Have you tried:
– deactivating all plugins to see if this resolves the problem? If this works, re-activate the plugins one by one until you find the problematic plugin(s).
– switching to the default theme to rule out any theme-specific problems?
– resetting your custom permalinks back to the default setting and deleting/renaming your WordPress .htaccess file? If this works, then review Using_Permalinks before setting a custom permalink structure back up again.
1) I deactivated all plugins before the upgrade and reactivated them afterwards without incident.
Excuse my ignorance on the following items:-
2) How do I switch to the default theme? See 4).
3) I don’t really understand Permalinks or the .htaccess file. .htaccess should be in the folder httpdocs, but in my FTP programme (Directory Opus) I can only see .htpasswda3, which is empty. Does this mean that .htaccess is missing? If so do I need to upload it, and what should it contain?
4) I can no longer log in as administrator. “Error establishing a database connection”. This may be a temporary glitch, in which case I shall have another go in the morning.
2. Access your server via FTP or SFTP, navigate to /wp-content/themes/ and rename the directory of your currently active theme. This will force the Twenty Ten theme to activate and hopefully rule-out a theme-specific issue.
3. Try re-saving your permalink structure at Settings/Permalinks in your admin panel. If WordPress cannot automatically edit the .htaccess file, it will provide manual instructions after saving.
4. That’s probably a temporary issue. Contact your hosting provider and confirm that the database server is online.
Thank you. Steps taken so far:-
2. I have renamed the theme directory via FTP.
3. I have also re-saved the Permalink structure. No manual instructions appeared.
The result is that the site is completely blank.
FTP indicates that there is no .htaccess file in the httpdocs folder, the one immediately above the wordpress folder. Will it help to upload one from my computer: if so should it be blank or what should it contain?
I should have mentioned that the following instructions appeared when I last edited the Permalinks:-
You should update your .htaccess now.
If your .htaccess file were writable, we could do this automatically, but it isn’t so these are the mod_rewrite rules you should have in your .htaccess file. Click in the field and press CTRL + a to select all.
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /wordpress/
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ – [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /wordpress/index.php [L]
</IfModule>
Should .htaccess contain these lines?
With the kind help of Nik Roberts, my site is now back and running with the default theme. I am not quite sure how it all happened; but I still need to know whether to (re)create or modify .htaccess as described above. I still cannot see .htaccess anywhere on the site!
Make sure that your FTP client is set to view invisible files. The .htaccess file will be in the same directory as the wp-load.php file.
It’s there now, in the wordpress folder.
Thanks for your help.
