have installed. In my case it was 5.7
Then copy the modules folder to your site.
Check your update module, it should work.
Copy your modules back from the old folder one at a time.
No need to copy over the core modules since you just reinstalled them.

You can see where I'm going with this.
IF a module was causing the problem, you effectively cleaned it up.

It's a bit time consuming if you have a bunch of modules, Sometimes I would copy half of the old ones from the folder,(minus core) and check, (making sure to remember which half I moved back.) Then move half of the remaining. If the problem pops up you know generally where the bad module is.

After your done, you can delete the oldmodule folder.

Antonio

Yeah I had the same problem. I deleted all of the duplicates and moved modules back into the correct root module folder if they weren't already and then I went through the DB and fixed all the module file paths (system table) to point back to the correct location. Now my update won't work...

I've never had a problem with update.php before, however, this installation of Drupal it seems broken. I get a 500.shtml "requested page not found page" when I run it. Which is even stranger than a blank white page. no errors in the log unfortunately. Any ideas?

Thank you a lot, fix it for me as well.