site is completely blank right after installing Zen theme

You should be able to revert to Garland if you remove the subtheme (I assume that's what you enabled) from your web server. Or just remove the Zen theme.

As for an explanation and solution, I should let a real expert contribute ideas. I've run into this issue a few times (on developed and vanilla sites alike) but haven't managed to identify the root cause yet due to my scattershot approaches to solving it.

For now, you can probably find a solution by searching for "white page" or "white page of death", but hopefully someone who knows Zen themes better than I do can provide some help here.

"You should be able to revert to Garland if you remove the subtheme (I assume that's what you enabled) from your web server. Or just remove the Zen theme."

Hi. I did try removing the Zen directory but it didn't help. I'm not sure what you mean by "removing the subtheme". How do I go about this?

If you removed /examplesite/public_html/sites/all/themes/zen completely, including all files and subdirectories, then you may need to clear the theme registry via a database query (may as well clear your local cache as well). I'm not certain about this, however.

Here is something I was looking for earlier that might help: The White Screen of Death (Completely Blank Page)

If you've removed the theme from your installation, just attempting to go to /admin/build/themes will cause the theme registry to be rebuilt.

But, afaik, a theme can't cause a WSOD after its code has been removed the site. :-\

After removal, and still can't get into the site, try running update.php. Or else simply empty all the cache tables via PMA (if still in devs and running locally, as the last resort, of course)

Another way is to always keep the working admin/build/themes and admin/settings/performance urls open in another browser tab prior to any drastic changes, like aggregation, adding themes, .etc. So when an active browser goes blank, you can still access the other browser tabs and reset. At least this saves me sometimes :)

/admin/build/themes is just a white page :(

I'm not sure I want to run update.php as I've tweaked some modules and am concerned about them being overridden. Not to mention, I don't know how to access the update.php page while the site all white. I'm not proud to say I don't know what PMA stands for. I googled and researched at drupal.org and can only gather that it's an admin account. Right now the only action I can take is through the database directly. But I have no idea what to modify. This is a dev site.

Another tidbit, at the time I was enabling this theme, instead of the little screenshot that the other themes had, this zen theme had a little broken html tag. No screenshot. I just tried this same dev Zen version in another fresh install of drupal, and got the same result. I'm thinking there's something wrong with the dev version. It's crazy that a theme has completely killed my site. But I need that site for a demo soon!

Thanks

I'm probably in over my head when I say this, but I believe update.php will not automatically update modules until you click past the first update.php page, approve the modules it says it will touch, and finally click the Update button beneath the listed modules. (Caveat: I'm not 100% sure if this will still be the case if you tweaked core modules).

Regarding how to access, you can just type http://www.examplesite.com/update.php into the address bar to get there.

PMA = phpMyAdmin.

Hope this helps. I feel your pain.

Well running update didn't fix it. Still a white site. On day three of totally losing my site because of a theme. How ridiculous. I appreciate the help though. Does anyone know which of the 110 tables I need to look at or how to clear the cache as was suggested?

It would seem that there is a flag in the db indicating which theme to use that I could simply switch. But looking at the tables, nothing really jumps out. No "Theme" table or anything.

Thanks.

Have you checked the The White Screen of Death (Completely Blank Page) page yet? There may be several simple things you can try there that might yield more info on the current problem (e.g. increase PHP memory). It's not an exhaustive list of things to try, but it should get you started. After that, Googling "white page" + drupal or "white screen" + drupal should yield more possible solutions.

I'm still hoping a real expert will come along and lend you a hand. Like I said earlier, this has happened in the past after fresh installs and upgrades, and I each time I eventually fixed it by cycling through all the standard fixes that are scattered across Drupal and the web.

Getting back to your specific questions, the cache tables are fairly well-labeled. Whatever you do, make a full db backup now. Then, you might try this (or a shortened version of it, depending):

Again, hope this helps.

Cured! Well back to where I was before trying to install the zen theme. Thanks for sticking with me, silurius. It turns out your first suggestion was correct. I assumed by changing the theme's folder's name it was the same as removing it. Apparently not. Still not sure what is causing the dev version to fail to load properly. But the recommended one works fine, and I finally got my site back. :)

Well, at least my comment in #4 is still accurate. I was worried I didnt' understand the system as well as I thought I did.

@work77, Drupal is looking at the .info file. It doesn't care about the name of the folder that contains the .info file. Did you need to remove the Zen theme? Or just your sub-theme?

Also, I've updated the 6.x-2.x-dev quite a bit since you opened the issue. Does the latest -dev still cause you issues?

Whew!

I assumed by changing the theme's folder's name it was the same as removing it. Apparently not.

Ah, I should have clarified in my post. I did the exact same thing the first time this happened to me.

JohnAlbin, yes your comment is still accurate. I ended up removing the entire zen folder and that seemed to do the trick. I just installed the dev version of zen dated today, nov 6. All good!

For my own sanity check, I also just tried it again WITH THE ONE THAT DOWNLOADED A FEW DAYS AGO and, once again, instead of a screenshot of the theme there is an image that literally reads "Screenshot for Zen theme" (it displays the 'em' html tags. I can't do it in this post). I think that was the first sign of trouble. So, it looks like you made a good change. All appears to be right now.

silurius, I'm docking your pay for failing to mention the rename/remove file distinction. ;-)

thanks again, guys.