Moderator
Jan Dembowski
(@jdembowski)
Forum Moderator and Brute Squad
I have ALL kinds of problems with conflicting plugins causing 500 errors and now I simply unable to update anything…
That’s not good. If you have file system access to your installation then there may some steps you can try to get into your installation. Start with the plugins:
- Using FTP or whatever file management tools your host has provided you with navigate to the
wp-content directory.
- Once there locate and rename the
plugins directory. Just that one directory and nothing else and don’t delete it just rename it.
- Try and re-login to your WordPress dashboard.
See if that works out to get you in.
Thanks Jan! I was actually able to get back in just by deleting the updates that were incomplete (didn’t see your comment before) but now I am afraid to try and reinstall jetpack again… I was only able to re-install my theme by manually uploading it. When I tried to update it created the same original problem (lost in maintenence land). Any tips on fixing it? Here’s what happens:
I click to update
It thinks for a long time then times out
goes into maintenance mode
have to delete the parcially uploaded files via ftp to get back in
Moderator
Jan Dembowski
(@jdembowski)
Forum Moderator and Brute Squad
The update is not completing and that would cause the issue you are seeing.
Try this: rename that plugin directory as I’ve said above but copy one plugin at a time into a new empty plugin directory, upgrade, next plugin, upgrade, etc.
Also get ready to go in an delete the .maintenance file just in case. 😉
What I’m hoping to see is where the break is occurring. Knowing where can help solve it.
Or you can always upgrade your plugins manually if you need to.
http://codex.wordpress.org/Managing_Plugins#Manual_Plugin_Installation
Ok so I have tried doing what you recommended. I renamed my plugins folder (leaving my page with no plugins at all) and I still can’t add new plugins…. there is no conflict causing this it must be based in my wordpress installation???? Any ideas for a fix?
When I try to update or add a plugin the script at the bottom of the page says: waiting for lachicapaleo.com
until after a while it gives a 504 message saying that the plugin install failed…..
this is with NO active plugins. I am lost! No problem like this on my other WP site. I can however manually dowload the plugin file and upload it back to my site so go figure….
You can’t add new plugins from the backend because WordPress will see that there is no folder named ‘plugins’ since you renamed the folder. You’ll have to deactivate each plugin and activate them one by one to see which plugins are conflicting with each other.
sorry if I didn’t make that clear, I changed the folder name and created a new folder called plugins and started moving them over one by one, but even with NO PLUGINS in the new folder the problem persisted….
This maybe due to your database because plugins oftentimes use the database to store plugin settings. So like I stated above, you’ll have to deactivate every plugin and activate each one at a time to see which plugin(s) are causing errors.
I deactivated all of the plugins and I still can’t upload any plugins. Even with zero plugins activated on my blog.
If you can’t upload plugins in the backend of your blog then you can upload them via a FTP client.
I am working on that option but I would still like to know why this is happening….thanks so much for the help
So I finally found the root of my problem: w3 total cache…
Renaming the plugin folder, deleting the plugin, or disactivating it didn’te work, so I had to remove it manually, and like magic I can update/ add plugins again! I now have two questions:
1)should I try to reinstall w3 total cache or will it likely cause the same problems?
2)what code should I delete from my .hta access file….
<IfModule mod_headers.c>
<FilesMatch ".(js|css|xml|gz|html)$">
Header append Vary: Accept-Encoding
</FilesMatch>
</IfModule>
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/plain
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/html
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/xml
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/css
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/xml
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/xhtml+xml
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/rss+xml
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/javascript
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-javascript
# BEGIN W3TC Browser Cache
<IfModule mod_deflate.c>
<IfModule mod_headers.c>
Header append Vary User-Agent env=!dont-vary
</IfModule>
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/css text/x-component application/x-javascript application/javascript text/javascript text/x-js text/html text/richtext image/svg+xml text/plain text/xsd text/xsl text/xml image/x-icon application/json
<IfModule mod_mime.c>
# DEFLATE by extension
AddOutputFilter DEFLATE js css htm html xml
</IfModule>
</IfModule>
# END W3TC Browser Cache
# BEGIN W3TC Page Cache core
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{HTTP:Accept-Encoding} gzip
RewriteRule .* - [E=W3TC_ENC:_gzip]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_COOKIE} w3tc_preview [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [E=W3TC_PREVIEW:_preview]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_METHOD} !=POST
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} =""
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} \/$
RewriteCond %{HTTP_COOKIE} !(comment_author|wp\-postpass|w3tc_logged_out|wordpress_logged_in|wptouch_switch_toggle) [NC]
RewriteCond "%{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/wp-content/cache/page_enhanced/%{HTTP_HOST}/%{REQUEST_URI}/_index%{ENV:W3TC_PREVIEW}.html%{ENV:W3TC_ENC}" -f
RewriteRule .* "/wp-content/cache/page_enhanced/%{HTTP_HOST}/%{REQUEST_URI}/_index%{ENV:W3TC_PREVIEW}.html%{ENV:W3TC_ENC}" [L]
</IfModule>
# END W3TC Page Cache core
# BEGIN WordPress
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ - [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
</IfModule>
# END WordPress
should I delete the #BEGIN and #END of the w3tc total catch???
It is as I suspected – an offending plugin.
Reinstalling W3 Total Cache can still cause problems because of the values stored in the database. So you should go with another (and possibly better) caching plugin. So if you are not going to use then W3 Total Cache plugin, then in the .htaccess file, delete lines beginning with the line of “# BEGIN W3TC Browser Cache” all the way to this line that says, “# END W3TC Page Cache core”.
Thanks so much! Do you recommend any caching plugin in particular (for example wp super cache) so glad that this problem is finally resolved! I am learning new things every day…. 3 months ago I didn’t even know what a widget was.
No problem. It goes for all of us as we are learning new things everyday. For all of us who use WordPress, we had to start somewhere!
As for caching plugins, I prefer to use this plugin that handles security and caching. It is called “WordFence Security” and you can use their Falcon engine that when it is enabled it causes a 30 to 50 times speed increase. But if you don’t want a security plugin, then you can go with WP Super Cache.
Thanks again 🙂 I will check it out
