A couple of weeks ago our sites main content pages dissappeared! just blank pages appeared with no html if you view source although the admin area was intact.

Tried various things to no avail so, uploaded the quickstart package (elevate) installed including sample data and then imported the old database to the new one but still nothing!

Help please am stuck.

Paul,

Happy New Year...

Do you have a link we can look at for this issue?

Ed

Hi Paul

Did the site work before you imported the old database on the quickstart package?

Rikard

Ill chime in here too

If you can access the administartor go to the global config and set error reporting to maximum.

That way the blank page will give you an error - blank pages are generally a php error.

Cheers Anthony

Thank you all very much guys!

However things have progressed...

I have deleteed the whole site, downloaded a fresh copy of the elevation template (quickstart), re-uploaded and installed sample data, then imported the old database into the new install, but although the site is connected to the new database wityh the old imported database from the working site that was but joomla fails to see or recognise the articles etc.

So now I am left with a import data problem as the template is working but without being able to connect to the old database.

Sorry to ask about this problem but this is on going. I realise this has been covered many times but cannot see the wood for the trees now!!

Thanks

Paul UK

I should add,

The server is the same so no name changes as far as the database is concerned, it should be a simple case of importing the database?

Update!

Have re-uploaded a backup[ of the site now...

Have managed to reconnect to the old database by changing the database prefix to bak_ ! (dont know how that happened!)

So now can see the articles in admin section but still have nothing at the frontend!

HELP

Paul

At least I have the articles back in the backend!

Have enabled full debugging however this shows in the admin area but not in the front end. So there is nothing showing on the front end what so ever!

PAul

Hi Paul,

I need a link to see what you are talking about. Porting a database is a tricky thing, especially since most things like menu items and articles are stored there and their relationships are noted by their ID numbers. Reloading a database can cause new IDs to be assigned, depending on the way it was dumped.

I want to get back to the original issue, how did the site go down, did you do anything to make that happen?

Jeremy

Thanks for your reply,

No, the site went down on the 24th - 25th dec, we havnt done anything to the site for about 2 weeks previous.

mybabylife.co.uk

I could now rebuild the site as have copied the articles from the back-end in html and paste them all back in and recreate the menus after doing a fresh install but hoped there would be a short or easy way of doing this!

PAul

Before doing that, go in and reassign the template. Now I see it looks like the default template was messed up during the recreation. Try that first. You might have to reassign numerous things, but there is an easier way in the future.

Joomlapack is a great backup and migration extension, I would use it regularly to have a copy of your site in case this happens again.

However if your site went down and you didn't do anything to it, are you sure it wasn't hacked? That is my biggest concern, or else your host messed up? Sites don't just go down.

Jeremy

Jeremy wrote:
I have to say, that would be my first thought too. I would suggest that, assuming you have a known working backup, you should just restore that. Then make sure it is properly hardened (for starters change admin username/password, update core and extensions and protect the admin folder with htaccess).

If you have logging enabled on your account, check the access logs from around the time the site went down.

Hi again,

Just to say to everyone thank you for your help.

It turned out from reading through the logs it was another hacking attempt!

Lesson learnt...

Back up your database and joomla install regularly!

Cheers

Paul UK

No problem Paul, sorry you got hit.

Do you have a clean backup you can go back to?

I would go back as far as possible, just in case the attacker had access before the crash. You should then try and harden the install, if you have not already.

I always hide the admin login with Jsecure and protect the admin folder with .htaccess. There is not too much you can do after that except ensuring that all extensions are up-to-date. Shared hosts are always a bit tricky to secure, 'tis the nature of the beast.