By microduma on

Hi -

Like many people trying to install Drupal 4.5.1 (locally in my case, using Apache2Triad with Apache version 2.0.49 MySQL 4.0.18 PHP 4.3.8 and Pear 1.3.1 included) I have hit a blank screen on the initial launch.

I refer to CoCoCo's post on 24 Dec 2004 and other posts in this forum; several people have had the same problem with various versions of Drupal, and different software configurations (operating systems, versions of PHP etc).

Perhaps Clydefrog was on the right track asking for the content of the Apache error log. Mine was :

[Mon Dec 27 22:14:15 2004] [error] [client 127.0.0.1] File does not exist: C:/apache2triad/htdocs/favicon.ico

Now, it appears to me as if a script tries to access files in a wrong directory.

Could it be that the setting :

$base_url = "http://localhost/drupal"; in the configuration file conf.php should be changed in order to fix this problem?

Thanks a lot.

Comments

Steve Dondley’s picture

Steve Dondley commented

That line in the conf.php file must be changed. For example:

$base_url = "http://www.mysite.com/drupal";

Read the INSTALL.txt file that is in the root directory of your Drupal installation.

ezheidtmann’s picture

ezheidtmann commented

That line in your error log is unrelated to any problems with drupal.

microduma’s picture

microduma commented

Thanks a lot for the kind responses, Its a good starting point. ll try to work this one out. If I manage to sort it out, I'll post the reason for the problem here, but if anybody can make further suggestions I'll appreciate it very much.

Ockert

Steven’s picture

Steven commented

Just to clarify, favicon.ico is where most browsers look for a shortcut icon for your site by default. You can override this with a <link> tag. Some browsers (e.g. firefox) always fetch this icon, some only fetch it when you bookmark the site (e.g. Internet Explorer).

Favicon is not responsible for your site being broken, /but/ it might point to another problem: Drupal includes a favicon.ico by default. If it's not being found, then it is possible that you didn't upload all files correctly or that your server's root is set incorrectly.

dziemecki’s picture

dziemecki commented

Just to clarify any similarities or lack-there-of with my issue, I'm having the same problem with a previous version of Drupal I put on the same server. This older site was (and is) working fine on the server it is currently served from. In my view, this is a server config issue, not necessarily a Drupal config issue.

That's just a theory, of course, until I work it out.

BTW, I think $base_url is just used in building links on your site. The front page (I think) should load even if this setting was left completely blank.

c0c0c0
pronounced Gra'

microduma’s picture

microduma commented

This seems probable, thanks for advising. Looks like some more research is in the order of the day. I shall eave it at that for the time being.

Ockert

ezheidtmann’s picture

ezheidtmann commented

In my experience, when $base_url is wrong, the front page will load, but inline images and CSS files won't. So the page will look very bad.

Fransie’s picture

Fransie commented

I just solved a blank page problem by looking at my web server error log file, which told me there was a problem parsing conf.php. Indeed, there was a hard-to-notice error in the $base_url line: I had accidentaly removed the closing quotation mark..

Max Bell’s picture

Max Bell commented

Something else to check for is old modules or, worse still, duplicate modules, where you've got a module in a directory of the same name (under modules, of course) and then something like 'example_module.module' inside the modules directory as well.

Best practice: back up the entire root of your old drupal installation, then trash anything in the modules directory and start adding them in from scratch.

bostonPHP’s picture

bostonPHP commented

I am trying to install Drupal for the first time and have had quite a few problems. The latest is this one, when I try to access the main page (at the site root) I get a "Page Not Found" message. It also has a link "home" which goes to the site root and the same message of course. And it says "Navigation" at the top.

I just upgraded to version 4.5.2, and I think I have the base_url correct as well. Has anyone resolved this issue yet????

You can view the site directly at www.sidewater.com

Thanks