PHP files showing white screen

Question

I use Bluehost as my hosting service and this problem has
never occurred before using them as a test server. I run Mac OS X
and recently followed the tutorial on setting up a PHP5 environment
on my Mac. Problem is after doing everything as told and testing
the php to see if it is operating, which it is, I tried viewing th
PHP files (which only have database connections for dynamic message
comments) and they only display white screens!! I had the site
already designed and wanted to switch to this local host method so
I don't update my site's files when testing changes to my
pages...but this is not acceptable. I see that many people have the
same problem on the net, but there are no solutions, just
complaints. All the HTML pages display in the browser fine in my
browser:
http://localhost/~username/Sitefolder/,
so why is that the php files render whitescreens?
Apache is running, PHP is running.....I am using my old
Bluehost SQL databases, but this should not be an issue. I don't
wish to install MYSQL on my machine when I have it through my
rovider, and i know this isn't the cause of the issue. Is this some
faulty php syntax on Dreamweaver's part?

Answer 1

Travis Coats wrote:
> All the HTML pages display in the browser fine in my
browser:
>
http://localhost/~username/Sitefolder/,
so why is that the php files render
> whitescreens?
It means that you have an error in your PHP pages, and that
your host
has disabled the display of error messages (good for
security). Put the
following code at the very top of one of your PHP pages:
<?php ini_set('display_errors', '1'); ?>
Reload the page, and see what error message is generated. I
suspect that
you have an include file that cannot be found (probably the
wrong path
in the include command).
David Powers, Adobe Community Expert
Author, "The Essential Guide to Dreamweaver CS3" (friends of
ED)
Author, "PHP Solutions" (friends of ED)
http://foundationphp.com/