HELP! Half my Dashboard is gone

  • hainesnews

    (@hainesnews)


    13 years, 11 months ago

    Several days ago I noticed I could no longer edit my widgets. Upon closer examination, I see that several menu items are missing from my Dashboard screen: “Appearance,” “Users,” “Settings,” and some tools.

    I can still create and edit posts and pages, and the site looks normal to the user, but I can no longer maintain the site with half of the dashboard items missing.

    I am using the Alibi3col theme with 16 widgets — some of the widgets are slightly creative with html tables, backgrounds, links and paypal buttons, and have been working fine to this point. Most recently I have been working with a few third party form generators (formsite.com), and some plug-ins such as WP-spamfree, polldaddy, etc. Everything was working fine — until now.

    An upgrade from WP 2.9.1 to 2.9.2 didn’t solve anything, so I called my hosting service (godaddy) who advised that everything tests okay on their end as far as files and databases.

    Today I downloaded a copy of WP 2.9.2 onto my home machine and used an FTP program to compare the newest files with those automatically upgraded by the hosting service. I found nothing unusual — all the Admin file sizes seemed appropriate, etc.

    Then I deleted all of my plug-ins from the site (with the exception of the paypal and sitemeter additions since they require a little more effort to ferret out and change — I’m not well-versed in php or css coding.) Afterward, there was still no change to the Dashboard — the same items are still missing.

    Since the Dashboard Import and Export functions aren’t available, I just did a complete backup of all files to my machine via FTP, and I expect that I will be able to re-load WordPress and recreate the site if nothing else works — but there must be an easier way…

    What should I try next?

Viewing 15 replies - 1 through 15 (of 22 total)
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  • esmi

    (@esmi)

    13 years, 11 months ago

    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 the plugins folder by FTP or phpMyAdmin? Sometimes, an apparently inactive plugin can still cause problems.

    – re-uploading the wp-admin and wp-includes folders from a fresh download of WordPress?

    – increasing your available memory?

    Thread Starter hainesnews

    (@hainesnews)

    13 years, 11 months ago

    Wow. Thanks for the quick response.

    1. I have deleted all plugins from the plugins directory under the admin folder using FTP (is this what you mean by “resetting the plugins folder?”)
    2. I’m hoping 16 Gb is enough memory.

    …and I’m headed in to take care of the other stuff now.

    Thread Starter hainesnews

    (@hainesnews)

    13 years, 11 months ago

    Okay…

    I have re-uploaded the wp-admin and wp-includes folders from a fresh download of WordPress.

    I have perused all of the files and removed the sitemeter script. I was unable to find the paypal html code which is imbedded in a widget at the bottom of the left column.

    Having use of neither the Dashboard, nor a good understanding of PHP and CSS coding, I was unable to switch to the default theme. Perhaps you could tell me how to do this? If not — any other suggestions?

    (So far, the dashboard has not changed)

    esmi

    (@esmi)

    13 years, 11 months ago

    FTP into your site (or use whatever file management application your host provides) and rename your current theme. That should automatically activate the default theme.

    Thread Starter hainesnews

    (@hainesnews)

    13 years, 11 months ago

    No dice … I renamed alibi3col and the public gets only a white screen. When I change the name back to alibi3col then the site is visible again, with no changes. In either case the dashboard remains the same — with the same menu choices missing.

    I’m guessing that might rule out the theme as the source of the problem?

    esmi

    (@esmi)

    13 years, 11 months ago

    Do you have a wp-content/themes/default folder?

    Thread Starter hainesnews

    (@hainesnews)

    13 years, 11 months ago

    Yes, I do. And the files in the default folder match those with the clean copy of WP 2.9.2 that I downloaded yesterday.

    Interestingly, I just found one file in the themes folder that has a different file size on the server: left.php is 1,042 bytes in the downloaded version (local), and only 928 bytes on the server. I tried sending the newer (local) file to the server and it did not appear to over-write the server version as directed. Then I deleted the one on the server and uploaded the newer (local) file, but it still shows the smaller file size. When I compare the files visually in my editor, I see no difference. I’m using FileZilla for an FTP program.

    Thread Starter hainesnews

    (@hainesnews)

    13 years, 11 months ago

    My bad…out of curiosity, I went back and unzipped a fresh copy of 2.9.2 from yesterday’s download. It appears left.php and sidebar.php do not belong in the themes directory, but in an individual theme file. So it appears I accidentally copied a couple of files out of the alibi3col directory into the parent directory. That is fixed.

    The Dashboard problem remains the same.

    esmi

    (@esmi)

    13 years, 11 months ago

    Until you can activate the default theme, your current theme remains a possible culprit.

    Thread Starter hainesnews

    (@hainesnews)

    13 years, 11 months ago

    Maybe it’s time to uninstall WordPress and rebuild the site from scratch? I’m assuming that with an FTP backup I can do this without losing all of my data…

    Thread Starter hainesnews

    (@hainesnews)

    13 years, 11 months ago

    Just a thought — since everything else appears to function properly, could I have somehow lost my Admin privileges, thus making certain changes to the website unavailable?

    esmi

    (@esmi)

    13 years, 11 months ago

    That’s a distinct possibility! Have you checked your current status under your profile?

    Thread Starter hainesnews

    (@hainesnews)

    13 years, 11 months ago

    I don’t see an indication of status on my profile page. Normally, as administrator I should be able to edit users — a menu choice that is not available. I can see a couple of places to go from here:

    1. I have one author who I upgraded to admin status while I was out of town — he may be able to check/change my status through the Dashboard.

    2. If I can figure out how to view/edit the database for my site, I may be able to change my status there. I expect the hosting company may be able to assist with instructions…

    Any suggestions, instruction or ideas?

    jopperdepopper

    (@jopperdepopper)

    13 years, 11 months ago

    1. I have one author who I upgraded to admin status while I was out of town

    Maybe check with him if he downgraded your admin-status…

    Thread Starter hainesnews

    (@hainesnews)

    13 years, 11 months ago

    I will, however he rarely logs on — it’s more likely that I hit a wrong key while tweaking the site users — providing that’s the problem. Thanks for the suggestion.

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