Screen goes black on submit

[captsig]

Valued colleagues,
This is a new problem for me but hopefully not for someone in the rank and file.

I use the code below to test for a duplicate part name entered in a form. The part name also serves as a folder name. When I set the condition as true, i.e. it is a duplicate name, the screen just goes dead black instead of printing out the error messages. I have tried it with both 'die' and 'exit' with the same results. When it is not true, i.e. it is not a duplicate, the script runs fine.

here is the relevant code sections:

if(file_exists($pic_folder))
{
echo 'The part name you have chosen is already in use\. please choose a different name\.';
die("You have a duplicate folder name. Change name and start over!");
}
else
{
mkdir($pic_folder, 0777);
}
opendir($pic_folder);

[SrWebDeveloper]

As I don't see anything too obvious, since $pic_folder can be a folder name, a few concerns come to mind. First, I assume you strip any illegal characters like spaces and * and so on which cannot be used in folder names, and might corrupt the results of file_exists. Secondly, typically a physical path is referenced somehow for file_exists which prefixes the folder name, i.e. $real_folder="{$_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT']}/$pic_folder" or whatever. I don't see that in your code, and the real path should not be included in a form for security reasons in my opinion. On a side note I found it odd you escape the period in the first echo statement, its not needed. That's all I can think of right now.

-jim

[captsig]

Jim, thanks so much for your comment. I decided it has to be a css/html problem. I finally found that some dumb s.o.b.(ah...I guess that would be me) buried some css for the body tag calling for a black background in an obscure little php header file!!!

captsig

[SrWebDeveloper]

Funny thing, I thought you meant the screen goes blank (i.e. when fatal errors in PHP happen) -- No problem, it's always the tiny stuff like that! Cheers.