Blank Screens often in backend...Contao 2.9

[ramjet]

Hi All,
Since updating to 2.9 I often get almost blank screens in Firefox 3 when I do things in the backend like save a record or make a new record etc.
I say almost blank because the title shows in the browser but nothing else.
Strangely...if I "view source" all the html of the body exists, but if i inspect the blank page with Firebug it shows empty body tags, and its empty to look at.
No errors are thrown.
This is intermittant, sometimes it comes right, but I'd guess it happens 25% of the time.

I'm going to check on the demo, and see if it happens in other browsers, but in the mean time has anyone else noticed this???
Its only started happening since upgrading to 2.9



This actually only affects Firefox.
I 've updated firefox, cleared everything in all cacheAnyone have any ideas???s,turned caching off, cleared the browser but the problem persists.

[Captain]

yes it happens also for me.
it is very annoying but if hit refresh all ok.

[ramjet]

Unfortunately refresh doesn't help for me.

[Justin]

I've noticed this in firefox for all versions. Usually if I hit the back button in my browser and then try to edit the page again it works. Also, I've only noticed it in firefox running on mac and haven't had any problems with firefox on the PC.

[ernestmcd]

I'm seeing this behavior intermittently in all installs of Contao 2.9.0. 25% of the time is probably correct. This behavior seems limited to Firefox, but IE 8 crashes so frequently that I generally don't use it for maintaining Contao sites. I'm on a Windows 7 Professional 64-bit desktop system, Linux / Apache server for the Contao installation.

Refresh does not solve the problem, I have to hit the back button and then click on the action link again to clear this error.

Very annoying especially during an online demo of the Contao feature set.

[FloB]

Anything remarkable in /system/logs/error.log? Activated "Show error messages"?

[ramjet]

Ok i have tracked it down i think but i have no idea why/what this means....
From Firebug....

Error $(document.body).addEvent is not a function
From contao.js?2.9.1 (line 52)

if(!a||!a.hasClass("edit-header")){ret...'">'+c.get("html")+" "+a.alt+"</a>");

To recap its in several versions of Firefox that this happens, and the only way for me to see the screen is to rightclick, view background image, then hit the browser back button.

Any clues anyone???

[FloB]

Did you disable MooTools?

[ramjet]

This is in Backend screens Flob.
I'm not aware I can, or should, in the Backend - or whether its even used.

But are you suggesting it could be a javascript conflict?

[FloB]

You posted a JS error indicating that a function is not defined, hence the question.

Though blank screens shouldn't be evoked by JS errors but rather PHP errors.

My tip is that occasionally you're running out of memory or disk space.


Edit: Please run the Contao System Check and resolve the conflicts.

[ramjet]

Hi Flob, my contao check is all green, and I am running 128 mb memory, so I'm a bit baffled. I've upped these

  max_execution_time = 60
  max_input_time = 90
  memory_limit = 256M

so I'll see if that stops it.

The js error

Error $(document.body).addEvent is not a function

that shows up each time this happens is generated by contao.js, which lives in the contao folder.
This is the full function the error line comes from.

/**
 * Class ContextMenu
 *
 * Provide methods to handle context menus
 * @copyright  Leo Feyer 2005-2010
 * @author     Leo Feyer <http://www.contao.org>
 * @package    Backend
 */
var ContextMenu =
{

	/**
	 * Initialize the context menu
	 * @param object
	 * @param object
	 */
	initialize: function()
	{
		// Hide the edit header buttons
		$$('a.edit-header').each(function(el)
		{
			el.addClass('invisible');
		});

		// Add trigger to edit buttons
		$$('a.contextmenu').each(function(el)
		{
			var el2 = el.getNext('a');

			// Return if there is no edit header button
			if (!el2 || !el2.hasClass('edit-header'))
			{
				return;
			}

			// Show the context menu
			el.addEvent('contextmenu', function(e)
			{
				e.preventDefault();
				ContextMenu.show(el, el2, e);
			});
		});

		// Hide context menu 
		$(document.body).addEvent('click', function()
		{
			ContextMenu.hide();
		});
	},

I don't understand Javascript at all, so I can't see what would cause this to happen. I'm not even sure what is meant by Context menu.

[FloB]

The Context menu is a new function. It enables right-clicking on some edit icons where you can chose to edit the elements or the header.

Well, you said that the source code of the blank pages is allright – did you check conformity with the HTML Validator? If the test passes, try to disable contao.js by either disabling all JavaScript in the browser or temporarily renaming the file. Please run a HTTP sniffer (e. g. Live HTTP Headers for Firefox) and check whether any files requested by the client are not transmitted. Don't forget to clear your browser cache.

