How To Solve Blank Page or Server Error After Upgrade/Update

You may have already known this... the .htaccess file in your Sendroid Ultimate directory is one of the most important files on Sendroid. This files, as tiny as it is, actually controls many important aspects of Sendroid Ultimate, including navigation

Unfortunately in most servers, this same file is used to save important Apache configurations for your Sendroid Ultimate domain such as PHP active versions, etc

When you Upgrade (or sometimes Update) Sendroid Ultimate, the .htaccess file is restored or replaced with the original version that came with Sendroid Ultimate. This is one of the reasons why Sendroid Ultimate Update / Upgrade prompt always advise that you take a complete backup of your files before performing an Upgrade or Update... so when something goes wrong, you can always fallback to something you are sure of working.

We are all humans and humans do make mistakes. One can easily ignore those instructions or simply forget to follow them most times.

In this article, I will be given you a way out of the situation where your .htaccess file gets replaced after an upgrade or update, thereby leading to a blank page or other server errors when you try accessing your Sendroid Ultimate

Why did I see a blank page or server error after upgrade?

Like I mentioned above, the .htaccess file in your Sendroid Ultimate sometimes is also used by your server to save important Apache configurations such as current PHP version, etc

Also, your server modules such as IonCube loader, Multibyte String Extension (mbstring), etc are all attached to PHP version. That is to say that when you install or enable these features on one PHP version, they don't necessarily get enabled for all other PHP versions unless you do so manually.

When your .htaccess file is replaced during an update or upgrade, your server will no longer know what custom PHP version you assigned to your Sendroid Ultimate, so it simply uses your server's default settings (Which may not have all the software requirements for Sendroid Ultimate)

What to do if you took a Backup of your Files Before Upgrade or Update
If you ran into server errors or blank page and you remembered to take a complete backup of your Sendroid Ultimate files before performing an upgrade or update, then good for you! Just follow these steps to restore your server to the working condition without loosing your update or upgrade;

1. Make sure there is no index.html file within your Sendroid Ultimate installation. If there is, simply delete it as it is not part of Sendroid
2. Download the .htaccess file from the root directory of your Sendroid Ultimate backup
3. Upload the file to your Sendroid Ultimate installation directory, replacing any existing one in it
4. Reload your Sendroid Ultimate and everything should be fine now

What to do when you do not have a backup

If you ran into server errors or blank page and you do not have a backup of your Sendroid Ultimate before upgrade or update, no worries. There is still a way out. Just follow these steps

1. If you remember the version of PHP you had on your Sendroid Ultimate installation before now, simply set it back and skip to the last step
2. If you do not know your previous working PHP version, try setting your Sendroid Ultimate PHP version to 7.0 and reload your Sendroid Ultimate
3. If the server error persist, try setting the PHP version to 5.6 or 7.1
4. Reload your Sendroid Ultimate and everything should be fine now

This may seem like a "trial and error" approach but the logic there is simple... it is very likely that your Sendroid Ultimate was working with PHP 5.6, 7.0 or 7.1 as these are the most supported versions