Title: Fatal Error while installing new theme
Last modified: August 19, 2016

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# Fatal Error while installing new theme

 *  [info](https://wordpress.org/support/users/infoalpha9gamecom/)
 * (@infoalpha9gamecom)
 * [15 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/fatal-error-while-installing-new-theme-1/)
 * Hi WP Forum!
 * I just installed WordPress on my domain yesterday. The site was working fine.
   I logged in today and started to edit a few things. I visited the WordPress themes
   page and selected one of them and clicked install. It started installing and 
   then the page crashed giving me the following message.
 * Fatal error: Call to undefined function: scandir() in /homepages/15/d356910025/
   htdocs/wordpress/wp-content/themes/simpledark/functions.php on line 31
 * For a few minutes, the WordPress website was not accessible to me. I would get
   the same message every time I tried to connect to any of the wordpress.org pages.
   This problem has been resolved (obviously) but now my domain is still displaying
   this message and I have no way off logging in to try and fix the problem.
 * Please help me with any suggestions you may have.
 * Thanks,

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)

 *  Moderator [t-p](https://wordpress.org/support/users/t-p/)
 * (@t-p)
 * [15 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/fatal-error-while-installing-new-theme-1/#post-1923531)
 * -try switching to the default theme (“twentyten”) for a moment by renaming your
   current theme’s folder in wp-content/themes. The idea is to force WordPress to
   fall back to the default theme.
 * If you don’t have access to your admin area, then access your server via [FTP or SFTP](http://codex.wordpress.org/FTP_Clients)
   or whatever file management application your host provides.
 *  Thread Starter [info](https://wordpress.org/support/users/infoalpha9gamecom/)
 * (@infoalpha9gamecom)
 * [15 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/fatal-error-while-installing-new-theme-1/#post-1923558)
 * Thanks t-p. When you suggest renaming the current theme’s folder you mean that
   I should give it any name except the correct one so that wordpress will not recognize
   it and thus run home to mama?
 *  Moderator [t-p](https://wordpress.org/support/users/t-p/)
 * (@t-p)
 * [15 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/fatal-error-while-installing-new-theme-1/#post-1923566)
 * renaming the current theme will force WordPress to fall back to the default theme(
   Twenty Ten), provided you have the Twenty Ten.

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)

The topic ‘Fatal Error while installing new theme’ is closed to new replies.

 * In: [Fixing WordPress](https://wordpress.org/support/forum/how-to-and-troubleshooting/)
 * 3 replies
 * 2 participants
 * Last reply from: [t-p](https://wordpress.org/support/users/t-p/)
 * Last activity: [15 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/fatal-error-while-installing-new-theme-1/#post-1923566)
 * Status: not resolved

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