Disaster - Site completely blank after includes restore

The site does not load at all. The source code for what does load into a browser is totally blank.

Using v1.3.9h which is the original install with no updates.

Added ezpop and blank sidebox.

Did a lot of customization.

This morning the site was working fine. I decided I wanted to revert to an older "edition". The recent "improvements" did not really help. Before making any changes I backed up the entire site twice on two separate drives. Then I overwrote the includes directory with a month old backup. The site just stopped working; went blank.

I tried restoring this mornings working backup of includes, but have the same problem. I looked at the permissions of the files and confirmed that config was set to 644 and also tried 444. Also looked at the permissions of some directories which are as they should be at 777. I even tried a database backup. nothing has worked.

Since the rest of the site (everything except includes was untouched, I left that alone. The admin seems to be working just fine.

The only idea I have is to delete the includes section from the server and then upload a backup. That would mean changing the permissions again, but it does not sound difficult. I am just afraid of doing yet more damage.

I am kind of desperate here, as the site is finally getting some search engine traction. It terrifying to think of Google dropping my site because its offline.

Anyone got any ideas.

Any error log files in the /cache folder ?

https://www.zen-cart.com/tutorials/index.php?article=82

Thank you so much for your quick reply.

Earlier today, but after the crash:

[23-Jan-2012 06:20:51] PHP Warning: include_once(includes/languages/english.php): failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /hsphere/local/home/louleib/sofabed-mattress.com/includes/init_includes/init_templates.php on line 72
[23-Jan-2012 06:20:51] PHP Warning: include_once(): Failed opening 'includes/languages/english.php' for inclusion (include_path='.:/hsphere/shared/apache/libexec/php5ext/php/') in /hsphere/local/home/louleib/sofabed-mattress.com/includes/init_includes/init_templates.php on line 72

Most recent:

[23-Jan-2012 11:43:01] PHP Fatal error: Call to undefined function zen_href_link() in /hsphere/local/home/louleib/sofabed-mattress.com/includes/extra_datafiles/checkout_success.php on line 17

I should note that includes/extra_datafiles/checkout_success.php has not existed in recent versions.

So I deleted it and got this error

[23-Jan-2012 12:12:11] PHP Warning: Unterminated comment starting line 6 in /hsphere/local/home/louleib/sofabed-mattress.com/includes/extra_datafiles/larryspage_filenamesTEMP.php on line 6
[23-Jan-2012 12:12:11] PHP Fatal error: fatal flex scanner internal error--end of buffer missed in /hsphere/local/home/louleib/sofabed-mattress.com/includes/extra_datafiles/larryspage_filenamesTEMP.php on line 6

So I deleted all irrelevant files in that folder and finally got the page

This is the current error message

[23-Jan-2012 12:21:46] PHP Warning: include_once(includes/languages/english.php): failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /hsphere/local/home/louleib/sofabed-mattress.com/includes/init_includes/init_templates.php on line 72
[23-Jan-2012 12:21:46] PHP Warning: include_once(): Failed opening 'includes/languages/english.php' for inclusion (include_path='.:/hsphere/shared/apache/libexec/php5ext/php/') in /hsphere/local/home/louleib/sofabed-mattress.com/includes/init_includes/init_templates.php on line 72
[23-Jan-2012 12:21:46] PHP Warning: require(): Filename cannot be empty in /hsphere/local/home/louleib/sofabed-mattress.com/includes/templates/larrys/templates/tpl_page_not_found_default.php on line 23
[23-Jan-2012 12:21:46] PHP Warning: require(): Filename cannot be empty in /hsphere/local/home/louleib/sofabed-mattress.com/includes/templates/larrys/templates/tpl_page_not_found_default.php on line 23
[23-Jan-2012 12:21:46] PHP Fatal error: require(): Failed opening required '' (include_path='.:/hsphere/shared/apache/libexec/php5ext/php/') in /hsphere/local/home/louleib/sofabed-mattress.com/includes/templates/larrys/templates/tpl_page_not_found_default.php on line 23

The index.php in the site root was never touched, so there is still a problem which is way over my head.

FIXED.

It was pretty dumb not to just delete the entire includes directory and then restore it from the backup.

I bit the bullet and did it.

Deleted the includes directory and restored it.

Worked like a charm.

The problem was that I was mixing new files with old ones and they were interfering.

Thanks for setting me in the right direction.