I now have a theory, and a new problem. I was annoyed by the fact that WordPress was automatically changing quotes and apostrophes to 8-bit characters, so I looked for the option to turn that off. I couldn’t find it, but figured it had something to do with the encoding.
I guessed (here’s the part where I did something stupid) that changing the encoding from UTF-8 to UTF-7 would turn that off. So I did it, figuring it would be easy to change back.
That’s the only thing I can think of that changed that might have caused the problem I’m having. And the new problem is that now I can’t change it back. When I go to Options: Reading, I change the “Encoding for pages and feeds” to UTF-8 and click Update Options. Then the page reloads and it’s right back to UTF-7. I’ve tried logging out and logging back in to no avail.
So, now new questions: could the encoding change be responsible for the problem above? And if so, how do I change it back? Or is the fact that I can’t change it back just another symptom of a larger problem?
(One other symptom — I added my feed to my google start page, and it’s not working any more. I’m assuming it’s the same problem.)
Oh well. I ended up nuking my entire site and saving it.
Changing from UTF-8 should never be necessary. It is just the 8 bit based encoding for Unicode. As long as the browser knows it, you’re OK.
Good luck with your site. It looks OK.
Complete guide to fix the grim WordPress UFT-7 bug:
http://wordpress.org/support/topic/96582?replies=3