Did alter any templates? Any changes to MooTools? Did the Contao system check find the files to be not corrupt?

[ernestmcd]

I'm seeing the blank screens in the back end user area frequently in Contao 2.9.1 and have plenty of available memory and disk space on both Linux/Apace host platform and on local computer. I do not believe that it has anything to do with hardware, but probably some cache issue with the PHP code either in settings or in how it is loading the page display.

If you hit the back button to the previous screen, and then click on the link or button AGAIN, the error clears. I'm seeing a blank screen in the back end every 10 minutes or so. This is very disconcerting for prospects when demonstrating the system.

Ernest McDermon
Snellville, GA

[ramjet]

Ernest can you try something for me please?
In Personal data, deactivate "Enable the rich text editor" and see if the problem disappears.
Also,what backend extensions does this happen in? Only ones with TinyMCE textareas in them?

Flob, it'll probably take a couple of days for me to methodically test this, but I now think theres two seperate things going on. I'll explain a bit later as I'm in a hurry now and haven't finished testing yet.

[FloB]

One more question: What browsers + versions do you use, did you try another browser?

[ramjet]

It only happens in Firefox for me (all upgrades of Firefox3 right up to 3.6.10 have not solved the problem)
It doesn't happen in IE 7.0.6.
I haven't tested in Chrome or Opera yet.

UPDATE: Chrome and Opera ok too, so its ONLY Firefox as far as I can tell

Everything comes right when I disable TinyMCE in Personal Preferences.

In answer to your previous question - no altered templates, no changes to mootools, no corrupt files. Validate Local Html (local testing through Webdeveloper) shows Valid, al

If I disable contao.js it fixes the contao.js error, but I get more errors (one for each TinyMCE field)

tiny_mce_gzip.js (line 128)
r is undefined
[Break on this error] eval(co, w); // Firefox 3.0

Also just removing the context menu block from contao.js fixes the Javascript error, but I still get the blank screen.
Hence I think theres more than one problem.

I've installed Live HTTP Headers for Firefox, but this stuff is all new to me. However it seems that usually everything gets either 200 OK or 304 not modified responses
-except I seem to get HTTP/1.1 302 Moved Temporarily directly after the form post when there is a problem....

