White Screen of Death - Is there any insight as to what causes it?

Update. For anyone else having this error:

-There’s no satisfying resolution. Despite error logs, screenshots & screen recordings, Nobody (on forum or from Adalo) seems to be able to recognize there is a problem here, or explain what all the red error code might point to as a source of the bug.

-However, the good news is that the error has stopped happening for me now on the screen in question. I did not delete or specifically rebuild anything this time - I had given up on troubleshooting the bug after dozens of hours of effort. Instead, I had decided to just “live with” the bug, and was just doing some routine minor tinkering. Then, it just stopped happening at some point yesterday. While I’m glad it’s stopped, who knows if it will start again. I am afraid to keep editing the affected screens…

-Adalo support emailed me again today saying they went on my app and “couldn’t recreate the issue” Hilarious (Suspicious?, Coincidental?) that they went on my app to try and replicate the error only AFTER it had “magically” stopped being an issue… I had put in the Ticket back on the 17th after months of frustration and repeated issues with the white screen error… Now, on the 21st/22nd, after the error magically stopped, they go on my app to tell me basically “I don’t see a problem here”. I mean, I appreciate the fact that at least someone was looking into this, but it is not satisfying or giving me any sense of resolution/reasoning.

-CONCLUSION:
The White Screen Of Death is apparently a mystery bug. My advice to anyone who encounters it is to NOT take the generally accepted advice of the forum and just demolish and rebuild screens on your app - My experience shows that that is DEFINITELY not guaranteed to fix it, and you run a huge risk of investing tons of your valuable time (and sanity) into what is at best a gamble of a fix. Nobody knows what causes this issue apparently, so no need to destroy your productivity by endlessly troubleshooting it with voodoo theories of resolution.

Instead, if you can get by just allowing the screen to crash while you’re building (use “refresh frame” in the previewer and browser-based PWA to clear the error for testing & development purposes), do that. Also, IMMEDIATELY submit a ticket to Adalo. Make them look into it. While they do that, you can stay productive and sane, and eventually it will either “fix itself” or you will inadvertently “fix” it, the way I have done this time. Or, if it doesn’t resolve, at least Adalo will be able to replicate the error and maybe they’ll actually have to figure it out.

Anyway, I hope this is helpful. The White Screen Of Death has been a constant nightmare for me as I’ve been developing my app, and I wish I’d have known to 1) ignore it and 2) PUT IN A TICKET instead of spending days and days troubleshooting, destroying, rebuilding, and feeling generally gaslighted & frustrated.

2 Likes