[wp-trac] [WordPress Trac] #9474: Installation fails produces a blank screen on a default CentOS 5 Server Install

[WordPress Trac]

#9474: Installation fails produces a blank screen on a default CentOS 5 Server
Install
----------------------------+-----------------------------------------------
 Reporter:  shawnmjones     |       Owner:  anonymous 
     Type:  defect (bug)    |      Status:  new       
 Priority:  high            |   Milestone:  Unassigned
Component:  Administration  |     Version:  2.7.1     
 Severity:  major           |    Keywords:            
----------------------------+-----------------------------------------------
 On a default CentOS 5 server install, Apache and PHP are installed on the
 system, but not enough of PHP is installed to make WordPress function.
 Unfortunately, the end user is presented with a blank screen and no error
 messages when the WordPress install is run.

 Suggestions of raising the amount of memory allocated to PHP and turning
 on (or off) error reporting within PHP yield no change.  Logs for Apache
 reveal nothing as well.  Turning off (or on) SELinux does nothing either.

 Upon an examination of the source code, it is revealed that line 318 of
 wp_db.php within the wp-includes directory contains an @ symbol in front
 of the mysql_connect function.  An error is produced if this function does
 not exist within the php installation, but because of this @ the error is
 never displayed.

 Ref:
 http://us.php.net/manual/en/language.operators.errorcontrol.php

 I assume the developers wanted this error to be "caught" at some future
 point in the code, but that appears to never occur, so those of us with a
 default CentOS 5 install don't have any clues as to how to fix the issue.

 The fix for CentOS 5 is to install the php-mysql package for the system.

 The fix for WordPress appears to be removing the @ so that administrators
 receive an error message when the mysql functions are not present, but I
 do not know what the intention was for the code in question, so perhaps
 the bug is in whatever was supposed to "catch" this error.

 Searches of "Wordpress install blank screen" on Google have revealed a
 number of confused users/administrators.  I wonder how many of them have
 this same issue and don't even realize it.

-- 
Ticket URL: <http://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/9474>
WordPress Trac <http://trac.wordpress.org/>
WordPress blogging software