Novice is Stuck with Fatal Error

9 replies
I have never posted in this part of the Warrior forum, but here I go. I hope to get some advice, help, or at least an explanation of what I'm dealing with.

I am a novice in terms of anything technical, but this summer took the plunge and very slowly created three Wordpress sites. I had been too intimidated for a long time to try Wordpress, but found that if I just kept things as simple as possible that I could at least create basic sites.

Now, for the first time I have a problem. I just tried to change from the theme I've had since June to another...just wanting to see if how other themes would look. In the midst of doing this, everything came to a standstill.

I get the following message:

Fatal error
: Call to undefined function register_nav_menus() in /home/faith/public_html/blackpearlpendant.org/wp-content/themes/toolbox/functions.php on line 27

I can't even log in anymore to the site. In fact, if I just try to pull up the page for the Admin log-in, I get the above message.

I have absolutely no idea what to do. I have never upgraded to Wordpress 3.0, because I'm scared to, since I have never backed up files. I had found a plug-in for doing that, (I would have no clue how to do this manually) but got distracted and never did it.

Actually, the theme also had undergone an upgrade since I installed it, but had not upgraded that, either.

If this site is completely gone now, (is that the deal?) it's sad since it was my first, but it had not made one dime for me yet. At least my other two have made a little bit of money. I'm not touching them!

Maybe I should just stick to Hubpages.


Catherine
#error #fatal #novice #stuck
  • Profile picture of the author NoGimmicks
    Catherine - do you have access to ftp for the site at all?
    Signature
    Sick of your products ending up on warez sites?
    Keep an eye out for StealthMarker...
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2462567].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author CatherineMay
      Unless the ftp (I don't even know what that is) is something accessible through Hostgator, then, no, I have no access to the site at all.

      Catherine
      Signature

      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2462608].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author NoGimmicks
    I don't use hostgator myself so don't know - ftp is what you use to upload files to your website - is there anything like that in your control panel on hostgator? Or something called along the lines of "file manager" that you can click on in your hostgator admin site?
    Signature
    Sick of your products ending up on warez sites?
    Keep an eye out for StealthMarker...
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2462627].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author NoGimmicks
    Actually Catherine - if you're on either google or msn I can try and step you through trying to sort this out via a chat instead of bouncing forum posts back and forth - let me know if you are (don't post your id in the forum here though - I'll pm you and you can reply to that).

    Obviously if you prefer to go over it in the forum then that's ok, it'll just take longer

    Martin
    Signature
    Sick of your products ending up on warez sites?
    Keep an eye out for StealthMarker...
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2462634].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author CatherineMay
      Martin, I have to be away from the computer for a few hours now, so when I get back I'll check into what's in Hostgator and send you a PM.

      Thanks so much for offering to help.


      Catherine
      Signature

      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2462668].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author NoGimmicks
    Catherine - I've been doing a little googling myself in the meantime and think I can step you through it easily enough here (and it might prove useful for others too at some point)

    In summary:
    What you need to do is to reset your wordpress install to a theme that you know works ok. You'll do this by changing the active theme in the database that wordpress uses (don't worry, the way I've outlined here isn't technical).

    In detail:

    1. You need to create a new text file on your PC - use notepad or any other program that can save in a plain text format. You can call the file whatever you want - for simplicity I'm going to call it "ResetTheme.txt"

    2. Within the file you need to add the following code:
    PHP Code:
    <?php

    if ( !isset() ) {

         = 
    true;

        require_once( 
    dirname(__FILE__) . '/wp-load.php' );

        
    wp();
    (
    "UPDATE wp_options SET option_value = 'default' WHERE option_name IN ('template','stylesheet','current_theme');");

    }
    ?>
    3. Save the file, once saved rename it to "ResetTheme.php" (so you just change it from being a .txt file to a .php file

    4. Upload that file to your website using ftp (for hostgator you can see how to access ftp here: How to navigate through File Manager HostGator.com Support Portal

    **Important - if you have set up your wordpress blog within a subdirectory (like "http://www.mywebsite.com/blog") then you need to upload the file above to your "/blog" directory

    5. Type the following into your web browser: "http://www.YOURSITE.com/ResetTheme.php" (or "http://www.YOURSITE.com/blog/ResetTheme.php" if you have set the blog up in a directory)

    That should reset your theme to the default theme that comes with wordpress - if you have deleted that default theme then you will need to change the file you have created to use the name of a working theme - just change where it says 'default' to the theme name - e.g. 'BlueSense')

    Your wordpress site should then be ok to log back into - although naturally the theme will be set to default.

    To save any confusion I've attached a copy of the "ResetTheme.php.txt" file so feel free to rename it to "ResetTheme.php" and upload that to your site instead of following steps 1 to 2) - I wanted to describe the process here rather than just add the attachment just in case it helps people in the future

    Hope it works out but let me know if not and I'll try to assist
    Martin
    Signature
    Sick of your products ending up on warez sites?
    Keep an eye out for StealthMarker...
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2462734].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author NoGimmicks
    EDIT: For some reason, the post is editing out the "$w p d b - > q u e r y" part of the code - even though it's wrapped in PHP tags, so the posted code WILL NOT work as-is, you'll need to use the attachment instead
    Signature
    Sick of your products ending up on warez sites?
    Keep an eye out for StealthMarker...
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2462750].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author CatherineMay
      OH, my gosh!

      I just went to Hostgator to see what I could find out about ftp, and decided on the spur of the moment to go into their live chat and see what they said about my issue.

      All I did was copy the error code in the message box like I copied it here, answered one question, that was can you get into your site at all, (answer: no) and in less than a minute the guy at Hostgator had my site back!

      That was it.

      Thank you so much, Martin, for your efforts to help me. You were very generous. Plus, if you had not mentioned ftp, I wouldn't have thought to go to Hostgator at all.


      Catherine
      Signature

      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2463225].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author NoGimmicks
    No problem - glad you got things sorted

    Martin
    Signature
    Sick of your products ending up on warez sites?
    Keep an eye out for StealthMarker...
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2463246].message }}

Trending Topics