http://xxx.net/contao/main.php?do=Realestate&table=tl_realestate&id=9&act=edit

POST /contao/main.php?do=Realestate&table=tl_realestate&id=9&act=edit HTTP/1.1
Host: xxx
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-NZ; rv:1.9.2.10) Gecko/20100914 Firefox/3.6.10 ( .NET CLR 3.5.30729)
Accept: text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,*/*;q=0.8
Accept-Language: en-NZ,en;q=0.8,en-us;q=0.5,en;q=0.3
Accept-Encoding: gzip,deflate
Accept-Charset: ISO-8859-1,utf-8;q=0.7,*;q=0.7
Keep-Alive: 115
Connection: keep-alive
Referer: http://xxx.net/contao/main.php?do=Re...&id=9&act=edit
Cookie: PHPSESSID=ccchqltb12c3n8m6qqf8nq4311; BE_USER_AUTH=117133b394d14fe0346aacde835ddf24363d15c4; BE_PAGE_OFFSET=0
Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded
Content-Length: 4264
FORM_SUBMIT=tl_realestate&FORM_FIELDS%5B%5D=accomm_boxnumber%2Caccomm_boxnumber_publish%2Caccomm_street%2Caccomm_suburb%2Caccomm_city%2Caccomm_postal%2Caccomm_state%2Caccomm_country%3Baccomm_available_firstnight%2Caccomm_available_lastnight%3B%7BpriceLegend%3Ahide%7D%2Caccomm_price_unit%2Ctax%2Caccomm_price_amount%2Caccomm_price_bond%2Ctaxname%2Ctaxrate%2Cdays_or_nights%2Caccomm_price_per%2Cprice_text%2Cshow_prices%2Cshow_prices_in_calendar%2Cuse_individual_prices%2C%5Buse_individual_prices%5D%2Cindividual_prices%2C%5BEOF%5D%3B%7BdiscountLegend%3Ahide%7D%2Cdiscount_rate%2Cdiscount_text%2Capply_discount%3B%7BconditionsLegend%3Ahide%7D%2Caccomm_min_nights%2Cmax_people%2Ccheckin%2Ccheckout%2Cconditions_text%2Cshow_conditions%3B%7BroomsLegend%3Ahide%7D%2Cno_bedrooms%2Cno_bathrooms%2Cno_doubles%2Cno_singles%2Cfacilities_text%2Cshow_rooms%3B%7BfeaturesLegend%3Ahide%7D%2Coffstreet_parking%2Ckids_ok%2Cgroup_ok%2Cinternet%2Cfireplace%2Cprivate_outdoor%2Cwalk_to_shops%2Cpublic_transport%2Cpets_ok%2Cfeatures_text%2Cshow_details%2Cshow_negative_features%3B%7BadditionalfeaturesLegend%3Ahide%7D%2Cadditional_details%2Cadditional_features_text%2Cshow_additional_details%3B%7BsellingpointLegend%3Ahide%7D%2Csellingpoint%2Cdistance_to_sellingpoint%2Csellingpoint_text%2Cshow_sellingpoint%3B%7BnotesLegend%3Ahide%7D%2Cpublicnotes%2Cshow_publicnotes%3B%7BimageLegend%3Ahide%7D%2Caccomm_picture%2Cpicturesize%2Clightbox_image%2Cshow_image%3B%7BgalleryLegend%3Ahide%7D%2Caccomm_gallery%2Cgallerysize%2Clightbox_gallery%2Cgallery_text%2Cshow_gallery%3B%7BmapLegend%3Ahide%7D%2Caccomm_map%2Caccomm_lat%2Caccomm_long%2Cmap_text%2Cshow_map%3B%7BvideoLegend%3Ahide%7D%2Caccomm_video%2Cvideo_text%2Cshow_video%3B%7BcalendarLegend%3Ahide%7D%2Ccalendar_text%2Cshow_calendar_key%2Cshow_calendar%3B%7BcontactLegend%3Ahide%7D%2Ccontact_gender%2Ccontact_dateOfBirth%2Ccontact_title%2Ccontact_company%2Ccontact_firstname%2Ccontact_lastname%2Ccontact_street%2Ccontact_suburb%2Ccontact_city%2Ccontact_postal%2Ccontact_state%2Ccontact_country%2Ccontact_phone%2Ccontact_mobile%2Ccontact_fax%2Ccontact_email%3B%7BprivatenotesLegend%3Ahide%7D%2Cprivatenotes%3B%7BshowLegend%7D%2Caccomm_available&accomm_boxnumber=The+Good+Ship&accomm_boxnumber_publish=1&accomm_street=Lady+Margaret&accomm_suburb=Westhaven+Marina&accomm_city=Auckland&accomm_postal=&accomm_state=&accomm_country=nz&accomm_available_firstnight=26.08.2010&accomm_available_lastnight=07.08.2012&accomm_price_unit=%24NZ&tax=Include&accomm_price_amount=444.00&accomm_price_bond=2000.00&taxname=GST&taxrate=15.000&days_or_nights=Nights&accomm_price_per=Daily&price_text=&show_prices=1&use_individual_prices=1&individual_prices%5B0%5D%5B0%5D=1286881200%2C1286967600%2C1287054000%2C1289905200&individual_prices%5B0%5D%5B1%5D=&individual_prices%5B0%5D%5B2%5D=&individual_prices%5B1%5D%5B0%5D=&individual_prices%5B1%5D%5B1%5D=&individual_prices%5B1%5D%5B2%5D=&discount_rate=20.000&discount_text=&apply_discount=1&accomm_min_nights=2&max_people=4&checkin=2pm&checkout=2pm&conditions_text=&show_conditions=1&no_bedrooms=3&no_bathrooms=1&no_doubles=2&no_singles=1&facilities_text=&show_rooms=1&kids_ok=1&group_ok=1&internet=1&pets_ok=1&features_text=&show_details=1&show_negative_features=1&additional_details=Galley%2CPersonal+Duck%2CPainter%2CPoop+Deck&additional_features_text=&show_additional_details=1&sellingpoint=Whales&distance_to_sellingpoint=500&sellingpoint_text=&show_sellingpoint=1&publicnotes=&show_publicnotes=1&accomm_picture=tl_files%2Frealestate%2FLady+Margaret_id_9%2FSunset_SeaJay10.jpg&picturesize%5B%5D=&picturesize%5B%5D=150&picturesize%5B%5D=proportional&show_image=1&accomm_gallery=tl_files%2Frealestate%2FLady+Margaret_id_9&gallerysize%5B%5D=&gallerysize%5B%5D=150&gallerysize%5B%5D=proportional&lightbox_gallery=1&gallery_text=&show_gallery=1&accomm_map=&accomm_lat=&accomm_long=&map_text=&show_map=1&accomm_video=&video_text=&show_video=1&calendar_text=&show_calendar_key=1&show_calendar=1&contact_gender=&contact_dateOfBirth=&contact_title=&contact_company=&contact_firstname=Clive&contact_lastname=&contact_street=&contact_suburb=&contact_city=Auckland&contact_postal=&contact_state=&contact_country=nz&contact_phone=&contact_mobile=&contact_fax=&contact_email=&privatenotes=&accomm_available=1&save=Save
HTTP/1.1 302 Moved Temporarily
.....

