PHP error

  • Jacquie Robinson

    (@ccchats)


    3 days, 4 hours ago

    Hello, I’m not a developer, but I need some technical support. I don’t see anything broken on my site, but the speed has significantly decreased. My Sydney theme (free version 2.71) is showing a fatal error on WordPress.com. Never had an issue in years. Please advise. Thanks.

    File: /srv/htdocs/wp-content/themes/sydney/index.php

    Line: 14

    Message: PHP Fatal error: Uncaught Error: Call to undefined function get_header() in /srv/htdocs/wp-content/themes/sydney/index.php:14 Stack trace: #0 {main} thrown in /srv/htdocs/wp-content/themes/sydney/index.php on line 14

    The page I need help with: [log in to see the link]

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)
  • Rajab Said

    (@snrjosh)

    3 days ago

    Hi @ccchats,

    Thank you for contacting Sydney Support.

    Your site is not broken, and this error does not indicate an issue with the Sydney theme itself. The error occurs when a bot or crawler attempts to access a theme file directly, such as:

    yourdomain.com/wp-content/themes/sydney/index.php

    Directly accessing a theme file bypasses WordPress core, meaning functions such as get_header() are not loaded. This can trigger the PHP error for that specific request. Regular visitors accessing your site normally should not encounter this error.

    However, repeated direct requests from bots can increase server load and contribute to the slowdown you are experiencing.

    Since your site is hosted with WordPress.com, please contact WordPress.com Support through your dashboard and share the error log you provided. You can ask them to:

    • Review the server access logs for bot traffic targeting direct theme PHP file paths.
    • Block or limit direct access to PHP files within /wp-content/.
    • Apply server-level firewall rules or rate limiting, if appropriate.

    I hope this helps!

    Thread Starter Jacquie Robinson

    (@ccchats)

    3 days ago

    Rajab,

    I appreciate your response. Thanks for confirming my site isn’t broken; I will follow up with WordPress.com support as you recommended.

    Thank you, again.

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)

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