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Installation: White Screen of Death

  1. I just purchased a developer's licence for Gravity Forms. When I installed the plugin on my site (everdale.org), I clicked "activate plug-in" and got a white screen of death.
    I then went into my cPanel, deleted gravity forms and got my dashboard working fine again. After reading your forums, I de-activated all of my plugins, re-installed gravity forms, and then activated only gravity forms. I received the white screen of death again, so I am inferring from this that the issue is not a conflict with one of my current plugins.

    Do you have any other suggestions for what may be causing this issue and how I might deal with it?

    I'd also like to note that prior to purchasing gravity forms I downloaded the requirements check plugin which worked just fine.

    Posted 13 years ago on Wednesday February 2, 2011 | Permalink
  2. If the server meets all the requirements and you've deactivated all the other plugins, and the white screen still occurs, then it's most likely one of two things:

    1. Try the default template and see if the problem still occurs. If it does not, then it's a theme conflict.

    2. If the problem DOES still occur, try downloading a fresh copy of the plugin and installing that via FTP, then activate it. Maybe the installation was corrupted in some way.

    You've done a great job isolating the problem thus far. I'm certain you're very close to getting it installed.

    Posted 13 years ago on Friday February 4, 2011 | Permalink
  3. I really appreciate your help. Unfortunately, I tried both of your suggestions to no avail. As I'm trying to find a solution, I am starting to get outside of my abilities to problem solve this, so I contacted our website developer to help me. Here was her feedback:

    "I have changed the theme a couple of times, once to one I did, and one to a wordpress standard. Both had the same reaction to the plugin. The second time even just having it in the plugin folder brought up the white screen.

    It was installed through FTP and activated through the plugin panel. I had a look at the error log on the site and this is what I saw that I think is an issue.I am not sure what it means as this is getting into hard MySQL and PHP programming stuff."

    Would you be able to shed any light on the error message below?

    SELECT * FROM wp_4_calendar WHERE event_recur = 'Y' AND EXTRACT(YEAR FROM '2011-01-28') >= EXTRACT(YEAR FROM event_begin) AND event_repeats != 0 AND (EXTRACT(YEAR FROM '2011-01-28')-EXTRACT(YEAR FROM event_begin)) <= event_repeats
    ORDER BY event_id made by require, require_once, include, get_footer, locate_template, load_template, require_once, dynamic_sidebar, call_user_func_array, widget_calendar_upcoming, upcoming_events, grab_events
    [18-Jan-2011 18:37:13] WordPress database error Got error 28 from storage engine for query SELECT * FROM wp_4_calendar WHERE event_recur = 'M' AND EXTRACT(YEAR FROM '2011-01-28') >= EXTRACT(YEAR FROM event_begin) AND event_repeats = 0
    UNION ALL
    SELECT * FROM wp_4_calendar WHERE event_recur = 'M' AND EXTRACT(YEAR FROM '2011-01-28') >= EXTRACT(YEAR FROM event_begin) AND event_repeats != 0 AND (PERIOD_DIFF(EXTRACT(YEAR_MONTH FROM '2011-01-28'),EXTRACT(YEAR_MONTH FROM event_begin))) <= event_repeats
    ORDER BY event_id made by require, require_once, include, get_footer, locate_template, load_template, require_once, dynamic_sidebar, call_user_func_array, widget_calendar_upcoming, upcoming_events, grab_events
    [18-Jan-2011 18:37:13] WordPress database error Got error 28 from storage engine for query SELECT * FROM wp_4_calendar WHERE event_recur = 'U' AND EXTRACT(YEAR FROM '2011-01-28') >= EXTRACT(YEAR FROM event_begin) AND event_repeats = 0
    UNION ALL
    SELECT * FROM wp_4_calendar WHERE event_recur = 'U' AND EXTRACT(YEAR FROM '2011-01-28') >= EXTRACT(YEAR FROM event_begin) AND event_repeats != 0 AND (PERIOD_DIFF(EXTRACT(YEAR_MONTH FROM '2011-01-28'),EXTRACT(YEAR_MONTH FROM event_begin))) <= event_repeats
    ORDER BY event_id made by require, require_once, include, get_footer, locate_template, load_template, require_once, dynamic_sidebar, call_user_func_array, widget_calendar_upcoming, upcoming_events, grab_events
    [18-Jan-2011 18:37:13] WordPress database error Got error 28 from storage engine for query SELECT * FROM wp_4_calendar WHERE event_recur = 'W' AND '2011-01-28' >= event_begin AND event_repeats = 0
    UNION ALL

    Thanks again for your help.

    Posted 13 years ago on Friday February 4, 2011 | Permalink
  4. When the white screen of death is not caused by a plugin or theme conflict, it is usually a PHP Memory issue or a MySQL Memory issue. Most likely a PHP Memory issue.

    You need to increase the available PHP Memory on your web server. This is typically done via a hosting control panel change or by editing an INI file on your web server. Your web host should be able to assist you with this.

    There are a few hosts that default the available PHP Memory to a very low amount which causes the white screen to occur when you start activating plugins. This is probably the case in your situation.

    Here is some information on WordPress and increasing the memory limit:

    http://www.nerdgrind.com/increase-wordpress-and-php-memory-limit/

    Posted 13 years ago on Friday February 4, 2011 | Permalink
  5. Related:
    http://codex.wordpress.org/FAQ_Troubleshooting#MySQL_Error_28

    It could be because:

    you are out of space on /tmp (wherever tmpdir is), or,
    you have too many files in /tmp (even if there is lots of free space)

    Posted 13 years ago on Friday February 4, 2011 | Permalink
  6. Thanks for your suggestions.I have increased the memory of the server and php limits and used a new download of the plugin.
    PHP Version: 5.2.15
    Zend Engine: 2.2.0
    PHP Memory Limit: 456M
    WordPress Memory Limit: 128M

    I am not sure what I should delete out of the tmp directory. In it I have all of our metrics about the site. In it is the awstats, bandwidth usage, webalizer, webalizerftp, and analog.
    I am being told that the tmp directory is 4.23mb.

    Thanks in advance.
    What files should I delete?

    Posted 13 years ago on Wednesday February 16, 2011 | Permalink
  7. That is something you would have to contact your web host about. Those tmp files are unrelated to Gravity Forms, which has no tmp file directory. So as far as removing things from your site, that isn't something I can answer.

    Posted 13 years ago on Thursday February 17, 2011 | Permalink
  8. I can't see any files that dshould be erased as they are all being used. And we aren't getting an error for no space left. It was suggested that clearing the tmp files may be beneficial but the hosting company does not know which ones gravity forms would be conflicting with so I thnk that avenue that is closed for now.

    So far we have tried everything and gotten no further ahead.

    Does anyone have any other suggestions?

    Posted 13 years ago on Friday February 18, 2011 | Permalink
  9. Gravity Forms isn't conflicting with any of them. It's WordPress that is having the issue because you are encountering a MySQL error. With only Gravity Forms activated you shouldn't be encountering an error. The fact that you are points to an issue with your MySQL server.

    The error you are receiving IS a MySQL error. And in fact the one you referenced above isn't even related to Gravity Forms, it was an error with a calendar plugin. A MySQL error.

    As @illinoisharley said this FAQ discusses the error:

    http://codex.wordpress.org/FAQ_Troubleshooting#MySQL_Error_28

    You may want to look at the 3 discussion threads that FAQ question references. This is definitely some sort of MySQL configuration issue.

    Posted 13 years ago on Friday February 18, 2011 | Permalink