Appearance and Plug-Ins Missing

It sounds like you may not have an Administrator account.

Can you access the Users section of the blog’s Dashboard? If so, what is your user level displayed as?

If not, then you’ll need to get in touch with someone who has Administrator access to the site so they can promote you.

If you have access to the database, you can force a promotion for yourself.

If you are not using Multisite, access your database via phpMyAdmin (most hosting providers offer this in their control panel), go to the wp_users table and find the row for your user_login . Note the ID of this row. Now, go to the wp_usermeta table and find the wp_capabilities row for your user_id . Set the value of this row to:

a:1:{s:13:"administrator";b:1;}

It’s typically available in your hosting provider’s control panel.

Do you have access to the control panel for the account at the hosting provider?

Are you sure you did it for the right username?

Are you currently logged in under that username?

Can you now access a Users section in the blog’s Dashboard?

Try clearing your browser’s cookies and cache.

If that still makes no difference, then the previous administrator may have been using a custom role manager. In which case, your only hope is to either track down the previous administrator or find some way to get access to their account.

You’re welcome!

Best of luck tracking down the old admin!