Apache http server has stopped working (vista)

[Bert36]

Today I decided to install Apache, PHP and MySQL manually instead of using things like Wamp or Xampp (for two reasons, first in order to have it setup the way I want, and secondly as a study/learning experience).

I managed to get it installed rather quickly and everything seemed to work (this includes parsing php), until I tried:

<?php
phpinfo();
?>

WHich gave me a blank page.

After a few hours I tried:

<?php phpinfo(); ?>

And at first, this gave me a page full of chinese or japanese letters, and after a reload it started to show the phpinfo-page...but it breaks off everythime halfway through and gives me a "Apache HTTP server has stopped working" error.

There are no errors in either the apache or php logs and it always stops at the "highlight.bg" entry of the phpinfo-page
Any thoughts on what is happening here?

[jdMorgan]

Well, one thing to do is to examine the server response using the "Live HTTP Headers" add-on for Firefox/Mozilla browsers, and make sure that your pages are returning the correct Content-Type and Character-Encoding headers (as well as all of the others).

I don't know the significance of "the highlight.bg entry" so can't comment further on that, but it sounds like it may be quite relevant to your problem.

Jim

[Bert36]

Just as you posted your reply I found the problem. I got myself another php.ini file and compared them. There was one difference, in my php.ini file the date.timezone was commented out.
I didn't think that could be the problem, but I un-commented it nonetheless and gave it a value...and presto: problem solved.