Blank Publish Page

[ErLaby]

Hi, Looking for some breadcrumbs on what to look for.. I am new to Form Tools and this forum.

I am working to create my first form. When I go to the publish tab in the form creation, it comes up with a blank page. I have to believe I've done something basic, wrong. The page link for publish tab is: localhost/formtools/admin/forms/edit/?form_id5

I am using the default firefox browser that ships with ubuntu.

[kubajal]

Hi, that sounds very odd, Are you using Form Builder? I recommend to strictly follow the steps in this Publishing your First Form tutorial. Creating a minimal form should be extremely simple.

[ErLaby]

Yes, I followed it exactly to use FormBuilder and when I get to the Publish, the screen is blank. I am using v 3.0.20 with Form Builder 2.0.10. This is on Ubuntu.

Every time I try to build a form, no matter how simple, the "Publish" button always returns a blank page.

[kubajal]

Do you see any errors? Can you please open Developer Tools (https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/tools/Tools_Toolbox) on Mozilla, go to Console and post here any errors that you see (preferably taking screenshots)?

[ErLaby]

Hi, Here's a screen shot. As you can see, Console is blank. The "inspector" just shows the following:

[kubajal]

That looks very strange. Are you sure you downloaded and unpacked all files? In particular does the file {FormTools root}/admin/forms/edit/index.php even exist? Also, can you post screenshots of every step you make that lead to this blank page?

[ErLaby]

Hi, Yes, the index.php file is located in the [root]/admin/forms/edit/ directory. For the form set up, I followed the tutorial example exactly.

[ErLaby]

The file I downloaded was the default zip file from formtools.org. I unpacked it all to /var/www/html/formtools

I've tried to create very basic forms using all 3 types and have made several attempts to use the Form Builder option:

Form Name: Test Number of fields: 2 Access: Administrator Only <>

Main: "Your Form Builder form has been created! Use these tabs to configure and publish your form on your website.

Status: Online Form Name: test Form Type: Form Builder Access: Administrator Only Delete associated files when deleting submissions: Yes Strip tags in form submissions: Yes Edit Submission Label: Edit Submission Add Submission Button: Add >>

Then I press <> Then I go to the "Publish" tab and it is blank every time

[ErLaby]

I just tried using a different browser, and I get: localhost is currently unable to handle this request HTTP ERROR 500.

Here's the URL that I get for when I press publish:

http://localhost/formtools/admin/forms/edit/index.php?page=publish

I went into the apache2 log file and every time I press the "Publish" button I see the following error message in the log:

[kubajal]

Good move. Can you find something similar to the Toolbox/Console in Mozilla to check what exactly causes the HTTP 500 error that you get and post it here? Also, can you make sure that the file _[root]/modules/form_builder/admin/tabpublish.php exists? I suspect that your Form Builder is corrupt.

[kubajal]

Does /var/www/formtools/themes/default/cache exist and do what are its permissions? run ls -all in /var/www/formtools/themes/default and share the output for cache. Can you also execute "ls -all" in /var/www/formtools/themes/default/cache and post the output here?

[ErLaby]

Hi, tab_publish.php exists

/var/www/formtools/themes/default/cache <=Does not exist

[kubajal]

Ok, please execute the following and see if it helps:

cd /var/www/formtools/themes/default
mkdir cache
chmod 750 cache

[ErLaby]

I ran the commands exactly. The cache directory is now present. However, it still did not help. I am met with the exact same results, when I edit a form (any form) I still get a blank "Publish" page.

[kubajal]

OK, who is the owner of the directory? can you ls -all in eg /var/www/formtools/themes/default and paste here the output? Here are tips how to set permission for the Apache folder: https://serverfault.com/questions/357108/what-permissions-should-my-website-files-folders-have-on-a-linux-webserver. Also, I think I made a mistake above. Run chmod 755 cache, not 750.

[ErLaby]

Hi, Thank you for the help. I appreciate that you are trying to work with me on this. I changed the permissions from 750 to 755. Also, here's the output on the /var/www/html/formtools/themes/default:

total 96 drwxr-xr-x 9 root root 4096 Apr 13 22:25 . drwxrwxrwx 5 root root 4096 Nov 9 22:22 .. drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Nov 9 22:21 about drwxr-xr-x 8 root root 4096 Nov 9 22:21 admin drwxr-x--- 2 root root 4096 Apr 13 22:25 cache drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 4096 Nov 9 22:21 clients drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Nov 9 22:21 css -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2639 Nov 9 22:21 error.tpl -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 292 Nov 9 22:21 footer.tpl -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1033 Nov 9 22:21 forget_password.tpl -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 3457 Nov 9 22:21 header.tpl drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Nov 9 22:21 images -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1669 Nov 9 22:21 index.tpl -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1721 Nov 9 22:21 js_pagination.tpl -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 982 Nov 9 22:21 menu.tpl -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2247 Nov 9 22:21 messages.tpl -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 463 Nov 9 22:21 module_menu.tpl -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 278 Nov 9 22:21 modules_footer.tpl -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 4243 Nov 9 22:21 modules_header.tpl -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1917 Nov 9 22:21 pagination.tpl drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Nov 9 22:21 scripts -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 8 Nov 9 22:21 tabset_close.tpl -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1576 Nov 9 22:21 tabset_open.tpl

Also, did that apach2 error message I pasted add anything to this? I get that error every time I press the publish button.

Here it is again in case the image was hard to read:

[Mon Apr 13 23:04:26.731707 2020] [php7:error] [pid 1170] [client 127.0.0.1:50068] PHP Fatal error: Uncaught --> Smarty: unable to write file /var/www/html/formtools/themes/default/cache/wrt5e94effab29725_60461635 <-- \n thrown in /var/www/html/formtools/vendor/smarty/smarty/libs/sysplugins/smarty_internal_runtime_writefile.php on line 49, referer: http://localhost/formtools/admin/forms/edit/?form_id=8

[kubajal]

Yea, it was helpful, there is a problem with permissions. I just checked what permissions I have in my Formtools installation and they look like this:

I guess we should aim for the same for you. Can you execute:

cd /var/www/formtools/themes/default
mkdir cache <---- (if it not exists yet)
chmod 770 cache

Note there is 770 now.

[ErLaby]

It is working! Thank you this is a huge help! Cheers! Someday I wish to be able to be so kind as you as to be able to solve problems on forums like these!

[kubajal]

No worries, glad it helped.

[apmuthu]

For Ubuntu / Debian:

cd /var/www/webroot
wget -c --no-check-certificate \
    "https://formtools.org/download_file.php?file_type=core&file=FormTools3.0.20-20191109.zip" \
    -O FormTools3.0.20-20191109.zip

unzip FormTools3.0.20-20191109.zip
rm FormTools3.0.20-20191109.zip
cd formtools
chown -R www-data:www-data upload cache
# only the folder and not the files and folders within it:
chown www-data:www-data global
cd themes
for d in */ ; do     mkdir -p $d/cache; chown www-data:www-data $d/cache; done