Should I trust Designer with my WP-admin area?

You can always change the admin password after he's finished. Just make sure you have a good complete backup without this theme in place.
Would have been better to put up another WP install in a sub-directory and test the theme on that. You could still do that and give him access there. Bottom line is the theme needs to be capable of being installed successfully without post install manipulation. You don't want to be totally dependent on him to get it working in the future, should you need to move it or reinstall.

Good points! I think I would trust someone with my admin if it was the right person. I am trying to find an affordable designer to make changes to my craft mama blog. I just need to replace the generic pictures that came with the template with my own photos. I also need the font change to New Times Roman size 14 because the main interface doesn't allow you to change the font. It's too tiny and I don't like it. I just need a few minor changes. How much would one charge for this??

You really have no choice at the end of the day. Just create a temporary account they can run through and then delete it when they're done.

If you want to put your mind at rest backup your site first.

But you trusted the guy enough to give him your cash. Might as well let him finish the job as he can't do it if he can't examine the problem.

Yep I regret giving him access to my WP-admin. Then he wanted access to my CPanel, which I definitely did not give to him, and thank god I didn't because I almost did. Then he said he needed to get into the CPanle just to access the MyPHPadmin, but my host rep said to just give him the wp-config.php file, I did that and he still can't get the job done! I know he won't be able to get the job, and he has been lying to me giving me BS excuse after another to why the theme did not work, but I continuously proved him wrong, one example, such as the plugins were caused of it, but I ended deleting all my plugins and it still didn't work.

I regret so much trusting this guy. Word of advice never give anybody your WP-admin access! Learn from my mistake.

You could use team viewer and let him from his computer modify it through your computer, and you can also see what he is doing.

Mate, as a freelancer and a person that works with WordPress frequently for my clients, it is absolutely reasonable to ask for cPanel access to get to phpMyAdmin. In fact, a number of my own services can't even commence without those access details.

Sometimes there's just no way you can get something done if you can't fix up a problem in the database. WordPress is database driven, therefore sometimes you need to work with the database.

If there are issues that haven't been solved by removing the plugins it's logical to examine the database next. So if he can't do that how else can he fix the problem?

Getting a copy of wp-config.php gives you no ability to alter the database and could give you no possible way of rectifying an issue like this. That file only tells your WP site which database to connect to and how.

And as a hint, 9 times out of 10, the guy on the hosting support service is not a specialist - he's a generalist. He probably, if not definitely, does not understand the complexities of your particular issue.

Just a word of warning from someone who has been on the other end of the equation many times, be aware that there is every possibility you'll go to someone else who will just need to go through the same process in order to fix the problem anyway. You can end up spending more money only to find that the next person you talk to says the same thing.

If the theme worked well on the test environment, it's logical to guess there is something unusual happening on your site. Your developer is only human, and can only logically work through possible causes one by one.

Even if he turns out to be wrong, what other approach can you take outside of a process of elimination? And if he is wrong, that doesn't necessarily mean he's lying to you. I don't know the specifics of course, just what you've described above.

Here's what you should do. Solve your security concerns by doing a backup. Then give the guy the access he needs and let him try to do his job. If he fails, at least he's been able to explore all possible avenues.

Another thing you can try is setting up a brand new test site on a subdomain on your own server and seeing if the theme works properly on a fresh install. If it does, then you know without doubt your site has issues and you'll need to find out what in your current setup is causing them.

I hope it all works out for you, but I hope you can remember that developers aren't perfect and sometimes have to do the best they can. None of us are flawless.

It depends on him. I think give him password and change it after his work. It will help you to prevent from misuse of your password. It will also benefit from other things.

I have had so many cpanel login details to my customer's accounts. It is essential. If you don't trust your web designer, you have hired the wrong web designer.

When I'm done work for a client, I delete the account out of Filezilla, but I could not do installations and customizations without access to phpMyAdmin and ftp access.

But this initially wasn't the way how I wanted it to be...

I wanted the final theme to be in a zipped-folder, where I could simply install and activate from the WP-admin, like any other theme out there, but in this case, it wasn't...

When I installed and activated, it didn't like the way it was supposed to on his live-demo version on his server...

And he doesn't even know how to fix the folder so it can, when he was skillful enough to make one of the most highly professional themes

That was what I didn't understand...how come all the other themes out there can be simply installed and activated looking like the way it's supposed to be while this theme can't do that?

What's the difference in achieving that?

Let me see if I can offer you a second opinion Jason.

If you send the theme you've been trying to make work through to me I'll set it up on an offline test environment.

Ideally, if you can also send me a screenshot of how it looks on the developer's test server.

If it installs fine on my test platform I'll let you know, then you can assume it's probably there is something somewhere on your current setup that is interfering.

If it doesn't work, I'll let you know that too and you can proceed with caution with this developer.

Btw you can check my service threads in the Warriors For Hire room if you want to see my history here working with people before you send me a copy of your theme for feedback.

Send me a PM and I'll give you the email address.

Appreciate it Kezz.

After going through some headaches, I eventually got things resolved with the designer.

Thanks.