Updated
So, a couple of days ago, I got myself into this project where the previous developer have used Joomla as the platform for the whole website which had a store as well.
Everything was working just fine on the old server, however, the client wasn’t happy and wanted to move it to another hosting provider, and the trouble just began here.
Well, to make it shorter, the transfer went smoothly (or so we thought). We could login to the admin backend and everything was just fine, we could publish articles and delete old ones. All was perfect, BUT, the front end did not want to appear! That was it, just a blank Joomla home page, a blank white page, that’s it. We could login to the admin panel, but the Joomla frontend was always blank!
So, reading about this on the internet, we found many solutions, and after lots of trials and errors, we managed to solve this.
So, read on to see what was the cause of the problem.
1. (.htaccess) File
Though we have checked the file and it was completely fine, nothing could make sense of why this joomla blank white frontend was there. So, a simple solution, DELETE the .htaccess file. But, it might be wise to make a local copy of it first. Usually the file would be created by itself if it’s needed. Problem solved
2. Corrupted File(s)
Sometimes, joomla’s core files get corrupted or overwritten or deleted for whatever reason. If one of the core files is missing, chances are, you will have the blank page issue. To solve this, try to login to your joomla root folder through an FTP client. Find out what is your joomla version. (usually, this is located at /libraries/joomla/version.php). Look for the “Release” and take note of the version number. Once you have done this, head to joomla’s official website and download a fresh copy of the same version you have. All versions will be available in joomla’s archive. Now, unzip the downloaded files and transfer them through FTP to your joomla root folder and accept all replacements.
Note: it’s always a good idea to keep a backup before you do this. Note that this will not affect your existing content. However, it will affect your themes if you have modified any of the original themes that come with the fresh joomla pack.
3. Directory Structures
If you have migrated your joomla website from one server to another, chances are, there might be something extra you need to do in order to get it running aside from transferring the files and importing the database. Different servers use different files structures. While this will not be an issue for joomla’s core components, it might be an issue for third part components and plugins. So, to solve this, make sure your plugins and components point to the correct directories after a hosting transfer and that might actually solve your issue.
4. PHP Related Errors
Another error could be caused by wrong or deprecated PHP codes in joomla’s modules, plugins, or components (third party ones). To debug these errors, enable the debugging mode under the Global Configuration in joomla’s administration backend. Now, visit your website and see what errors does it display and act accordingly to fix those errors.
5. Error Logs (Contributed by Afroz)
This solution was suggested by Afroz in the comments section. Try to check the Error logs under your website control panel and see if that will give you any heads up.
I guess that is it for now!
Have a great time, and if you found this useful, perhaps you could share it with your friends.
If you yourself have had any experience with a blank screen with Joomla and you managed to solve it, maybe you could just drop us a line in here and share with us how did you manage to solve it.
ALso check that your main content article (the one default menu points to) is published! Silly basic error that you forget to check!
Thanks for the tip. Hope this would benifit someone out there. Have a wonderful day!
I don’t know how could that happen, but I got a server error after saving a K2 article. In that time, the content in the index.php (in the root) just copied and so appeared twice in the file.
I had to fix the index.php by deleting the duplicate code.
Can’t explain how could that happen. It has never ever happened to me before.
Hi, nice tips there
In my case it was a plugin called Content_Jplayer. Whenever I publish it all my homepages go blank !
Thanks for sharing!
Hello, mine still refuse to show, php error reporting does not bring anything and my error log is clean..what else could be the problem?
Hi!
Have you checked the rest of the points in here? There might be any reason!
Hello,
My whole website became blank (not just the front page) and I didn’t quite know what to do. Your article guided me in the right direction. Apparently, I needed an upgrade so I fell under the corrupted files category.
My steps were basically downloading the Joomla 1.5.0 – 1.5.26 package and unzipping it. After backing up with Akeeba, I uploaded it into FTP with the “replace” option. One minute later, my site was up and running again.
Einas
Glad it turned out fine for you!
Thanks also for sharing your steps. Hope this will help someone out there.. Thanks for dropping by 🙂
Hi,
Nice article btw, I’m having same issue with my Joomla 1.5.22 site, thou, it is running just fine on my local computer using xampp but when I uploaded the copy of the site online, thou I can access administrator but frontpage just show blank page 🙁 I hope you guys can assist me with this issue.
Hi Eric,
sorry for the late reply. You might try all the fixes in this article one by one and see if they fix your issue. If not, you can post me an update and I will try to assist you further..
I have the same problem, still not solved. But one thing I came across earlier was a Php.ini misconfiguration of my host: memory_limit was set too low (8) vs. recommended 64M to 256M
see this article as a resource.
http://www.robertwent.com/blog/joomla/19-joomla-increase-php-local-memory-limit-without-changing-server-settings
Another problem with the php.ini file was related to cgi.force_redirect (I am on joomla 2.5.18)
It required me to use set cgi.redirect_status_env=”yes”
Thanks for dropping by. While I have not yet tried Joomla 2.5.18, I hope you find a solution soon! Please drop a line here if u managed to find a solution.. Thanks and good luck!
I had the same issue. Fixed it by uploading a htaccess file with the code: DirectoryIndex index.php index.html
It seems as the issue was with the browser. defaulting to the index.html file each time it loaded. Hope this helps
Thanks for suggesting this, I will try adding it to the article once I have some free time!
Hi,
Thank you for the post. I am having the same problem, blank front end page, but administration works fine. I checked all you mentioned plus what readers have suggested. still blank page is there.
Hope you can assist me ,
Thanks
Hi,
Try reading through the comments. Some possible fixes were mentioned by others in here.. Thanks for dropping by!
Hi,
I’m having a problem with our website. i’m new in this school and they ask me to make a changes for their website. my problem is, i cannot log in, no! i mean i can’t access to administrator. it shown black page. please help me. i don’t know what to do because I’ve never make a website.
i’m looking for your answer. Thanks in advance.
Hi, This doesn’t really give me anything to work with. Could you please email me with some extra details using the contact form on this page http://itscoding.com/contact and I will see if I could help!
I got white blank front end after upgrading Joomla to 3.4.3. I unpublished a module and site become normal. If anyone get problem check different plugin and module it may possible one of them is making problem.
Thanks for sharing!
I had same problem once: After migrating to new host my joomla frontend show blank page but backend show normal. I changed select box in backend:
Global Configuration – Server – Server Settings – Error Reporting to Maximum.
And refreshed my frontend. Now I can see PHP notice and warning error reports. It said that some files missed in some directories. I upload missed files and problem was solved.
I migrate from 2.5.28 to 3.4.5
I had the same problem : blank page on front-end, backend worked fine.
The problem was DJ LikeBox Module that needed to be upgraded from 1.6.2 to 2.1
I found the problem using ‘loggie’ plugin
Thanks for your contribution 🙂
It seems someone hacked me and put a wordpress index.php file or something went wrong, so i just replaced it with my backed up index.php file and the website came back on.
Thanks for sharing.