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Help with WordPress Problem/Puzzle

by ecdavis
24 replies
  • WEB DESIGN
    • |
Hi. I'd greatly appreciate any help from WordPress experts. Widgets has stopped working on one of my domains. I'm running a manual install of WP 3.0.3 on a Hostgator reseller account. I've run the installation with and without plugins activated, and switched out themes. When I initially created the domain and installed WP, everything worked fine, and the original configuration of the various widgets displayed continues to work without problem. The problem is that I can no longer add, edit, or delete widgets. Anyone have any ideas?

Thanks,
Evan
#problem or puzzle #wordpress
  • Profile picture of the author RichKent
    Originally Posted by ecdavis View Post

    Hi. I'd greatly appreciate any help from WordPress experts. Widgets has stopped working on one of my domains. I'm running a manual install of WP 3.0.3 on a Hostgator reseller account. I've run the installation with and without plugins activated, and switched out themes. When I initially created the domain and installed WP, everything worked fine, and the original configuration of the various widgets displayed continues to work without problem. The problem is that I can no longer add, edit, or delete widgets. Anyone have any ideas?

    Thanks,
    Evan
    You can try reinstalling the WP installation. There should be an option to do this under Dashboard (upper left) -> Updates. Then press the 'reinstall wordpress' button on that page.

    The other thing you can try is go back to the default theme - probably 2010 - and deactivate all the plugins, but it sounds like you've done that already.

    Good luck
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    • Profile picture of the author Nick Jolin
      I have found that it is usually a plugin that I install that messes up my theme. Try deactivating plugins that you don't use or that have not been updated recently. Sometimes this happens when you do an update to Wordpress.
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  • Profile picture of the author ecdavis
    Hi. Thank you very much for the suggestions. As it is, I have deactivated all plugins, switched out other themes, and have done a complete reinstall. Widgets started out working fine, but now will not permit editing, adding or deleting widgets.
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  • Profile picture of the author Istvan Horvath
    OK, but what did you do right before they stopped working?
    Did you try another browser?

    Sounds really strange... so unless you let somebody to take a look at it (from inside) there might not be an aswer.
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  • Profile picture of the author ecdavis
    Istvan,

    It is really strange! I've tried viewing the the backend using Firefox and IE and the result is the same. The only action right before I noticed the problem was that I put Adsense on the archive.php page. Shortly after that, I found that widgets were not longer working. I deleted the Adsense code from archive.php, but that did nothing to remedy the problem. I have no idea why or how Adsense code would interfere with widgets, but I have no way of knowing if the two events are related in any way.

    Evan
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  • Profile picture of the author ecdavis
    Brian,

    Thank you for the suggestion; I just gave this a try, but unfortunately it didn't work. Right now I'm wondering if there could somehow be a conflict in DNS records. I don't know why or how this could influence the operation of widgets.

    Thank you again,
    Evan
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  • Profile picture of the author Leslie B
    Since you made a change in the archive.php file of your theme folder, I would try and re-upload that file through an ftp program, or through your file manager. Might be that somehow the code got messed up.

    Leslie
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  • Profile picture of the author Brian Alaway
    You could check your folder and file permissions: Changing File Permissions « WordPress Codex

    If that doesn't fix it, I would do a clean install to a "different" folder. Don't install any plugins, just create and delete a few widgets. If the problem doesn't exist in the new location then it's a problem with the other location and consider moving to the new install. Sometimes a "reinstall" will not clean up possible file corruption. If the problem exists with the new clean install then I would also ask your hosting support for help as they may have tools and access to take a look at a deeper level.
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  • Profile picture of the author ecdavis
    Leslie: Thank you for your suggestion. I just tried uploading a fresh archive.php but the problem remains. Good idea, though!

    Brian: Interesting. I've actually deleted the domain and had the hosting company remove all stray DNS records. Then I created a new account for the domain and reinstalled the wordpress files and database. For several weeks there was no problem. Then one day, widgets stopped working. Now, I have actually done an installation of this wordpress site on another domain for a test and it works just fine. Unfortunately, I can't really put the installation on a different domain name. Still, I'm wondering if there isn't some DNS records out there that is somehow interfering.

    Evan
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    • Profile picture of the author Brian Alaway
      Originally Posted by ecdavis View Post

      Leslie: Thank you for your suggestion. I just tried uploading a fresh archive.php but the problem remains. Good idea, though!

      Brian: Interesting. I've actually deleted the domain and had the hosting company remove all stray DNS records. Then I created a new account for the domain and reinstalled the wordpress files and database. For several weeks there was no problem. Then one day, widgets stopped working. Now, I have actually done an installation of this wordpress site on another domain for a test and it works just fine. Unfortunately, I can't really put the installation on a different domain name. Still, I'm wondering if there isn't some DNS records out there that is somehow interfering.

      Evan
      As Istvan said, DNS should have no affect. What could be happening is a conflict (plugins, scripts, etc.) that causes corruption. It may take the right combination/timing to cause the corruption so hence it works for a while then when factors align, s..it happens. Eliminate all plugins and avoid adding any js scripts.
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  • Profile picture of the author Istvan Horvath
    DNS records should not interfere with how your internal wp-admin pages work...
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  • Profile picture of the author suemax
    I will watch this thread with interest!! It certainly DOES seem to be a bit of a mystery.
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  • Profile picture of the author ecdavis
    Brian and Istvan,

    Right. I don't know why DNS records would interere; I'm just reaching. As I think I mentioned, I even deleted the domain from my Hostgator account, wiped it off completely, and then re-established the domain and manually reinstalled all the files. Widgets worked fine for about 2 or 3 weeks and then stopped. I've already deactivated plugins, but I could do that again. Since I cannot add, edit, or delete widgets, I can't remove any scripts running inside a widget. Otherwise, the only foreign script running on the site is Adsense. I wonder if deleting files directly from MySQL would make a difference.

