Moodle 3.2 -> Essential Theme -> Blank Screen

Moodle 3.2 -> Essential Theme -> Blank Screen

by Peter Aherne -
Number of replies: 8

Hi All,

I've recently installed moodle 3.2 and downloaded the essential theme. Everything was going fine until I tried to put a URL in for the footer image. I uploaded the required image to the server and went to the configuration page to add the URL. Since I've made this change the site works ok overall (though there is no footer image) but once I try to select anything under administration as soon as the page tries to reload for any section I simply get a blank page.  

The other unusual behaviour is that when I log in first as admin, the side blocks are on the right as the essential default is set. however I had changed that some time back. If I browse to courses as admin, they suddenly move back to the left. 

The main problem however is that if I select site administration everything expands as normal however if I select anything once the page tries to reload I simply get a blank page. I've tried to manually delete everything in moodledata/cache but the problem still remains. Any help much appreciated.

Thanks,
Peter. 

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In reply to Peter Aherne

Re: Moodle 3.2 -> Essential Theme -> Blank Screen

by Usman Asar -
Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers

Peter, most often blank screens (specially after theme installation) shows up due to corrupted caches during installation, all you have to do is, go into your mooledata folder, delete "cache" and "localcache" folder. refresh your page and those deleted will be recreated with fresh injection of theme cache, hopefully resolving your issue.

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In reply to Usman Asar

Re: Moodle 3.2 -> Essential Theme -> Blank Screen

by Peter Aherne -

Hi,

I had tried removing everything in cache, this time I tried both cache and localcache. Unfortunately still have the same problem.  Frustrating since I cant get into any menu to look at logs, debugging or even back into the Theme settings to try undo whatever it was I did.


Thanks though, any other ideas much appreciated smile

Peter.

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In reply to Peter Aherne

Re: Moodle 3.2 -> Essential Theme -> Blank Screen

by Usman Asar -
Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers

Peter, how was your Moodle installed? was it downloaded from this site or through script installer?

another thing that may be causing issue is your PHP, as you mentioned upgrading, where requirement for PHP for newer versions is 5.6, you may be using older version.

also, have you downloaded the correct version of Essential for your moodle 3.2? as far as I know, Essential for Moodle 3.2 is still in Beta stage, though still should have worked.

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In reply to Usman Asar

Re: Moodle 3.2 -> Essential Theme -> Blank Screen

by Peter Aherne -

Hi Usman,


Thanks for you help. This was a fresh install of 3.2 using softaculous. I'm using a shared hosting so don't have control over PHP but phpinfo() returns 5.6.3.0. theme_essential_moodle32_2017021000 is the version of Essential I'm using, I did not notice anything about it being beta but I could be wrong.

Is there anyway to directly access the theme settings in the DB? I think if I can remove the image URL from the footer then perhaps it will fix the problem since this seems to be the step that broke it.

Cheers,

Peter.

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In reply to Peter Aherne

Re: Moodle 3.2 -> Essential Theme -> Blank Screen

by Usman Asar -
Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers

OK that's the issue - softaculous as script installers strip down some of the code for the installations that suits the hosting provider, I use to have plenty issues on my script installed installations specially with theme installations as I recall, as i remember it was early days of Essential theme and lots of development was being done and it was only me having issues for my moodle installations was done from softaculous.

you can, manually delete the essential folder and refresh page to see if your moodle defaults to the clean/default theme, once there, back up your courses (if any) and then do a clean manual install of moodle downloading the files from moodle.org, even beta essential would work lovely.

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In reply to Usman Asar

Re: Moodle 3.2 -> Essential Theme -> Blank Screen

by Peter Aherne -
Hi,


Yeah, I would like to install properly but unfortunately the service I am using are missing PHP Zip. I just tried to install 3.1 and blocked by that.

While I get the Essential was beta (I finally saw that note on the page) I still don't understand why it worked fine for so long and then died, apparently just because I tried to add a URL for the footer image. 

FYI, I tried to remove the Essential theme, I was able to get in with a default theme but still the problem was there, so maybe more an issue with Moodle than the theme?

I'll see if my provider will install PHP Zip for me, if not I'll install an earlier version of Moodle and ensure I only use non-beta themes.

Cheers,
Peter.

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In reply to Peter Aherne

Re: Moodle 3.2 -> Essential Theme -> Blank Screen

by Emma Richardson -
Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers

If it was working prior to you adding an url to the footer, then you probably put an errant character in there that is breaking stuff.  You should be able to get into the database and remove it there - I would start there before starting from scratch or just restore from prior to the url addition.

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In reply to Peter Aherne

Re: Moodle 3.2 -> Essential Theme -> Blank Screen

by Gareth J Barnard -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers

Hi Peter,

You don't need the ZIP file, you can just install the theme directly from the Moodle plugins DB: https://docs.moodle.org/32/en/Installing_plugins#Installing_directly_from_the_Moodle_plugins_directory

And if you could list the exact steps you did to cause the problem, as I looked earlier and saw nothing immediate in the theme where I'd put the URL or understood how you uploaded the image to the server, then we could determine if its a theme issue or something else, especially as you're now getting the same problem with the Clean theme, which is not beta.

Kind regards,

Gareth

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