Title: Completely disables wordpress
Last modified: October 25, 2017

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# Completely disables wordpress

 *  [radtea](https://wordpress.org/support/users/radtea/)
 * (@radtea)
 * [8 years, 11 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/completely-disables-wordpress/)
 * Unfortunately this theme has a bug that completely disables wordpress 🙁
 * > [error] PHP Parse error: syntax error, unexpected ‘[‘ in /var/www/html/wp-
   
   > content/themes/genius/inc/template-tags.php on line 227, referer:
 * I’ve asked the hosting company what version of PHP they are running and they 
   have not replied. It is likely OLD, however. This was a recoverable error for
   me, but for the average WP user it would not be. I appreciate the difficulty 
   and cost of testing free themes on weird configurations, but would encourage 
   all authors to do a check on the minimum version of PHP that they have tested
   under, and throw errors if the theme encounters older versions. For one, this
   would encourage users to complain to their hosting companies about archaic PHP
   versions still in use.
 * This is also a bug in wordpress: a third-party add-on like a theme should never
   cause the whole site, including the admin area, to fall over! Recovery instructions
   can be found here: [https://www.inmotionhosting.com/support/edu/wordpress/change-theme-in-db](https://www.inmotionhosting.com/support/edu/wordpress/change-theme-in-db)
 * Short version is: log into your MySQL database that wordpress is using, find 
   the wp_options table, and reset both the “template” and “stylesheet” fields to
   a known-good theme like twentyfifteen (assuming you have it installed… if you
   are reading this in 2025 something like twentytwentythree might work). There 
   is also a “Theme” field that I reset as well but I’m not sure that is necessary.
   Good luck!

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 * Last reply from: [radtea](https://wordpress.org/support/users/radtea/)
 * Last activity: [8 years, 11 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/completely-disables-wordpress/)