I installed JMS 1.2.69 all patches checked out as "OK" If I click the following links I get a blank white page:
Manage sites
Templates
Tools
Cancel in any of the other links

Check for update links returns: SERVER_CONNECT_FAILED, failed to open stream: no suitable wrapper could be found

here are the errors:
PHP Strict Standards: Declaration of JFTP::get() should be compatible with that of JObject::get() in /srv/www/htdocs/usresidential/libraries/joomla/client/ftp.php on line 1467, referer: www.usresidential.com/administrator/inde...sites&task=about


PHP Strict Standards: Non-static method JLoader::load() should not be called statically in /srv/www/htdocs/usresidential/libraries/loader.php on line 161, referer: www.usresidential.com/administrator/inde...sites&task=about

The 2 "PHP Strict standards" message or notice but not real errors.

It seems that the problem is related to a DB connection SERVER_CONNECT_FAILED,

Do you have slave sites defined in JMS ?
If yes, perhaps you have one slave site that has a wrong DB connection to compute the "refresh" icon.
You can try disable the refresh processing by a flag in the "multisites.cfg.php" files that is located in the /administrator/components/com_multisites.

there are no slave sites defined since I can't get into those areas to even set them up.
Please see original post:" If I click the following links I get a blank white page:
Manage sites
Templates
Tools
Cancel in any of the other links"

Server is running PHP version: 5.3.8
Mysql version: 5.1.56

The blank screen is generally the symptom of a PHP Fatal error but you didn't reported such fatal error in your log file.

The only thing that you reported is a problem to connect on the DB.

When you installed JMS, does the install succeeded ?
Are you able to login in the back-end of the website do you have just a problem to access the "Multi Site" menu ?

Did you tried to re-install JMS.
You can re-install it over the existing one.

Do you have "upload_max_size" large enought to upload package of 4MB