Hmm, it’s not really a solution but maybe you can work around this issue by activating permalinks?
edit: I saw now that you already use permalinks. So, did you try to deactivate them?
No, I haven’t tried to deactivate them because I really like using them. The odd thing is that there are others out there having this same problem. I wonder why it’s not being looked at by any developers as a bug issue? Unless you are one Calcifer, then I apologize. 😉
Well, I happened to figure this out with sheer dumb luck. I was upgrading my husband’s WP and he started having the same problem I was having with his dashboard disappearing.
What happened was I had uploaded an index.php file into his wp-plugins folder to help make it more secure and for some reason that messes up the link within WP to the dashboard. It changed the link from wp-admin/index.php to wp-admin/index.php?page=index.php. Removing the index file from his wp-plugins folder fixed his problem and fixed mine was well.
http://wordpress.org/support/topic/65565?replies=13
If we weren’t both already married, I’d be proposing right now! Your follow-up solves an issue I’ve had forEVER.
/swoon
LOL! You are too funny! I stumbled across it quite by accident but I’m glad I was able to help you (and hopefully others) out as well!
I’d be curious to find out why adding an index file to the plugins directory would cause the link for the dashboard to change. I see you just renamed your index file from .php to .html and it worked. I’ll have to go do that too. For now, I’m just glad it’s fixed!
HEY!!!! Cool to get an answer. I was just having this problem, and it’s exactly because I added an index.php to my plugins directory. I did it because I was having some trouble with Akismet and tried hard coding my API key in the plugin file, and I didn’t want someone reading it by browsing the files. I since found out the Akismet problem was a server issue and it’s fixed, so I removed the key from the file.
Anyway, why would putting that file in the plugin folder cause this problem? Does anyone want to fix the code that makes this happen?
Sad thing is – it was a recent recommendation that got us ALL to put a blank index.php in the plugins folder… to keep google from showing the contents of that folder off to the world and making our sites less secure.
So why does this change mess up WordPress, and what is the fix that doesn’t involve deleting the file we placed there for security?
The blank index.php from plugins folder is the problem with the Dashboard. I removed the index.php from plugin folder and everything is ok.
Woohoo. i have had this issue for a few months, posted on this forum twice and bumped my issue many times and no one helped. Joy.
Took an hour before I found this post, glad I did. Thanks to the original poster who solved the issue!!!
Harrumph. I had this problem after my long-delayed upgrade to WP 2.3.1.
After reading this thread, I deleted the index.php file from the plugins directory, then clicked on that Dashboard link on the upper left, and got an error message! Do I need to put a different index.php file in the plugins directory?
