Hi, I recently uploaded a site with couch as the cms.
The frontend template works fine, and I had no problem installing couch.
However, whenever I try to login to the admin panel, I keep getting a blank, white screen.
I checked the source and it's empty. I mean, just empty.

I installed IonCube, still no luck. I'm starting to pull out my hair in frustration. When I was given the project, I did tell my boss I'd use couch over wordpress which he wanted, but this is making me look bad. I'd appreciate any help please.

[KK]

Hi,

IonCube is no longer needed for Couch to work so you can discount that as a cause.

The most probable cause is the .htaccess file within the 'couch' folder.
Please try deleting it and see if the admin-panel becomes accessible.

If not, please take a look at your web server's error log. That is sure to provide the definitive answer to this issue.

Hope it helps. Do let me know.

Hi,
I should have mentioned that I deleted the .htaccess file previously. Didn't work.
I was able to get the error logs but I admit, none of what I was seeing made sense to me. I'm still fairly new to this web development thingy.
The site is online, could I please just pm you the details so you could take a look at it? I'd really appreciate that. I'm getting pretty desperate now.

Plus, the webserver is 64bit LAMP, while my localhost is WAMP, also 64bit if that makes any difference.

[KK]

Ok, please PM me the FTP creds.

i just sent them.
please let me know if you need anymore details.
Thanks.

[KK]

Thanks.

I had a look and the error being reported is -

Uncaught Error: Call to undefined function utf8_decode()

Actually one other issue reported on our forums some days back was traced back to the same error - viewtopic.php?f=4&t=10776#p27350

Now utf8_decode() has always been a part of core PHP so I googled around and came across this -
On Ubuntu, following is being reported upon upgrading to PHP7 -

Code: Select all

php7.0 (7.0.3-6) unstable; urgency=medium

  * Several extensions have been split into separate extension packages:
   - php-dba - Database (dbm-style) Abstraction Layer
   - php-mbstring - Multibyte String
   - php-soap - SOAP
   - php-xml - DOM, SimpleXML, WDDX, XML, XMLReader and XMLWriter
   - php-zip - Zip
  * The new packages are not installed automatically, so you will need to
    install them by hand, if you use the functions in those modules.
  * Most modules that have been builtin before are now included in
    php7.0-common package and they are enabled by default for your
    convenience.  You can disable unneede modules via phpdismod tool.

 -- Ondřej Surý <ondrej@debian.org>  Mon, 22 Feb 2016 12:37:09 +0100

The 'php-xml' package mentioned above is the one that contains the utf8_decode() function and on certain installations of PHP7 it is not being installed with the core.

Thankfully, this package is scheduled to get back into the standard installation from 7.2 but for now this package needs to be explicitly installed if it is missing.

Your server is running on PHP7 so this is what appears to be the cause for your issue.

Please install php7.0-xml package yourself (or ask your host to do it) making sure to restart the web-server.

Hope it helps.

Thanks alot man. That fixed it. It works now. You legit saved my ass.

one last thing though if it's not too much, when I try to add an image to my blog post, it says 'cannot create or access the thumbnail folder".

Any idea what's causing that? I don't think it's a serious issue but right now, I'm to beat to debug. lol.

Thanks a lot though. I appreciate.

[KK]

You are welcome. I am glad I could help.

As for the thumbnail problem, it seems to be a permission issue.
Try setting a laxer permission on the uploads folder (755, 766 or 777).

You can find some more posts regarding the same issue - try searching Google for
site:couchcms.com/forum cannot create or access the thumbnail folder

Hope it helps.

Aye. I set permissions to 777.
Everything seems to be all good now.
Thanks a bunch.

ps: you think I could use couch to build a social network kinda site?