Installation Issues – PHP Error Message and Blank Pages

  • Resolved Benjamin_P

    (@benjamin_p)


    13 years ago

    Hello folks,
    I’m trying to install WordPress 3.1 on WAMP and I’ve been encountering some issues.
    First of all, here are the various versions of things I’m using:

    • Windows XP
    • WAMP 2.1 which includes
    • Apache 2.2.17
    • PHP 5.3.5
    • MySQL 5.5.8

    I’ve been using WAMP prior to downloading WordPress and it has worked fine, so I don’t think it’s an issue with any kind of WAMP setup, though I suppose I shouldn’t rule that out.

    Here’s what I’ve done:

    1. I downloaded WordPress 3.1 and followed the instructions for setting up a database and user on phpmyadmin. As far as I can tell, that was all done correctly, with all database-specific privileges granted to the user I created.
    2. I moved the wordpress directory and all of its contents in the localhost/www folder.
    3. I edited the wp-config.php file (renamed from wp-config-sample.php) to match what I created in phpmyadmin and put in the unique authentication keys and salts that the generator gave me. I double-checked to make sure I was editing the file inside my localhost/www/wordpress directory and NOT the one I downloaded to my desktop, and I was editing the correct one.

    I received two errors:

      When I go to http://localhost/wordpress/index.php, /wp-blog-header.php or (I assume) any other file other than /wp-admin/install.php I see only a blank page.

    1. When I visited the http://localhost/wordpress/wp-admin/install.php I received the following notice:

      Error: PHP is not running
      WordPress requires that your web server is running PHP. Your server does not have PHP installed, or PHP is turned off.

    After closing and restarting the browser (Firefox 4.0) I now receive only a blank page there as well (???). I did double-check my settings in phpmyadmin but I didn’t change anything; though I can’t think of any other reason for it to have changed.

    I tried changing some things to see if I could gain a little bit more insight into the problem (keeping in mind that my php knowledge is rudimentary at best, and my WAMP knowledge is 0.) The one thing I could do to make things change was to add one extra quotation mark in the wp-config file to see if that would elicit an error message and deduce whether or not it was actually being read – anything is better than a blank page.
    On visiting any of those pages after having made that change, I receive a table with this heading:

    Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_CONSTANT_ENCAPSED_STRING in C:\wamp\www\wordpress\wp-config.php on line 25

    I assume that means that it is reading the code somehow, despite returning blank, and I hope that will make it easier to find out what the problem is.
    Thank you in advance,
    -Benjamin

Viewing 11 replies - 1 through 11 (of 11 total)
  • fonglh

    (@fonglh)

    13 years ago

    Error: PHP is not running WordPress requires that your web server is running PHP. Your server does not have PHP installed, or PHP is turned off.

    Try restarting WAMP. You can create a testinfo() php page to check if PHP is running.

    Thread Starter Benjamin_P

    (@benjamin_p)

    13 years ago

    Thanks for the speedy reply.

    I know that PHP is working because I have another site coded in PHP on WAMP that is still working fine.

    Thread Starter Benjamin_P

    (@benjamin_p)

    13 years ago

    After restarting WAMP I still have only blank pages.

    fonglh

    (@fonglh)

    13 years ago

    Error: PHP is not running WordPress requires that your web server is running PHP. Your server does not have PHP installed, or PHP is turned off.

    Try restarting WAMP. You can create a testinfo() php page to check if PHP is running.

    Thread Starter Benjamin_P

    (@benjamin_p)

    13 years ago

    Looking at the ‘Privileges’ tab in the wordpress database I created before, I’m seeing that there are four users – 3 named root, and the 1 named wordpress that I created. Each of the ones named root have different hosts (127.0.0.1, ::1, and localhost), and the host for the user named wordpress is %. Does this have any significance, or should it not affect anything?

    Thread Starter Benjamin_P

    (@benjamin_p)

    13 years ago

    Also, on the phpmyinfo homepage, on the right side under the heading MySQL, it says “user: root@localhost”. Should that be something to do with the wordpress user I created instead? Sorry about all of this potentially meaningless information.

    fonglh

    (@fonglh)

    13 years ago

    oops sorry for the double post.

    hmm I don’t think it affects anything. Does your WordPress database user have full rights to the database?

    arkgroup

    (@arkgroup)

    13 years ago

    Benjamin,

    Turn display_error on in php.ini file and access wordpress again. You’ll see an error, but it looks like you’ve inserted wrong database info to wp-config.php and also syntax error means that you forgot to place semicolon or quote on that line, or something else which is not correct for php.

    I think it’s much easier to install by letting wordpress create wp-config.php file automatically. I don’t know why people want to access it manually and change something there.

    user: root@localhost

    This means database user root at localhost database server.

    Thread Starter Benjamin_P

    (@benjamin_p)

    13 years ago

    @fonglh: Yes, my wordpress database user has full rights.

    @arkgroup: There are three values under display_error in the php.ini file.
    The default value and development value are both ‘on’, and the production value is off. Should I change that?

    The syntax error is something I did on purpose (by adding an extra quotation mark) to check whether it was still processing the php, and I removed it after I got the syntax error message.

    How do I let WordPress create the wp-config file?

    This means database user root at localhost database server.

    Should it say database user wordpress (the user I created) at wordpress (the database I created) database server instead?

    fonglh

    (@fonglh)

    13 years ago

    How do I let WordPress create the wp-config file?

    Visit the install php file in your browser without having a wp-config.php file. Basically just try to install it without editing anything in a fresh copy of wordpress.

    It should then ask you to fill out your database values in a form and will create the file for you.

    Thread Starter Benjamin_P

    (@benjamin_p)

    13 years ago

    Excellent, I have everything working correctly.

    I started over with a fresh copy of wordpress and did not edit the wp-config.php file. Then I followed the directions which and still got errors where it couldn’t communicate with the database. I went into phpmyadmin and noticed that the user wordpress was on the host ‘any host’ – I’d forgotten to change it to ‘localhost’. After changing that, everything went smoothly.

    Thank you for your help!

Viewing 11 replies - 1 through 11 (of 11 total)
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