    Evan
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  • Profile picture of the author Istvan Horvath
    I can't remove any scripts running inside a widget.
    We might have a winner here... I have no idea what kind of scripts are you running INSIDE your widget(s) - but it is possible they interfere somehow with the proper functioning of the widgets subpanel.

    I am NOT saying this is the right diagnosis, just wondering...
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  • Profile picture of the author ecdavis
    Maybe there is something going on with the contents of the widgets. I had a YouTube video in one, a CPA and affiliate banner in another, a vertical adsense block on another, and a text widget giving a list blog posts. Moreover, I have just discovered that the all of the widgets mentioned have vanished from the blog. Now I'm wondering if I should delete the domain again and start over.

    The odd thing is, is that I have an identical install running on a test domain without any problem. There just seems to be something funky with this domain.

    Evan
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    • Profile picture of the author netkid
      ecdavis,

      What theme did you switch out? Was it an "old" free theme? Sometimes switching out the default theme (2010) and replacing it with an old theme can wreck havoc...actually now thinking that if you switched out the theme with a theme coded more than 3 years ago, there may be imcompatibilities with WP 3.0+ versions. I had that happen with some old themes I liked and tried them on the 3.0 versions where I lost some of the functionality of the plugins, widgets and formatting.

      I suggest you delete domain off your reseller acount and start over. Try installation using Fantastico this time as opposed to manual.
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  • Profile picture of the author ecdavis
    Netkid,

    Thank you for your advice. Right now, hopefully, Hostgator is running a check for errors on the MySQL database. Following that, I may delete thte domain and start over as you suggest. I hate to do it; I've already done that once, but I may try it using a Fantastico WP install to see if that makes a difference. I switched out themes with the WP defalt and Classic only after the problem manifested just be sure that the problem wasn't an artifact of my current theme. The theme I'm using is the latest version of a Studio Press theme, so I don't think the theme is causing the problem.

    Evan
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  • Profile picture of the author Evan-M
    Temporarily until the problem is fixed you can click on "screen options" after going to the widgets screen and then click enable accessibility mode. Now you should be able to add widgets. Inconvenient but....

    If you cannot get into the screen options, while on the widget page add this to the end of the url :

    ?widgets-access=on

    Just out of curiosity, Did you take the new WordPress 3.0.5 update around the same time this cropped up. It was released 2 days before you posted. If So It is very likely your having a theme/wordpress compatibility issue . Studio released a new version on the 9th, one day before you posted.

    Im just guessing but the release on the 9th may be for compatibility issues with the new WordPress core.
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    • Profile picture of the author ecdavis
      Originally Posted by Evan-M View Post

      Temporarily until the problem is fixed you can click on "screen options" after going to the widgets screen and then click enable accessibility mode. Now you should be able to add widgets. Inconvenient but....

      If you cannot get into the screen options, while on the widget page add this to the end of the url :

      ?widgets-access=on

      Just out of curiosity, Did you take the new WordPress 3.0.5 update around the same time this cropped up. It was released 2 days before you posted. If So It is very likely your having a theme/wordpress compatibility issue . Studio released a new version on the 9th, one day before you posted.

      Im just guessing but the release on the 9th may be for compatibility issues with the new WordPress core.
      Evan-M,

      Thank you for the advice! I didn't know I could do this. I will give it a try and also download the updated Studiopress theme. Right now, I've simply hard coded what I need into the theme files. If I can get widgets to function as you've described, then that will be a plus.

      Evan
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      • Profile picture of the author Evan-M
        Originally Posted by ecdavis View Post

        Evan-M,

        Thank you for the advice! I didn't know I could do this. I will give it a try and also download the updated Studiopress theme. Right now, I've simply hard coded what I need into the theme files. If I can get widgets to function as you've described, then that will be a plus.

        Evan
        No Problem at all

        let us know if it solves the problem, in-case others experience the issue
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        Evan-M

        Easily The Worlds Best Wordpress Popup plugin

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  • Profile picture of the author ecdavis
    Evan-M,

    This seems to be working. I used the url addition, which turned on widgets. At least for the time being I appear to have widgets restored.

    Thank you very much!

    Evan
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    • Profile picture of the author Evan-M
      Originally Posted by ecdavis View Post

      Evan-M,

      This seems to be working. I used the url addition, which turned on widgets. At least for the time being I appear to have widgets restored.

      Thank you very much!

      Evan
      Glad to hear

      If thats the case its either a JavaScript or theme issue, upgrading the theme ( if they have corrected the problem) should allow you to turn off access mode. which only really adds the ability to drag/drop widgets ( neat feature, but not essential )
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      Evan-M

      Easily The Worlds Best Wordpress Popup plugin

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  • Profile picture of the author ecdavis
    The only Java that's running is included with the theme and then there is Adsense. It is strange, though, because I have this version of the theme running on a test domain with the exact same database and WP files, and it is running with no problem.

    Evan
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