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Panel won't load

If the panel won’t paint — blank tab, spinning forever, “this site can’t be reached”, or a half-rendered page that never finishes — the cause is almost always one of a small handful of things. This page walks through the checks in order from easiest to most involved.

1. Server-level errors (blank white page)

Section titled “1. Server-level errors (blank white page)”

A completely blank page usually means PHP encountered a fatal error and stopped emitting output before any of the panel chrome painted.

The error itself goes to your webserver’s PHP error log. Typical locations:

  • Apache (Debian / Ubuntu): /var/log/apache2/error.log
  • Apache (Fedora / RHEL): /var/log/httpd/error_log
  • Nginx + PHP-FPM: /var/log/php<version>-fpm.log plus the FPM pool log
  • Docker / our dev stack: ./sbpp.sh logs web

Open the most recent entry. It’ll be specific — typically a missing PHP extension, a syntax error in config.php, or a memory-limit hit on a heavy page.

If you can’t find the log file, set display_errors = On in php.ini temporarily, reload the page, and read the error in the browser. Set it back to Off immediately after — leaving error display on in production leaks internal paths and stack traces.

2. Database connection problems

Section titled “2. Database connection problems”

If the panel loads partway but throws a database error, see Database errors.

If PHP loads but reports “could not find driver”, see Driver not found.

3. The page paints but JavaScript doesn’t run

Section titled “3. The page paints but JavaScript doesn’t run”

If the panel renders content (you see the layout, sidebar, and so on) but interactive elements don’t respond — buttons don’t click, modals don’t open, the command palette doesn’t appear — JavaScript is failing to execute somewhere. Common causes:

A reverse proxy is rewriting the JavaScript

Section titled “A reverse proxy is rewriting the JavaScript”

Cloudflare’s Rocket Loader is the most common offender. It re-orders JavaScript loads to speed up first paint, but the panel’s inline boot scripts depend on theme.js having executed first, so re-ordering them breaks the chrome.

If your panel sits behind Cloudflare:

  1. Sign into the Cloudflare dashboard.
  2. Pick the zone the panel is on.
  3. Go to Speed → Optimization → Content optimization.
  4. Disable Rocket Loader for the panel’s hostname.

If you share a Cloudflare account with other services, you can scope this to the panel only via a Page Rule instead of disabling it zone-wide.

Other reverse-proxy “auto-optimization” features that have caused similar issues in the past: Cloudflare Auto Minify (since discontinued), Cloudflare Mirage, third-party CDN minifiers. If you recently added any of these, try disabling them first.

A browser extension is blocking scripts

Section titled “A browser extension is blocking scripts”

Aggressive ad/script blockers (uBlock Origin with custom rules, NoScript, Privacy Badger) can block the panel’s own scripts. Open the page in a private window with extensions disabled — if it works there, your extension is the cause.

The browser cache is stale after an upgrade

Section titled “The browser cache is stale after an upgrade”

Bumping a major SourceBans++ version replaces theme.js, but your browser may still be holding the old one. Force-reload the page:

  • Windows / Linux: Ctrl + F5 or Ctrl + Shift + R
  • macOS: Cmd + Shift + R

4. The browser hangs / tab freezes

Section titled “4. The browser hangs / tab freezes”

If opening a panel page locks the entire tab (no scroll, no interaction, eventually a browser “this page is slow” prompt), the JavaScript is in an infinite loop or pathological state.

This is rare on a current panel but worth diagnosing:

  1. Open the browser’s developer tools (F12).
  2. Switch to the Performance tab.
  3. Click record.
  4. Reload the page.
  5. After about 10 seconds, stop the recording.
  6. Click Save profile (Firefox) or Save (Chrome).

Then drop into our Discord #help-support channel and share the trace — it’ll tell us whether the hang is in our JS, an upstream library, or your browser environment.

Still stuck?

Section titled “Still stuck?”

If none of the above match what you’re seeing, post in #help-support with:

  • The URL you’re trying to load.
  • A screenshot of what you actually see (blank page, error, etc.).
  • The PHP error log entry from around the time you reproduced it.
  • Whether you’re behind a reverse proxy (Cloudflare, Nginx, Apache reverse-proxying to PHP-FPM, etc.).
  • Your PHP version and SourceBans++ version.

We’ll triage from there.