Restore breaks my admin/blank admin

[Limitless]

I have read all of the threads regarding blank/partially blank pages when moving your site from one server to another but this is a bit different.

Now that I have a full working store front up, I have added an additional server to do test restores, mod testing, etc to.

During my full backup/recovery test, I am able to recover my store from backup (R1soft CDP) except that each time the admin pages break.

I know the standard response is your 'ftp broke a file, reupload your site', but I would like to know how to troubleshoot and resolve this.

I would like to think that a disk/tape based backup should backup and restore the files properly and in a catastrophic failure event, I cannot be sure that I have a tar/gzipped copy available to 'reupload' after I do a complete server recovery, otherwise paying monthly for traditional backups is a waste if I have to make sure that I have a complete and up to date copy on my laptop.


I see no errors in the cache or httpd logs regarding any admin pages, but would appreciate some additional thoughts in where to look to find a way to stop the blank page (header works, just no content).

I cannot blame the backup software because if I do a tgz based backup, I have a ~50% success rate as well.

In troubleshooting so far, I have recovered the entire admin directory, just the admin includes directory, etc. via backup and I have also recovered from tar files the same folders, sub folders, etc.

When I scp the files back, I have tried ASCII, Binary, Auto, etc. without change.

Everything else works just fine, database, catalog, mods, htaccess, etc. but ~something~ breaks in the admin pages.

[Limitless]

I found my issue.

Some of my addons require ioncube and/or zend optimizer.

During the full server rebuild/restore tests, it was sometimes missed or not (re)added to my php.ini.


DR notes have been updated.

Might be something to check for others if they have a problem moving hosts, restoring their site, etc.