Troubleshooting Common Drupal/Joomla Errors

This reference covers frequently-encountered Drupal and Joomla error scenarios and their typical resolutions — a practical troubleshooting companion for these CMS platforms.

Drupal: White Screen of Death (Blank Page, No Error)

tail -f /var/log/apache2/error.log

A blank page with no visible error often means PHP fatal errors are occurring but not displayed (display_errors disabled, appropriate for production) — check web server error logs for the actual underlying PHP error.

Drupal: "The website encountered an unexpected error"

drush watchdog:show

Drupal's built-in logging (watchdog) often has more specific error detail than the generic user-facing message — check this first for genuine diagnostic information.

Drupal: Database Connection Errors

cat sites/default/settings.php | grep -A 10 databases

Verify database credentials in settings.php are correct and the database service is actually running — a common cause after server migrations or credential rotation without updating this configuration file.

Drupal: Cache-Related Display Issues

drush cache:rebuild

Many seemingly odd display issues (outdated content showing, broken layouts after an update) resolve with a cache rebuild — a reasonable first troubleshooting step for many non-obvious Drupal display problems.

Joomla: "JFolder::create: Could Not Create Directory" During Updates/Installs

sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/joomla
sudo chmod -R 755 /var/www/joomla

File permission issues are a common cause — verify the web server user has appropriate write permissions to the relevant directories.

Joomla: "Session Data Could Not Be Saved"

Often indicates a database or session storage configuration issue — verify the database is accessible and the sessions table exists/is writable; occasionally caused by disk space exhaustion if session data is file-based.

Both Platforms: "500 Internal Server Error" After an Update

tail -50 /var/log/nginx/error.log

Check web server logs for the specific error — often a PHP version compatibility issue if the update requires a newer PHP version than currently installed, or a module/extension conflict introduced by the update.

Both Platforms: Extremely Slow Page Load

See How to Optimize Performance for Drupal/Joomla on a VPS for systematic performance troubleshooting — check for missing caching configuration, inefficient database queries from a specific module/extension, or genuinely insufficient server resources for your site's traffic.

Both Platforms: Broken After a Third-Party Module/Extension Update

Temporarily disable the specific module/extension to confirm it's genuinely the cause, then check for compatibility notes or known issues with that specific version before re-enabling or seeking an alternative/updated version.

Using Maintenance Mode During Troubleshooting

drush state:set system.maintenance_mode 1

Enable maintenance mode while actively troubleshooting a broken site, avoiding visitors encountering the broken state while you diagnose and fix the underlying issue.

Common Errors

Error persists despite trying standard fixes — check for recently changed server-level configuration (PHP version, memory limits, recently applied security patches) that might have inadvertently affected CMS compatibility, not just CMS-level configuration alone.

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