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Request for new help topic

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Chris
2014-04-13
2014-04-14
  • Chris

    Chris - 2014-04-13

    A few years ago I assisted a friend to install phpgedview on his website
    www.hanekom.co.za/phpgedview

    It has been working fine but now all he gets is a blank screen. The only
    changes made since it was working are upgrades of php, etc by the ISP on
    the host server.

    I had a similar issue on my gedview but it was sorted with an increase in the memory in the config file.

    My friend has asked for help but I do not know what to do. I have checked the database settings - all OK. I also run an upgrade to the latest version but had the same white screen.

    Source of the page is emptly

    I am not a php or any type of expert.

     

    Last edit: Chris 2014-04-13
  • Gerry Kroll

    Gerry Kroll - 2014-04-13

    Chris:
    You should have used a more meaningful topic title.

    I suspect that the problem is that the old version of PhpGedView your friend is running is not compatible with the new version of PHP your friend's service provider has kindly upgraded to. This is likely because the old version of PhpGedView (4.2.4 is included in this) is using features of PHP that were "deprecated" and have now been removed.

    The only thing I can suggest is that you upgrade to PhpGedView version 4.3.0 (also called the "SVN" version). A better alternative is to switch to Webtrees, which was cloned from PhpGedView about 4 years ago. Webtrees is under active development, with a very helpful user community. PhpGedView has remained stagnant, with support being a hit-or-miss affair. There's nobody doing any active development on PhpGedView.

    Webtrees has a good migration tool to help PhpGedView users.

    If your friend insists on trying PhpGedView, you'll have to look at two Help topics. One tells you how to do the download of 4.3.0, and the other tells you how to do the upgrade. The download instructions in the "upgrade" post don't work any more because the SourceForge folks "improved" their repository and moved things around.

    The post dealing with the current download procedure has been updated recently (within the last two or three months), but the instructions were part of some other Help request. The upgrade instructions are in a Help post whose title begins with "Download "SVN" version".

    One of these days, when I can get around to it, I'll combine the two posts into one with a meaningful and helpful title. Right now, you'll just have to "make do".

    In short: Webtrees is a better alternative.

     
  • Chris

    Chris - 2014-04-14

    Thanks for the response. I will have a look at upgrading.

    Apologies for the topic title. I did it via email and did not realise the email header would become the topic title

     
  • Gerry Kroll

    Gerry Kroll - 2014-04-14

    I can't find that "recent" post about how to download the "SVN" version of PhpGedView, so here goes again:

    1. At the top of this page, click on "SVN".
    2. On the page that opens, click on "Download Snapshot".
    3. If nobody has done a snapshot recently, you'll see a message about a snapshot being generated. Creation of the requested snapshot will take some time, and you'll probably get an error message about not being able to find the snapshot. If that happens, just try again, because eventually you'll be able to proceed to the next step.
    4. If the download is successful, save the file somewhere. The file will be about 27 Mb and will be named phpgedview-svn-7097-trunk.zip or something similar.
    5. Unzip this downloaded file, and discard everything except the directory phpGedView
    6. The phpGedView directory is what you want. You can then follow the upgrade instructions in that Help topic whose title begins with Repost: Download "SVN" version
     

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