I'm designing a password reset screen for users using my system and everything was going great until all of a sudden the browser page went blank.

I eventually worked out that my if statement is the problem, but for some reason it's blocking ALL the code on the page. Nothing renders in the browser window as long as I include this if statement no code, no text, no source whatsoever it just ceases to be.

I searched through the whole page many times and cannot see any errors.

PHP Code:

<?php
if($_POST["email"]) {
    $email = $_POST["email"];
    $newpassword = randompass();
    
    function randompass() {
        $count = 1;
        $chars = "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPRQSTUVWXYZ0123456789";
        $totalchars = strlen($chars)-1;
        do {
            $randomnum = mt_rand(0,$totalchars);
            $randomchar = substr($chars, -$randomnum, 1)
            $newpass = $newpass
            $count = $count+1;
        } while ($count < 10);
        
        return $newpass;
    }
    
    include("includes/connection.php");
    $query = "UPDATE user SET password='$newpassword' WHERE email='$email'";
    $table = mysql_query($query, $connection) or die(header('Location: index.php?error=mysql'));
    $row = mysql_fetch_assoc($table);
}

$title = "Password Recovery";
include("includes/header.php");

?>
<form action="user_reset.php" method="post">
<fieldset>
    <label for="email">Email:</label><input type="text" name="email" id="email" maxlength="50" size="30" />&emsp;
    <label>&nbsp;</label><input type="submit" value="Reset My Password" /></p>
</fieldset>
</form>

<?php include("includes/footer.php"); ?>

Whoa, Nellie!

What is this?

PHP Code:

    echo = $totalchars;
    echo = $newpass; 


Try taking out those equal signs and get back to me.

wait, wait, wait...I posted that w/o looking too close.

What are those lines even for? Just delete them.

The equal signs were me being metal for a minute there.
The lines were me testing variables before the whole thing broke. I just forgot to remove them.

My problem still persists, the page is blank.

My first thought would be to perhaps comment out the mysql code and see what happens.

PHP Code:

/*
    include("includes/connection.php");
    $query = "UPDATE user SET password='$newpassword' WHERE email='$email'";
    $table = mysql_query($query, $connection) or die(header('Location: index.php?error=mysql'));
    $row = mysql_fetch_assoc($table);
*/ 


If your page works after you comment that stuff out, I would say there may be a problem in your connection.php.....maybe?

If not, narrow it down to the problem line of code inside the if statement.

Also, you can really eliminate the entire randompass function by replacing it with something like this:

PHP Code:

$length     = 10; // length of password to generate
$password = substr( md5 ( uniqid ( microtime ( ) ) ), 0, $length ); 


There are many ways to generate a random password, this is the method I use.

On a side note, the $newpass and $totalchars variables should be local to the randompass() function. Meaning, after the function is finished, those variables no longer exist. Just figured I would not that because you were trying to echo them outside of the function.

I'd add:
error_reporting( E_ALL );

as your absolute first line of PHP and see if that shows up anything...

It appears my function is to blame for the errors... I'm going to replace it with something different. Thanks very much for your help, I really do appreciate it.

Did you solve this problem. If you don't, I think this two lines missed ; on the end.

$randomchar = substr($chars, -$randomnum, 1)
$newpass = $newpass

Shivaji

Once the function was removed and the semi colons were repaired the page loaded properly. I was just rushing through my code and got sloppy.

Thanks very much for all your input.

Always the problem with coding, you can right something and it dont work and you never spot the mistake, and as far as your concerd its the best way to code it

and then someone looks and goes thats wrong so is that, and u would be beeter doing it like this