10 replies
  • WEB DESIGN
  • |
Hello,

I only just listed my site for sale on flippa 2 days ago and everything was fine.

Now when I try to login to the wordpress here: http://gamesmechanic.com/wp-admin/

I get this message.

Any ideas what is wrong and why I cant login as usual!?

Any help is appreciated as something has changed on the site and all the menus have gone funny. I need to get back in and fix it.

Thanks
#issue #wordpress
  • Profile picture of the author David V
    Your error is commonly a white space issue.

    When I look at the source code of the site I see this:
    HTML Code:
    <head><meta name="verifyownership" content="5bf5af0e3b713a002608b7f5a0557eff" /></head>
    
    <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
    <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" dir="ltr" lang="en-US">
    <head profile="http://gmpg.org/xfn/11">
    	<title>Featured | GamesMechanic</title>
    You have 2 head tags and the meta tag to verify ownership is in the wrong place.

    Delete those <head> tags you have surrounding the meta tag then, take the verify ownership meta tag and move it down into the actual head below the title somewhere.

    Nothing goes above the doctype declaration, not even white space.

    I think when you added the verify ownership to sell on flippa you just put the tag in the wrong spot and then surrounded it with <head> tags.
    If that doesn't correct it, let me know.

    Here's what is should look like:
    HTML Code:
    <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
    <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" dir="ltr" lang="en-US">
    <head profile="http://gmpg.org/xfn/11">
    	<title>Featured | GamesMechanic</title>
    	<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" />
    	<meta name="verifyownership" content="5bf5af0e3b713a002608b7f5a0557eff" />
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    • Profile picture of the author uncmonk500
      Originally Posted by David V View Post

      Your error is commonly a white space issue.

      When I look at the source code of the site I see this:
      HTML Code:
      <head><meta name="verifyownership" content="5bf5af0e3b713a002608b7f5a0557eff" /></head>
       
      <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
      <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" dir="ltr" lang="en-US">
      <head profile="http://gmpg.org/xfn/11">
          <title>Featured | GamesMechanic</title>
      You have 2 head tags and the meta tag to verify ownership is in the wrong place.

      Delete those <head> tags you have surrounding the meta tag then, take the verify ownership meta tag and move it down into the actual head below the title somewhere.

      Nothing goes above the doctype declaration, not even white space.

      I think when you added the verify ownership to sell on flippa you just put the tag in the wrong spot and then surrounded it with <head> tags.
      If that doesn't correct it, let me know.

      Here's what is should look like:
      HTML Code:
      <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
      <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" dir="ltr" lang="en-US">
      <head profile="http://gmpg.org/xfn/11">
          <title>Featured | GamesMechanic</title>
          <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" />
          <meta name="verifyownership" content="5bf5af0e3b713a002608b7f5a0557eff" />
      Hi David,

      Thanks for your assessment of the situation!

      I believe you are correct as I did go in originally and create a new head tag to verify the site ownership as I was having difficulties in doing so.

      So I need to remove the tags as you explain.

      My only problem is now that I cannot login to wordpress to do so!

      Perhaps I should contact hosting now to see if they can assist?

      At least now I know what the problem is

      Thanks again!
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  • Profile picture of the author Patrick
    Just go to wp-content/themes/gallery/functions.php line no.3

    remove the white space, done.
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    • Profile picture of the author David V
      Originally Posted by schwarzes View Post

      Just go to wp-content/themes/gallery/functions.php line no.3

      remove the white space, done.
      schwarzes,

      I don't believe that is right.
      It's not uncommon to receive warnings/errors like this one but they can be deceiving.
      Even though the error may appear to be in the wp-content/themes/gallery/functions.php, it's not likely.

      Only uncmonk500 can say for sure, but it's doubtful he was messing with the functions.php when listing the site on flippa, but it's very apparent a verification tag was added incorrectly.

      These php errors/warning are not conclusive when they tell you where the error occurred.
      The warning would give you the impression that the functions.php and pluggable.php have a problem, and indirectly/temporarily they do, but it's likely caused by another issue not those files.

      Regardless, the inserted meta tag is wrong and needs to be corrected before doing anything else, it's definitely going to create issues.
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      • Profile picture of the author Patrick
        Originally Posted by David V View Post

        schwarzes,

        I don't believe that is right.
        It's not uncommon to receive warnings/errors like this one but they can be deceiving.
        Even though the error may appear to be in the wp-content/themes/gallery/functions.php, it's not likely.

        Only uncmonk500 can say for sure, but it's doubtful he was messing with the functions.php when listing the site on flippa, but it's very apparent a verification tag was added incorrectly.

        These php errors/warning are not conclusive when they tell you where the error occurred.
        The warning would give you the impression that the functions.php and pluggable.php have a problem, and indirectly/temporarily they do, but it's likely caused by another issue not those files.

        Regardless, the inserted meta tag is wrong and needs to be corrected before doing anything else, it's definitely going to create issues.
        I ain't sayin that will really solve the issue, but in 90% of the cases it would. I have been supporting WP users in irc and wordpress support forum as well, and most of these pluggable.php issues were caused by the white space, strange but happens, either in the file that is being mentioned in the error or the wp-config.php file. One can debug the errors if they try what is being suggested. It may or may not solve the issue. Atleast I wouldn't give an advice that I am not sure about.
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        • Profile picture of the author David V
          Originally Posted by schwarzes View Post

          It may or may not solve the issue.
          I agree with you on that.
          Depends if anything else was done on the site.
          He said everything was fine until flippa which is the same time he added the erroneous meta verification tag.
          Need to fix that first.
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  • Profile picture of the author TurnRush
    Did you install a new plugin lately or updated one? Go to ftp, delete the plugin folder, and you can access your website again. (only if you just installed a new plugin)

    I had this problem a couple of times.
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  • Profile picture of the author uncmonk500
    Job Done.

    Thanks again, everything is back to normal on the site much to my relief!

    I'll know not to make the same mistake in future.

    Cheers guys
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    • Profile picture of the author David V
      Originally Posted by uncmonk500 View Post

      Job Done.

      Thanks again, everything is back to normal on the site much to my relief!

      I'll know not to make the same mistake in future.

      Cheers guys

      I'm glad you got it worked out!
      You figured out how obviously, but for reference, you don't need to login to make changes, use FTP, SFTP, Shell, Cpanel, and more.
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  • Profile picture of the author Juan Jose
    To avoid this happening again in the future you should have total backups of your website. Also I recommend you to protect your backend access and hide or delete readme.html page. Another tip is to use a different username than admin for the manager account
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