Support » Installing WordPress » White screen of death after trying to upgrade to 4

  • Resolved 3 ladybugs

    (@3-ladybugs)


    I want to first say that I am a mom and not a web developer by any stretch. I started my blog almost 9 years ago on blogger (to keep distant family updated on my life) and a couple of years ago I moved it to WordPress and my own URL. So please reply like you are talking to your 80 year old grandmother who doesn’t understand any of this, because honestly I don’t.

    On Friday logged on to my blog to get ready to post something. I happened to notice that it said that I should upgrade to 4.0 and I figured why not. I read that I should back up my site so I went to the C-panel and seeing in “MySQL Databases” that I didn’t have that option, I figured I was good as it was in there. I then clicked on the download button accidentally because the kids were getting restless. Realizing my mistake and seeing that it was already downloaded, I clicked on the other button.

    Since that moment, I haven’t been able to get into my dashboard again. I can post to the blog from my phone using the WordPress app, and I can see my blog when I go to my URL but that is it. When I try to log in I ALWAYS get the white screen of death.

    Reading on here I have seen things like I need to manually upload the “wp-admin” and the “wp-includes” folders. So I did that. However I kept the old files and just renamed them incase I did something wrong. When I use the new files I still have the white screen of death.

    I have also seen that I should go to the twenty-fourteen theme. I am not sure what I am doing when I do this so I renamed my theme and have the twenty-fourteen theme there. Still nothing.

    I have tried renaming all my plugins to “plugins-off”. Still nothing. I have found my “htaccess” file and tried renaming that. Nothing.

    Through all of this I have cleared my cache (on the computer) several times.

    I am not really sure what I should be doing now. I would love to keep my blog, but I don’t have the time right now with 2 children to go to school and learn web development. I am hoping someone here can help me.

    Thank you for your help and reading this too long of a post.

Viewing 15 replies - 1 through 15 (of 29 total)
  • 3-ladybugs, first, welcome, & I’m sorry you’re having this problem. I’m impressed, truthfully. You did a lot to help yourself, & you clearly did considerable research prior to your SOS. You didn’t provide a link to your site, however, & that can be helpful in diagnosing these types of problems. I hope you’ll consider doing that for us.

    Thread Starter 3 ladybugs

    (@3-ladybugs)

    Thank you for the reply!

    My website is http://www.ourunplannedlife.com

    I tried to upload photos to my blog this morning from the WordPress app and it gave me a “500 error” of some type. If you need the exact error I can pull it up. However I was still able to update it with just words.

    Thank you for the help!

    3-lady-bugs, first, thank you for providing a link to your site. It assisted me greatly in diagnosing your problem.

    Rather than using an app, would you please try logging into:
    http://ourunplannedlife.com/wp-admin

    I got a very usable login screen when doing so. Obviously, since I don’t know your credentials (& please don’t provide those on an open forum), I couldn’t log in to test further, but it appears to be working.

    Your addressing scheme looks as though it hasn’t been changed since installing it from a temporary url. Not that that’s necessarily bad, but you might, after all this is said & done, wish to go to settings > general & change the addressing scheme to http://ourunplannedlife.com using the siteurl & WordPress url.

    The link that points to admin on your dashboard is incorrect. It would also appear that your update failed, as your WordPress version still says 3.92.

    But let’s just see if you can log in using the link I suggested, & we’ll take it step by step from there.

    Thread Starter 3 ladybugs

    (@3-ladybugs)

    This is where the problem is. When I try to log in I get a white screen. I put in my log in information and then click okay, and it goes white. Also in order for me to even see the log in screen I have to clear out my cache on my computer.

    Ok, 3-ladybugs, 1st, it still appears you’re using Cute-frame as the theme. Could you please rename the folder to something like cf?

    Thread Starter 3 ladybugs

    (@3-ladybugs)

    I renamed that folder (cute-frame) to cf and my blog went blank. I have left it that way so you can see.

    3-ladybugs–I actually expected that. The question is can you log into your dashboard now?

    Thread Starter 3 ladybugs

    (@3-ladybugs)

    I tried to log in and I still got the white screen. 🙁 However I was able to get to the log in screen.

    Moderator Samuel Wood (Otto)

    (@otto42)

    WordPress.org Admin

    You can rename your theme back. That’s not it.

    When I visit your wp-admin page, I notice that it sends me to a rather unusual URL:

    http://66.147.244.239/~ourunpla/wp-login.php

    Is there anything unusual about your configuration or web setup? What web hosting provider do you use?

    Thread Starter 3 ladybugs

    (@3-ladybugs)

    I changed the name back but I don’t see my blog now. 🙁

    I use Blue Host for hosting. I just did what they said when I set up the URL.

    Moderator Samuel Wood (Otto)

    (@otto42)

    WordPress.org Admin

    Hmm….

    It’s generally not a good idea to trust strangers over the internet with your account information and such.

    But if you like, you can email me directly with the information to access your site and I’ll take a look for you.

    My email address is otto@wordpress.org

    Samuel, that sort of addressing scheme looks to me like a temporary url, i.e., how you install your site when you first get your domain & the DNS hasn’t yet propagated. She just hasn’t changed it from that sort of scheme to the domain, & it may well have something to do w/why the update failed, though I question it. But I agree it’s unusual. I also was thinking of making her that offer, but didn’t know if it was against rules to do so.

    Thread Starter 3 ladybugs

    (@3-ladybugs)

    Is that where I am? I need more help?

    I am not surprised about this being unusual. The blog in question is full of my unusualness. For me unusual is normal. LOL

    I am assuming you are just wanting the log in for wordpress and not for my blue host. Is that correct?

    Moderator Samuel Wood (Otto)

    (@otto42)

    WordPress.org Admin

    If you want to email me so I can look at it, I’ll need the login information for WordPress, but I’ll also need information to be able to access the site’s files directly in order to find out what the issues are. This may be the Bluehost account credentials, or it may be information to access the site via FTP, or whatever you have. As long as I can see the files themselves without going through WordPress, I can work with that.

    Again, we don’t recommend people give out this information willy-nilly. You’ll have to make your own decisions on who to trust.

    Typically we don’t actually allow people to make this sort of request on the forums because of how unsafe it is to ask people to give credentials to strangers… but I actually work on WordPress and these forums. I am a special case. 🙂 We always have a few special cases like this around new releases, and I like to examine them directly and see how the upgrade may have gone wrong or how we can improve the process or find broken plugins, things like that.

    If it helps, this is me: http://wordpress.tv/speakers/samuel-otto-wood/ 🙂

    Actually, both will be needed so as to be able to change filenames, upload new files, etc.

Viewing 15 replies - 1 through 15 (of 29 total)
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