Title: Sidebar database error
Last modified: August 18, 2016

---

# Sidebar database error

 *  [boutwell](https://wordpress.org/support/users/boutwell/)
 * (@boutwell)
 * [18 years, 11 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/sidebar-database-error/)
 * I am at my whit’s end on this one, guys. I purchased a theme through monster 
   and there is an error in the sidebar code that I just cannot wrangle out:
 * > **WordPress database error:** [You have an error in your SQL syntax; check 
   > the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax
   > to use near '' at line 1]
 * I am _not_ a coder so I do what I have always done…replace obvious code snippets
   with their counterpart from the default theme but more often than not, this makes
   the sidebar appear completely blank.
 * If anybody sees anything really obvious in the sidebar code below, could you 
   please clue me in?
 *     ```
       <div class="right" >
         <div style="padding-left:18px; padding-right:15px"><br/>
           <div class="right_header">Categories:</div>
           <br/>
           <ul class="cats" style="padding-left:20px ">
             <?php wp_list_cats('sort_column=name&optioncount=1&hierarchical=0'); ?>
           </ul>
         </div>
         <br/>
         <div><img src="<?php bloginfo('stylesheet_directory'); ?>/images/r_sep.gif" alt=""/></div>
         <div style="padding-left:18px; padding-right:15px"><br/>
           <div class="right_header">Archives:</div>
           <br/>
           <ul>
             <?php get_archives('monthly','10','custom','<li class="li">','</li>'); ?>
           </ul>
         </div>
         <br/>
         <div><img src="<?php bloginfo('stylesheet_directory'); ?>/images/r_sep.gif" alt=""/></div>
         {ERROR APPEARS HERE}
       <?php
        $link_cats = $wpdb->get_results("SELECT cat_id, cat_name FROM $wpdb->linkcategories");
        foreach ($link_cats as $link_cat) {
        ?>
         <div style="padding-left:18px; padding-right:15px"><br/>
           <div class="right_header"><?php echo $link_cat->cat_name; ?></div>
           <ul>
             <?php get_links($link_cat->cat_id, '<li class="li">', '</li>', '', FALSE, 'id', TRUE,
       TRUE, -1, TRUE); ?>
           </ul>
         </div>
         <br/>
         <div><img src="<?php bloginfo('stylesheet_directory'); ?>/images/r_sep.gif" alt=""/></div>
         <?php } ?>
         <div style="padding-left:18px; padding-right:15px"><br/>
           <div class="right_header">Staff Links:</div>
           <br/>
           <ul>
             <?php wp_register('<li  class="li">', '</li>'); ?>
             <li  class="li">
               <?php wp_loginout(); ?></li>
             <?php wp_meta(); ?>
           </ul>
         </div>
         <br/>
         <div><img src="<?php bloginfo('stylesheet_directory'); ?>/images/r_sep.gif" alt=""/></div>
       </div>
       ```
   

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)

 *  [Samuel B](https://wordpress.org/support/users/samboll/)
 * (@samboll)
 * [18 years, 11 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/sidebar-database-error/#post-561604)
 * Couple of things – `wp_list_cats` has been deprecated in the 2.1.x series.
    Replace
   with `wp_list_categories`.
 * `get_archives` has been deprecated.
    Replace with `wp_get_archives`.
 *  Thread Starter [boutwell](https://wordpress.org/support/users/boutwell/)
 * (@boutwell)
 * [18 years, 11 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/sidebar-database-error/#post-561619)
 * Thanks for the quick reply! I am sure that took care of a problem I have not 
   seen yet lol. It did not remove the one the has been teasing me all morning. 
   I am pretty sure it comes down to this line:
 *     ```
       <?php
        $link_cats = $wpdb->get_results("SELECT cat_id, cat_name FROM $wpdb->linkcategories");
        foreach ($link_cats as $link_cat) {
        ?>
       ```
   
 * Were there any other deprecations that might be affecting it?

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)

The topic ‘Sidebar database error’ is closed to new replies.

## Tags

 * [database](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/database/)

 * 2 replies
 * 2 participants
 * Last reply from: [boutwell](https://wordpress.org/support/users/boutwell/)
 * Last activity: [18 years, 11 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/sidebar-database-error/#post-561619)
 * Status: not resolved

## Topics

### Topics with no replies

### Non-support topics

### Resolved topics

### Unresolved topics

### All topics