Custom Post Type meta oembed html output resulting in WSoD

Question

For a homepage template I'm trying to query a custom post type with a couple custom meta boxes. They are a title, oembed text field, and text area. I've compiled the below code from various sources as I piece together what I need for this homepage.

The result on the front end is currently a blank white screen. The custom post type and metaboxes add/edit/save fine on their own. It's just when I have this homepage template code in there that it's blank.

Any ideas?

<?php
/*
Template Name: Homepage
*/

/*
@package _tk
*/

get_header(); ?>

<article id="post-<?php the_ID(); ?>" <?php post_class(); ?>>

<div class="entry-content">     
    <?php $args = array( 'post_type' => 'films', 'posts_per_page' => 12 );
          $the_query = new WP_Query( $args ); ?>

    <?php if ( $the_query->have_posts() ) : ?>
    <?php while ( $the_query->have_posts() ) : $the_query->the_post(); ?>

            <?php /* Get the current post ID. */
                    global $post;
                    $post_id = $post->ID;
                  /* If we have a post ID, proceed. */
                    if ( !empty( $post_id ) ) { ?>

                        <h2><?php the_title(); ?></h2>

                        <div class="film_wrap"><?php echo wp_oembed_get( esc_html( get_post_meta( $post_id, $prefix . 'film_embed', true ) ) ); ?></div>

                        <?php if ( get_post_meta( $post_id, $prefix . 'film_textarea', true ) ) : ?>
                            <div class="film_description">
                                <p><?php echo get_post_meta( $post_id, $prefix . 'film_textarea', true ); ?></p>
                            </div>
                        <?php endif; ?>

                        <?php wp_reset_postdata(); ?>

                    <?php } else { ?>

                        <p><?php _e( 'Sorry, no posts matched your criteria.' ); ?></p>

                    <?php } ?>

     <?php wp_link_pages( array(
            'before' => '<div class="page-links">' . __( 'Pages:', '_tk' ),
            'after'  => '</div>',
        ) ); ?>

<?php endwhile; ?>

</div><!-- .entry-content -->
<?php edit_post_link( __( 'Edit', '_tk' ), '<footer class="entry-meta"><span class="edit-link">', '</span></footer>' ); ?>
</article><!-- #post-## -->

<?php wp_reset_query(); ?>
<?php get_footer(); ?>

The error message I get from WP_DEBUG is:

Parse error: syntax error, unexpected end of file in /myhost/test/wp-content/themes/ianrigby/homepage.php on line 54

Answer 1

You start a while loop using the colon syntax, but never end the while loop with endwhile properly. Your template is thus incomplete, and this is what is giving you the syntax error.