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NEED HELP: Wordpress Auto Update Fails, Completely Blank Screen

by millionairemoney
11 replies
I tried to automatically update WP through the control panel to the latest version - I believe this is 3.2. When I tried to update, the download just stopped and after waiting 20 minutes, I went to another page and then the control panel was left completely blank. Any time I type in domain.com/wp-admin, all I get is a completely blank page - no "database connection error" or anything else.

I've searched for answers on Google and most people say to delete the .maintenance file but there is none in the FTP. I've deleted all the failed installs from the upgrade folder but that did nothing. I've tried to delete the upgrade folder entirely but it wouldn't let me.

The blog still shows but that's it.

Any advice on how to get the control panel back? Can I just try to copy a manual installation over the current installation?

THANK YOU VERY MUCH!
#auto #blank #completely #fails #screen #update #wordpress
  • Profile picture of the author Mena Jo
    Hi

    That sounds really frustrating!!

    Quick question and you may have already done this but when you go to your file manager to search for the .maintenance file do you check the show hidden files box?

    MJ
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    • Profile picture of the author millionairemoney
      Originally Posted by SEObabe View Post

      Hi

      That sounds really frustrating!!

      Quick question and you may have already done this but when you go to your file manager to search for the .maintenance file do you check the show hidden files box?

      MJ
      MJ,

      Thanks. I did not have my hidden files showing but now I do and I didn't get the .maintenance.

      This is definitely frustrating. I can't find anything on Google directly on point.

      Thanks for your help.
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  • Profile picture of the author Abledragon
    Try doing a hard refresh (F5) to make sure you're not getting the white screen displaid from Cache.

    If that doesn't work, it may be simpler to restore the most recent backup or, if you haven't taken backups yourself, to ask your hosting provider to restore the most recent backup they have taken.

    Cheers,

    Martin.
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    • Profile picture of the author millionairemoney
      Originally Posted by Abledragon View Post

      Try doing a hard refresh (F5) to make sure you're not getting the white screen displaid from Cache.

      If that doesn't work, it may be simpler to restore the most recent backup or, if you haven't taken backups yourself, to ask your hosting provider to restore the most recent backup they have taken.

      Cheers,

      Martin.
      Hey Martin,

      Thanks a lot for the info. The refresh didn't work and I've never done a backup and it's not my host --- it's actually for a web designer's client that I was helping with blog stuff for. I can get in the host but it's not one (control panel/service) I am familiar with at all.

      Does anyone know if simply manually installing over the current installation will work? or at least not hurt anything?
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  • Profile picture of the author Jason Z
    I've had this happen to me where an update crashed in the middle of updating and caused the site to not display. If you are not getting the .maintenance file then the other thing that I have tried with some success is to delete the uprades folder in wp-content/upgrade.

    That's sort of a temp folder and deleting it might help solve your problem.

    Hope that helps.
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    Co-Founder of the Local Profit Model Training Program for Offline Consultants

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  • Profile picture of the author Greg D
    All great suggestions. Very frustrating.

    One thing that helped me in a similar situation was deleting plugins from the plugins folder. You might have one that is wildly conflicting.

    Make a list of them, so you can replace them (or download them if you don't have a copy). It may require some re-configuring, but may be worth it.

    A good database back-up scheme in place should help you to restore to a previous point and get you back up and running.

    I hope it gets resolved for ya.



    Greg
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  • Profile picture of the author SteveJohnson
    The problem you're having is because WP didn't finish installing the new files. You'll need to do it yourself.

    Grab a good copy of the latest WP from http://wordpress.org/latest.zip, unzip it on your machine. If you're using the twenty-ten theme and have modified it at all, also delete that theme folder from wp-content/themes.

    On your server, DELETE the root-level WP files except for wp_config.php, delete the wp-admin and wp-includes folders. Don't upload the new files over the old ones, sometimes the old ones aren't deleted properly.

    Upload the new files.

    You should be good to go...
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  • Profile picture of the author kettlewell
    I would recommend renaming your plugins directory (rather than deleting them), and see if that helps...

    It sounds like you lost network connectivity at some point, and may have not fully downloaded the updates...

    3.2 isn't officially released yet (3.1.4 was just released today)

    If plugins aren't the culprit, then an upload of the 3.1.4 via FTP (manual upgrade) will be necessary.

    if you did use a beta or RC of 3.2, then you will want to grab the recent 3.2 version (and not the 3.1.4)

    Let us know if you need help with the manual upgrade, or if you find the solution independent of any of us...
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  • Profile picture of the author Harrison_Uhl
    Before anything else, backup what you still have. It may be broken, but it will at least give you a place to poke around if you need to figure out what is different between the old (broken) install, and the new (plain vanilla) install.

    Harrison
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  • Profile picture of the author Jake Gray
    You may have corrupted your WordPress installation. Hopefully you have
    a recent backup of your site. If so, just restore the latest.
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  • Profile picture of the author millionairemoney
    Just as a resolution to this for those who encounter problems later, @SteveJohnson was right on. I didn't delete but two plugins (ones I had recently installed) or the plugin folder because I didn't want to erase any data in them as they were a client's client's files. Didn't matter.

    What took me so long was getting the web designer client to have her database backed up by the web host. Once this happened, all I had to do was follow SteveJohnson's advice and problem solved.

    One problem I did encounter was I couldn't delete any of the files via FTP because of a lack of permissions. To get permissions, right click on the folder and select "write" under owner. Don't select the public group!

    Thanks to all those that helped me with this. Definitely appreciate the time and I'm just relieved the blog remained intact without major surgery required.
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