[FloB]

HTTP status should be ok.

Looks like the JS errors render the site unusable OR TinyMCE generates an overlay – is the blank screen completely white? Are you using the contextmenu extension of TinyMCE? Maybe there is some conflict … did you clear the cache of Firefox?

[ramjet]

The blank screen is gray, and allows me to right click and view background image -(system/themes/default/images/hbg.jpg)
I can then hit the browser back button, and the screen shows up properly.

I have Firefox set to clear everything on close, so theres no browser caching.

TinyMCE phugins are the Contao default setup: advimage,autosave,directionality,emotions,inlinepo pups,paste,save,searchreplace,spellchecker,style,t abfocus,table,template,typolinks,xhtmlxtras

Below is tinyMCE script from pagesource

<script type="text/javascript">
<![CDATA[//><!--
tinyMCE_GZ.init({
  plugins : "advimage,autosave,directionality,emotions,inlinepopups,paste,save,searchreplace,spellchecker,style,tabfocus,table,template,typolinks,xhtmlxtras",
  themes : "advanced",
  languages : "en",
  disk_cache : false,
  debug : false
});
//--><!]]>
</script>
<script type="text/javascript">
<![CDATA[//><!--
tinyMCE.init({
  mode : "exact",
  height : "300",
  language : "en",
  elements : "ctrl_publicnotes",
  remove_linebreaks : false,
  force_hex_style_colors : true,
  fix_list_elements : true,
  fix_table_elements : true,
  theme_advanced_font_sizes : "9px,10px,11px,12px,13px,14px,15px,16px,17px,18px,19px,20px,21px,22px,23px,24px",
  doctype : '<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">',
  document_base_url : "http://xxx.net/",
  entities : "160,nbsp,60,lt,62,gt,173,shy",
  cleanup_on_startup : true,
  save_enablewhendirty : true,
  save_on_tinymce_forms : true,
  save_callback : "TinyCallback.cleanXHTML",
  init_instance_callback : "TinyCallback.getScrollOffset",
  advimage_update_dimensions_onchange : false,
  external_image_list_url : "/plugins/tinyMCE/plugins/typolinks/typoimages.php",
  template_external_list_url : "/plugins/tinyMCE/plugins/typolinks/typotemplates.php",
  plugins : "advimage,autosave,directionality,emotions,inlinepopups,paste,save,searchreplace,spellchecker,style,tabfocus,table,template,typolinks,xhtmlxtras",
  spellchecker_languages : "+English=en,German=de",
  content_css : "/system/themes/tinymce.css,/tl_files/tinymce.css",
  event_elements : "a,div,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,img,p,span",
  extended_valid_elements : "q[cite|class|title]",
  tabfocus_elements : ":prev,:next",
  theme : "advanced",
  theme_advanced_resizing : true,
  theme_advanced_resize_horizontal : false,
  theme_advanced_toolbar_location : "top",
  theme_advanced_toolbar_align : "left",
  theme_advanced_statusbar_location : "bottom",
  theme_advanced_source_editor_width : "700",
  theme_advanced_blockformats : "div,p,address,pre,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6",
  theme_advanced_buttons1 : "newdocument,save,separator,spellchecker,separator,anchor,separator,typolinks,unlink,separator,image,typobox,separator,sub,sup,separator,abbr,acronym,separator,styleprops,attribs,separator,search,replace,separator,undo,redo,separator,removeformat,cleanup,separator,code",
  theme_advanced_buttons2 : "formatselect,fontsizeselect,styleselect,separator,bold,italic,underline,separator,justifyleft,justifycenter,justifyright,justifyfull,separator,bullist,numlist,indent,outdent,separator,blockquote,separator,forecolor,backcolor",
  theme_advanced_buttons3 : "tablecontrols,separator,template,separator,charmap,emotions,separator,help"
});
//--><!]]>
</script>

This blank screen also happens for me in Newsletters (which contains a TinyMCE field) .... but if I test the demo.contao.org site it does not happen.
So I think the problem lies in either a module conflict or a hook....

