TOPIC:

Hi:

I use joomla 3.5.1 and VM 3.0.17
It is really weird that I got two online website, one for test and other one for live, both with same content and layout.
Someday the live web got blank I found that homepage work if turn off <advanced shipping rules>, so I thought this plugin is the point make blank, also found this plugin could update, In this way I did sure the blank is because updated.

So I have updated to 6.1.5 and homepage work as usual, but after 5~6 hours, it blank again, I need to reinstall 6.1.5 then back normal, however it happens again, the only way is reinstalling again and again...

I try to turn error report to maximum but no any msg shows.....

My other web for test is always work fine with 6.1.5.

Any idea?

THANK YOU!

Dear Jeremy,
Sorry to hear about your problems. There are some possible explanations for the symptoms you describe.

1. It might be due to the PHP version on your server (even though that should not change over time and immediately lead to a blank page). Which PHP version do you use on your server?

2. A blank page is typically due to some kind of PHP error. By default, all PHP error messages are hidden in the browser and only written to some of the server logs. You can, however, enable error printing to the browser window by going to the Joomla admin area, Menu "System" => "Configuration" => Tab "Server" => "Error reporting" dropdown box set to "Development" (alternatively, you can simply change the configuration.php file to use $error_reporting='development'). After this setting, all PHP errors/warnings should also be shown in the browser window (even if for some reason the webserver does not log it into its log files). This should get us some hint where the issu actually lies.

3. Some provider have malware detection scripts, which sometimes cause false positives and quarantine some file from the plugin (i.e. they rename the file so that PHP won't be able to call/load it), which obviously leads to broken sites. Can you please check whether the plugin directory (plugins/vmshipment/rules_shipping/ subdirectory of the website's base directory) have been renamed by your provider?

Best regards,
Reinhold

HI Reinhold:

Thanks for your reply.

1. My php version is 5.4.37

2. I did set to Development before but it always didn't show any error msg, also now the front-end is ok after I reinstalled this morning..

3. I did not find any renamed file but found a weird one in comparing file between live and test FTP:

<plugins/vmshipment/rules_shipping_advanced/library/rules_shipping_framework.php.suspected>

There is no <rules_shipping_framework.php.suspected> this file in test web, is it the point?

THANK YOU!

Jeremy

Dear Jeremy,
There we go. The rules_shipping_framework.php.suspected was renamed by some malware detection system of your provider or your own antivirus software, either as a false positive (we have had one other report of this happening) or your server has been hacked and that file has really been infected by some virus.

In any case, the cause of the problem is that some antivirus or malware detection system is renaming the file from rules_shipping_framework.php to rules_shipping_framework.php.suspected, so that VirtueMart clearly cannot load it and execute the code, which results in the blank screen.

You should first check whether that .suspected file is an idential copy to the one distributed in our plugin. If that's the case, the issue is a false positive of the antivirus/malware scanner and you need to contact whoever is running the malware check on your server (might be either your provider for managed servers or your own security expert).
If the file has been modified (and keeps getting modified after re-installation), then this is a pretty certain sign that your server has been compromised.

Best regards,
Reinhold