How do I get rid of it?
I've Got The Dreaded Purple Screen
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Comments
HELP HELP
ME TOO ! this is terrible I logged in on a spare laptop and thought it was the computer
It's on our end
We're working on it. What happens is something corrupts the CSS file just as it loads. It's baffling.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Help needed?
I have a very good friend,who is a professional back end programmer, maybe she could help?
Monique S
Nope, it needs a system admin
It is not a programming issue. It is a server issue.
For Drupal and a PHP server, everything is a file, not an object, as in programing.
It is made more complicated because BC uses what is called a caching server to speed up pages. When it works, it works extremely well which makes it worth the trouble to work with.
However, the corruption happening to the file can be as simple as an extra space in the css file that is being sometimes misinterpreted by the caching server as it tries to serve the pages faster.
In cases like this, comparing a current css file being served against the original one for differences helps.
And, in order to do that, one has to be comfortable with the command line and not the GUI.
Commands like vim, diff, wc, tr, sed, awk, and grep need to be ones in the arsenal of the person doing the tracing.
From my experience, for example, I have had a VOIP server hang on an extra space in a config file at the end of a text file. Something that didn't show up to the prior Sys Admin because he used pico instead of vim to edit config files. I started with pico, but switched to vim years ago and now can't stand pico.
They are nasty bugs to find and I SOOOO appreciate the time it is taking to trace this gremlin is going to be hard and frustrating to track down.
AuP
One thing I've noticed
most of the time it is across the board, but sometimes it is just the main screen; when I pop over to a message or story, it works fine (maybe 1 or so out of 10). The .css files aren't aggregated are they? Had a bad file years ago, 400 bytes or so, but when it loaded, it would take almost 30MB of space (will try to see what we did to fix it, although I think we just copied contents into a new file and it resolved itself)...
Might not be the CSS
Just had this happen to me. (I've been getting it quite a few times recently).
While the purple page was up I went into Chromes Dev tools and saved the CSS file.
I did a force reload and the page came up OK. I saved the CSS again and then ran them through WinMerge. It reported them as identical.
When viewing over a slower phone connection, I have noticed the purple background during page load. The background colour coming in as one of the last things.
This makes sense as I think the page background is purple with the cream background over the top. Browsers won't apply the style until the elements on the page have loaded.
It looks to me that the the HTML might be getting corrupted, or simply truncated. A missing closing div tag could be causing the problem.
While it is definitely an issue with CSS being applied, it might not be the CSS file at fault.
If I get it again I try to compare more than just the CSS.
The Artist Formerly Known As Prince
Is hacking the site from beyond the grave ^_^
Went Away On Its Own
Turned the computer off and restarted several times and then suddenly...Presto Changeo! Back to normal. I'm really glad because it's impossible for me to read when it's black on purple.
FWIW...
If you highlight the text, the background lights up and you can read the black print. Had to do that a lot after I signed on a few hours back, though it's fine right now.
Eric
Highlighting when purple works
for me too. I'm using it whenever the slightly annoying situation occurs. Also, I happen to like the colour purple :)
Bru
Yes, Ctrl-a selects and
Yes, Ctrl-a selects and highlights all in most browsers. Very handy in this situation.
Kris
{I leave a trail of Kudos as I browse the site. Be careful where you step!}
I had a serious attack yesterday
Previous occurrences usually straightened themselves out after getting the browser to refresh the screen, sometimes it took a number of attempts to get a white background. Yesterday took longer and it seemed to be spreading, so I stopped trying for a while which is what I do with the '503' messages too. Later on all was bright and clear, and the tabbed pages which had been stuck all brightened up after re-selecting and refreshing. So while erin and the team are giving the full-scale sort-out, my recommendation is to refresh the tabbed page the browser is on, and if that fails, just wait for an hour or so! Also, when it happens, it does not apply that everything you select ends up with the purple background.
I counsel patience
Usually it takes anywhere from an hour to three hours for this to clear up. So I generally find something else to do for that time and come back later when I can read the page. Refreshing, etc doesn't work until whatever has happened on the server end has been corrected.
I haven't seen '503' messages lately
So that is a nice improvement.
While I'm not seeing the
While I'm not seeing the purple screen problem now, I was seeing it earlier, usually on about half the pages I visited. A click on the page reload button was all it took to put things right each time.
- vessica b
Command line commands are no problem
I've always been pretty comfortable with the command line and VI as an editor can be cumbersome but it works. Sed and Awk are just toys to make working int he environment fun. If you are ever looking for someone to add an assist let me know. I've been managing unix and linux servers at some level for over 20 years. For an adventure, try editing a sendmail server config file. I'd be happy to help and I keep really long weird hours. I could easily be available during off hours.
DD
In your off hours
You need to be finishing book 6 of Lee Corcoran's adventures! The heck with the purple screen.
Commentator
Visit my Caption Blog: Dawn's Girly Site
Visit my Amazon Page: D R Jehs
I have just one word for that ...
Dovecot
On a site like this, you generally send male elsewhere. ha ha ha
That is all I am going to say. ;-)
AuP
I'm looking at the purple
I'm looking at the purple screen right now. I'm working through it.
The sendmail configuration file is why I abandoned sendmail in the late 90's and switched to Qmail on Slackware. Then I went to postfix, because it was easier to work with for a more commodity setup (ubuntu servers, using ispconfig, mostly).
Sendmail configuration files are like the joke about Emacs being an operating system looking for an editor. (I use VIM. Mostly because you can't get VI anymore. Just elVIs, VIM, and what I usually run, which is VIM-NOX (although it now demands ruby, for some strange reason). )
Anyone else remember EDLIN, or 'EDIT' on VMS?
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
Or, how about ...
How about SOS on a VAX machine. I used to do editing with for my college English papers.
@ed
@pascal
@pas
I had to leave my VAX behind
I had to leave my VAX behind 2 moves ago... :(
Qmai, Postfix, Directadmin, Centos, Nano...
Qmail was great until it wasn't... Postfix is very extensible without confusion. We use DirectAdmin on our shared servers and are a 98% CentOS Shop... Also... Pico/Nano. ISP Systems has a great Datacenter Management system and IP Management Product.