[FloB]

I think I had a similar problem with TinyMCE before. Can you please check whether the same "blank" screen appears on the TinyMCE demo page?

Also see my TinyMCE ticket.


Edit: After some update (I think a new TinyMCE version), the problem went away (at least for me). The demo (TinyMCE and current Contao) is working for me as well (with current Firefox).

Edit 2: Is there a 'contextmenu' (or similar) folder in /plugins/tinymce/plugins/?

[ramjet]

Hi Flob,
its all fine for me when I check out http://tinymce.moxiecode.com/examples/full.php (i take it thats where you meant me to try)

I have no 'contextmenu' (or similar) folder in /plugins/tinymce/plugins/ ... just what comes with Contao 2.9.1

It is not an extension or hook conflict outside of the core. I removed everything from themes/modules, removed all non-core extensions, reinstalled the entire system/plugin folder, upgraded the .htaccess file, refreshed the database, cleared the browser cache....... and the newsletter module still does it.

I'm going to try replacing the TinyMCE plugin folder with a pre-Contao 2.9 version
I'd like to download the latest TinyMCE and try it, although I'm not sure if its just as simple as replacing whats in the plugins folder as it may be that Leo has modified it??? For example tiny_mce_gzip.js and tiny_mce_gzip.php are not in the download package

EDIT: found them: tiny_mce_gzip.js and tiny_mce_gzip.php are in the compressor package

[FloB]

I think you only need the typolinks folder from the current package if you want to install the plain TinyMCE version. Though there might be some changes to the config inside the TinyMCE plugin folder … dunno.

I think the problem is caused by TinyMCE "bleeding out" the canvas. As I said, I had that problem with TYPOlight and the TinyMCE demo until some point.

What extensions are enabled in your Firefox? Any blocking extension (Ads, JS, …), Sidebars? OS? Toolbars? Etc.

[ramjet]

I'm on Vista, and Firefox is run lean... everything allowed (cookies, 3rd party cookies, popups etc), no Toolbars etc, and only 4 up-to-date addons (Firebug ,Java Console, Web Developer and your Live Headers one) and everything set to clear on close (cookies/form data/cache/passwords/offline data etc)

Neither replacing the TinyMCE plugin folder with a pre-Contao 2.9 version, nor upgrading everything to the latest TinyMCE version helped.....
BUT.....
I've isolated it! (it only took me 40 f***ing hours!!!)

The blank page is to do with tiny_mce_gzip.js which system/config/TinyMCE.php, TinyNews.php and TinyFlash.php all call.
I don't know why, but I'm sure its this block surrounding line 56, as FireBug ALWAYS mentions this in the Console (not as an error, as a 200 OK... but if I try to read the full header response in Firebug through the "more" link - FireBug won't do it, it stalls with "unresponsive script"

		// Send request
		x = w.XMLHttpRequest ? new XMLHttpRequest() : get('Msxml2.XMLHTTP') || get('Microsoft.XMLHTTP');
		x.overrideMimeType && x.overrideMimeType('text/javascript');
		x.open('GET', t.baseURL + '/' + s.page_name + '?' + q, !!cb);
//		x.setRequestHeader('Content-Type', 'text/javascript');
		x.send('');

What fixes it (apart from a complete disable of the TinyMCE in Personal settings) is this:
In TinyMCE.php, TinyNews.php and TinyFlash.php remove this block

<script type="text/javascript">
<![CDATA[//><!--
tinyMCE_GZ.init({
  plugins : "autosave,directionality,inlinepopups,legacyoutput,paste,save,searchreplace,spellchecker,tabfocus,template,typolinks",
  themes : "advanced",
  languages : "<?php echo $this->language; ?>",
  disk_cache : false,
  debug : false
});
//--><!]]>
</script>

and change this block

<script type="text/javascript" src="<?php echo $this->base; ?>plugins/tinyMCE/tiny_mce_gzip.js"></script>

to this

<script type="text/javascript" src="<?php echo $this->base; ?>plugins/tinyMCE/tiny_mce.js"></script>

This is telling Contao NOT to use the gzipped version of TinyMCE.
And this fixes it completely.

I'm not sure whether to report this as a bug to Leo or not, I'd really like someones advice on this as it would be better if I could explain WHY, and I can't. I obviously only affects some installs (or just me?) as the Contao demo is fine.

