Blank screen displayed under Vista.

[JasonB]

Okay, I'm close to the end of my rope here.  I backed up my computer files, installed Windows Vista Ultimate RTM (from MSDN), then restored my files.  I then installed Apache 2.2.3, PHP 5.2.0, and MySQL 5.0.  (The latest versions of the various components I'd had when running Windows XP.)

I've confirmed that I have the correct MySQL username and password.  (The same as used by Coppermine.)  I've also confirmed that PHP is working, as a simple phpinfo() page works without a problem.

However, whenever I try to go to any of the Coppermine pages I get a blank screen.  If I run "update.php" I get the "Coppermine Photo Gallery" graphic displayed - but nothing else.

I'm at a total loss here - and I'm usually able to determine where I've gone wrong in situations like this.  I'm not getting any errors in my Apache, PHP, or SQL logs.  It's simply not displaying anything.  Any ideas?

[JasonB]

Has anybody run Coppermine under Vista?  Has anybody taken a saved database and "re-used" it on a fresh OS install under Windows?

[Nibbler]

Nobody I know. I didn't realise vista was server OS.

Add in die('foo') in various places in the code starting in init.inc.php and track down which line causes the failure.

[JasonB]

I didn't realise vista was server OS.

Well, it doesn't say anywhere in the installation guide that it needs to be.  The only requirements are "A web server that supports PHP", "A MySQL database", "PHP (version 4.2.0 or better), either compiled with the support for the GD library or permission to use the exec() function for the ImageMagick "convert" utility in order to make thumbnails and reduced size images", and "An image library: either GD version 1.x or 2.x (PHP has to be compiled to support it) or ImageMagick".

I'd had it running just great under XP Professional for years (not a server OS) without any problem.

Add in die('foo') in various places in the code starting in init.inc.php and track down which line causes the failure.

Interesting.  It gets up to line 197 ("// Connect to database") without a problem, but doesn't make it past line 201 ("$results = cpg_db_query("SELECT * FROM {$CONFIG['TABLE_CONFIG']}");").

I'm less than surprised that it involves the database in some way - however, as I mentioned, I'm not getting any MySQL (or PHP) errors and have confirmed that the username and password used by Coppermine is correct.  I don't have enough PHP / MySQL troubleshooting experience to know how to narrow this down further...

[JasonB]

Okay, I got it working.  (This was purely a test board, and it wasn't all that important, which is why it took me so long to give it the proper attention.)

The solution was simply the fact that I hadn't built in the MySQL module to PHP when I'd first installed it.  After backing up my board and installing from scratch, I got an error message about MySQL not being support by PHP which led me to this.  So, although I could run .php scripts, I couldn't run any that queried my database.

Frankly, I'm amazed that Nibbler suggested that my problem was that I wasn't running a server OS.  (Rather than just my own user error, and suggesting some things to check.)