This is a guest post by Udegbunam Chukwudi of StrictlyOnlineBiz
God knows how many times I’ve got the wordpress blank page error after leaving comments on some blogs. Some days back I got an email from one of my readers complaining that he had left two lengthy comments on my blog only to get a blank page after clicking the submit button. Thus I set out to find a solution and finally I’m 99% sure I’ve found one.
My research revealed that in some cases the almighty and over-rated Akismet is to be blamed. One of the features of Akismet that helps it with it’s anti-spam capability is that it tends to monitor the time gap between when a web page or blog post loads and when a comment is subsequently submitted.
If the time gap is small, Akismet tags the comment as spam and either throws up a blank page or tags the comment as spam in your wordpress dashboard. In most cases it does both.
HOW TO FIX THIS ISSUE?
Simple, deactivate and uninstall Akismet.
Please note that I tried this method and the next day, my blog went loco with the permalinks misbehaving badly. Single posts kept throwing up 404 errors. Reactivating Akismet and restoring a backup of my database seems to have saved my blog.
NOTE: I don’t know what Akismet had to do with this but I’m so NEVER going to be deactivating it again because at a point I felt I’d been hacked.
If you intend going this route, make sure comment moderation is enabled for each and every comment. Most especially if you manage a do-follow blog like I do.
Another fix I found making the rounds on the net is changing a little piece of code found in the comments.php file of your wordpress theme.
It is said that wordpress uses post ID to track which comments go with certain posts and if this post id is missing in a comment, the comment is lost or the commentator is redirected to a blank page.
The Trick:
Using CTRL + F, find:
<input type="hidden" name="comment_post_ID" value="<?php echo $id; ?>" />
in your comments.php file and change it to
<input type="hidden" name="comment_post_ID" value="<?php echo $post->ID; ?>" />
Save the file and you’re good to go…
NOTE: So far so good, by changing this tiny piece of code in the comments.php file, I’ve been able to save my commentators a whole lot of headache. Deactivating Akismet was certainly not an option for me.
I hope you will find this guide helpful whenever your blog will face such kind of problem.
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I have had this problem many times, but I did not realize that it was app problem with WP blogs.
Well, I will keep this page for future reference. Thanks
I wonder what’s the connection of Akismet plugin with that issue? though I never experience this thing. If ever, I will get back here and follow your tutorial, I’m sure it’ll work.
.-= Jenn´s last blog ..TRIPLE MEDICAL CELEBRATION: A BlogThing Game =-.
Blacklisting seems to be another possible cause for the “blank page after commenting” problem:
http://searchengineoptimizationplus.com/2008/09/15/submit-blog-comments-and-getting-a-blank-page
.-= Marketing Digital´s last blog ..20 Objetivos Para Uso De Mídias Sociais Dentro Da Sua Empresa =-.
I rarely get this (maybe because I read posts before commenting – lol). But I’m going to implement it on my blog.
Being thesis based, it’s going to be a little trickier to do – but a challenge is nice!
Ian
.-= Ian Brodie from Get Clients´s last blog ..Is it better to be Truthful, or Interesting? =-.
Well thats why i always thought why i am getting blank pages while commenting. I always thought it had to something with my comment. But even if i post a 1 line comment or 10 line , i got the same error in some blogs.
Akismet can really piss off your visitors.
.-= Ketin@tweetomatic Profiteer Review´s last blog ..Tweetomatic Profiteer Review – It is Live now =-.
great post thankyou for made this nice post my problem is solved coz i was have same prob in comments.php thanks alot.
now.. if only I could fix this on EVERYONE ELSES sites.. I’d be good.. I’m getting white screen here 🙁
.-= Peter Armenti´s last blog ..Can’t ignore Elgg anymore =-.
Great post – Askimet saves me hundreds of spam posts a day, so disabling it wasn’t an option for me either. I gave this a shot on a blog I manage for a client and it seems to have worked, so I appreciate you posting about it!
Perfect! I had this exact problem. Akismet is a no brainer with all the spammers around. Thank you for the “how-to”. – Rob.
Wow I have been trying to figure out this blank page for a while now, thanks for this fix, just what I have been looking for!