[ernestmcd]

ramjet:

Wonderful! Thanks for the hard work on this. It took me 20 hours to determine that "tabindex" installed in a stack of extensions in Contao 2.9.1 causes other extensions to fail and removing it from the stack clears a major erro immediately (I've reported this in another thread in the forum).

I've applied your fix to one of my Contao 2.9.1 sites and I'm testing it today, so far everything seems to be working okay, no blank screens so far. The blank screens are not only problematic but unnerving when demonstrating Contao to a potential new client.

I do suggest that you go ahead and report this to Leo, I'm sure he will be able to determine what is going on here.

Ernest McDermon
Snellville, GA

[FloB]

Yeah, please report it and state that you're not having trouble with the TinyMCE demo (btw, does this one use GZ compression?).

[ramjet]

Thanks Flob for your help on this - the demo page seems to call "general.js", there doesn't seem to be a reference to the gzip version.

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://moxiecode.cachefly.net/tinymce/js/general.js"></script>

.


Ernest, no worries.... let me know if it fixes it properly for you too, and did you determine if it was only happening for you on screens with TinyMCE present? I'll await your reply before I put the ticket in.

....unnerving when demonstrating Contao to a potential new client

You can say that again!

If anybody else has this problem and this fixes it for you, please let me know here, ta.

[FloB]

OK looks like we finally got it: In some configurations, there is a problem with the compressed version of TinyMCE.

Please check your server whether there is DEFLATE support and it is enabled (maybe there is a double compression or none at all though it is indicated).

[ramjet]

from my phpinfo()

_SERVER["HTTP_ACCEPT_ENCODING"] gzip, deflate

i presume that means its on?? theres no other reference i can find
i figure if it wasn't then it would affect all browsers, not just firefox?

[FloB]

I assume Fx is less fault tolerant than other browsers in this case.

The PHP info setting doesn't say much, I acutally need ALL Apache configs. Though .htaccess should be a good start.

[ramjet]

I'm a bit green Flob, do you mean you want to see my phpinfo readout, or something else???
I'll pm you the url if you like. Also is php.ini of help?
One thing that may be reasonably unusual, my server runs php as FastCgi.

My htaccess is standard Contao 2.9.1 with 2 lines added for fastcgi/php5

AddHandler fastcgi-script .fcgi
Action hs-php5-script /php.fcgi

<IfModule mod_deflate.c>

  ##
  # Use mod_deflate to compress JavaScript, CSS and XML files. Do not add
  # PHP and HTML files, because those have already been compressed by Contao.
  ##
  <FilesMatch "\.(css|js|xml)$">
    SetOutputFilter DEFLATE
  </FilesMatch>

</IfModule>

<IfModule mod_headers.c>

  ##
  # Add a Vary Accept-Encoding header for the compressed resources. If you
  # modify the file types above, make sure to change them here accordingly.
  ##
  <FilesMatch "\.(js|css|xml|gz)$">
    Header append Vary Accept-Encoding
  </FilesMatch>

</IfModule>

<IfModule mod_expires.c>
  ExpiresActive On

  ##
  # Specify an expiration one week in the future for images, JavaScripts and
  # CSS files (as recommended by Google Page Speed). Edit or remove the lines
  # to set up your own expiration logic.
  ##
  ExpiresByType image/png A604800
  ExpiresByType image/gif A604800
  ExpiresByType image/jpg A604800
  ExpiresByType image/jpeg A604800
  ExpiresByType text/javascript A604800
  ExpiresByType application/x-javascript A604800
  ExpiresByType text/css A604800

</IfModule>

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
  RewriteEngine On

  ##
  # Set the RewriteBase if your Contao installation is in a subdirectoy and
  # the rewrite rules are not working properly. Usage examples:
  #
  #   RewriteBase /contao-2.9.0
  #   RewriteBase /path/to/contao
  #
  # Uncomment the following line to set the RewriteBase.
  ##
  #RewriteBase /

  ##
  # Contao usually does not pass absolute URLs via GET, therefore the
  # following rules block all requests that try to pass a URL or the /etc/
  # directory as parameter (malicious requests).
  ##
  RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} (ftp|https?):|/etc/ [NC,OR]
  RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} (ftp|https?):|/etc/ [NC]
  RewriteRule .* - [F,L]

  ##
  # Uncomment the following lines and replace "domain.com" with your domain
  # name to redirect requests without "www" to the correct domain. 
  ##
  #RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^domain\.com [NC]
  #RewriteRule (.*) http://www.domain.com/$1 [R=301,L]

  ##
  # Do not rewrite requests for static files or folders such as style sheets,
  # images, movies or text documents.
  ##
  RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
  RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d

  ##
  # By default, Contao adds ".html" to the generated URLs to simulate static
  # HTML documents. If you change the URL suffix in the back end settings, make
  # sure to change it here accordingly!
  #
  #   RewriteRule .*\.html$ index.php [L]   # URL suffix .html
  #   RewriteRule .* index.php [L]          # No URL suffix
  #   RewriteRule .*\.txt$ index.php [L]    # URL suffix .txt
  #
  # If you are using mod_cache, it is recommended to use the RewriteRule below,
  # which adds the query string to the internal URL:
  # 
  #   RewriteRule (.*\.html)$ index.php/$1 [L]
  #
  # Note that not all environments support mod_rewrite and mod_cache!
  ##
  RewriteRule .*\.html$ index.php [L]

</IfModule>

[FloB]

Nah, I need the Apache config, which you probably don't get unless you're your own server provider .

Can you PM me credentials and a link for the backend? I'd like to check the headers etc. once again (and check whether I can reproduce the problem).

[ramjet]

I left this line off my htacess in case it makes a difference

SecFilterEngine Off

Also the phpinfo has all this stuffand more (thats the Apache settings I think???)

'./configure' '--localstatedir=/var/hsphere/php' '--with-bz2=/hsphere/shared' '--enable-ctype' '--enable-dba' '--enable-ftp' '--with-gettext=/hsphere/shared' '--enable-mbstring=all' '--with-gd' '--with-mhash=/hsphere/shared' '--with-mcrypt=/hsphere/shared' '--with-openssl=/usr' '--enable-overload' '--enable-posix' '--enable-session' '--enable-sockets' '--enable-standard' '--enable-tokenizer' '--with-xml=/hsphere/shared' '--with-xsl=/hsphere/shared' '--with-zip=/hsphere/shared' '--with-zlib=/hsphere/shared' '--with-zlib-dir=/hsphere/shared' '--with-freetype-dir=/hsphere/shared' '--with-png-dir=/hsphere/shared' '--with-jpeg-dir=/hsphere/shared' '--with-expat-dir=/hsphere/shared' '--with-iconv-dir=/hsphere/shared' '--with-libxml-dir=/hsphere/shared' '--enable-gd-native-ttf' '--with-ttf' '--enable-mbstr-enc-trans' '--with-expat-dir=/hsphere/shared' '--with-xslt-sablot=/hsphere/shared' '--with-gnu-ld' '--with-curl=shared,/hsphere/shared' '--with-curlwrappers' '--with-dom=shared,/hsphere/shared' '--with-dom-xslt=/hsphere/shared' '--with-dom-exslt=/hsphere/shared' '--with-dom=shared,/hsphere/shared' '--with-fileinfo=shared,/hsphere/shared' '--with-gmp=shared,/hsphere/shared' '--with-iconv=shared,/hsphere/shared' '--with-imap=shared,/hsphere/shared' '--with-imap-ssl=shared,/usr' '--with-mcal=shared,/hsphere/shared' '--with-mysql=shared,/usr' '--with-mysqli=shared' '--with-pgsql=shared,/usr' '--with-sqlite=shared' '--enable-sqlite-utf8' '--with-unixODBC=shared,/hsphere/shared' '--with-xmlrpc=shared' '--enable-htscanner' '--enable-track-vars' '--enable-trans-sid' '--enable-memory-limit' '--enable-force-cgi-redirect' '--enable-fastcgi' '--with-config-file-path=/hsphere/local/config/httpd/php5' '--with-config-file-scan-dir=/hsphere/local/config/httpd/php5/php.d' '--enable-magic-quotes' '--with-pear=/hsphere/shared/apache/libexec/php5ext/php' '--with-mime-magic=/hsphere/local/config/httpd/magic' '--with-inifile' '--with-flatfile' '--enable-pdo=shared' '--with-pdo-sqlite=shared' '--with-pdo-mysql=shared' '--with-pdo-pgsql=shared' '--prefix=/hsphere/shared/php5' '--disable-cli' '--enable-cgi'

I'm just restoring the plugins/TinyMCE to the contao 2.9.1 default and putting the default config/TinyMCE.php,TinyNews.php/TinyFlash.php back in - so that the error happens again.
I've also removed any non-core modules, so you can be sure its not a conflict.

I'll PM you the backend admin, server control panel and ftp details once I've restored it.

Edit: All done Flob... PMed ya

[Ben]

From the EDIT comments in the first post, do you still want this thread moved over to the dev section?

[ramjet]

Hi Ben,
No leave it here if you would (I've edited my edit :D )

Originally I thought it was caused by a module I made, but I've since discovered it affects the core installation. I've found a fix, but Flobs about to see if he can determine why it happens.
cheers, murray

[FloB]

Also the phpinfo has all this stuffand more (thats the Apache settings I think???)

No, those are the PHP compile parameters. I was looking for the Apache web server settings found in the httpd.conf, probably at /etc/apache2/. But as I said, you're likely not to see any of those as they are restricted by the hoster.

[ramjet]

Thanks to a lot of help from Flob, it appears that my hosting environment runs Apache 1.3, and as a result doesn't run mod_deflate.... and presumably this causes the blank screens as the compressed javascript files used by system/config tinyMCE.php, tinyNews.php and tinyFlash.php are not read properly. (I hope I've got that right Flob!!).

Why this started happening around Contao Version 2.9 I don't know, it wasn't an issue before that.

I can't test this, as I can't change my server environment (shared hosting) but it seems most likely.

I'll report this to Leo, as my server etc does meet the requirements as outlaid in "Server Requirements", and I have had no other problems with Contao to date.

Hopefully this thread will help anyone facing a similar issue.

[FloB]

Actually, there seems to be some "misunderstanding" between browser and server and some software running on the server side when mod_deflate is missing. We're not 100% sure about that but it's most likely the reason for the inconsistent behaviour of Fx in conjuction with the compressed TinyMCE version. Everything should be fine when disabling the compressed version of TinyMCE in the config files (/system/config/tiny*.php) but that includes having bigger data chunks to be transfered between client and server.

[ramjet]

My hosting service has told me (in my case)

mod_deflate is Apache 2 module. We run Apache 1.3 and the equivalent is mod_gzip
which is enabled. and gzip version is 1.3.26.1a

if this is useful info

[FloB]

Maybe it's not enough. Maybe it's something else. But we're pretty sure the problem involves the compressed version of TinyMCE, maybe it's the version itself, maybe the browser (cache), maybe the server configuration. As far as I can remember, when I had a problem with TinyMCE, it was fixed after some adjustments made to Apache httpd and mod_deflate – but I can't say that for sure. Sorry.

[ramjet]

I appear to have fixed it, but I'm not entirely sure why.
I believe this is what I should put in a ticket, as the problem never existed until Typolight became Contao - probably due to these changes....

By adding the following lines at the top of my DEFAULT Contao htaccess file (the lines have come from the old Typolight DEFAULT htaccess file)

AddEncoding gzip .gz
AddType "text/javascript" .gz
AddType "text/css" .gz
RewriteCond %{HTTP:Accept-encoding} gzip
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} \.(js|css)$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}.gz -f
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ $1.gz [L]

AND checking Settings::Global Configuration::Enable gZip Compression

I need to do BOTH these things, as just one or the other makes no difference.
I'm not sure if I need all those rules, but this works.

Maybe this makes sense to someone as to WHY????


To recap....
My server environment is Apache 1.3.
No mod_deflate, no mod_cache (which are both Apache 2 modules).
It runs the equivalent of mod_deflate - which is mod_gzip (version 1.3.26.1a), which is enabled.
Also mod_headers, mod_rewrite & mod_expires are all enabled.

I get blank backend screens (sporadic, but most of the time) when entering or saving a screen with TinyMCE as the text editor (eg Newsletters).
This is on a default Contao Installation, with no extensions installed, showing entirely "green" in contao-check.php, with no other problems.

I can fix it by
1.Turning off TinyMCE as the text editor
OR
2.Editing the system/config/TinyMCE.php,TinyNews.php/TinyFlash.php files to use tiny_mce.js instead of tiny_mce_gzip.js
OR
3.The fix with altered default htaccess AND Settings::enable gzip compression described above.

[FloB]

Most likely the AddEncoding does the trick (it should be the equivalent of "SetOutputFilter DEFLATE" ll. 34 and maybe "Header append Vary Accept-Encoding" ll. 46 in the current .htaccess).

However, those two lines in your .htaccess are false (it will send .js files as text/css) and should be removed (see ll. 46):

AddType "text/javascript" .gz
AddType "text/css" .gz

Make sure that mod_headers is activated in case it doesn't work without those lines. Another workaround would be:

<FilesMatch "\.js\.gz$">
  AddType "text/javascript" .gz
</FilesMatch>
<FilesMatch "\.css\.gz$">
  AddType "text/css" .gz
</FilesMatch>