jon

Always best to start a new thread, as explained here: http://codex.wordpress.org/Forum_Welcome#Where_To_Post

You can look around further in the Plugins directory, but I use this plugin even though it hasn’t been updated in years, and I believe it also notifies you by e-mail about WordPress available updates, though I use it mainly for updates for Themes and Plugins:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/update-notifications/

I’d like to comment, but the Moderators quite rightly suggest that hosting recommendations lead to endless arguments and are best avoided on these forums.

In general terms, business-class Linux-based shared hosting with MySQL as the database and per-user PHP memory limits of at least 128MB are a good starting point. As I said, VPS can be trouble.

Automatic daily backup can be helpful. And, if you know what you are doing with it, SSH access is useful for both command line Linux commands and, more important, SFTP access via FileZilla or equivalent FTP client.

Finally, the key for me has been using Pingdom or equivalent free monitoring set to one minute, to determine if I am really getting reliable service for my site visitors. And keeping an eye on it over the long term as I have run into so many cases where a Server or even a Hosting Company will be excellent for a year or two, then completely fall apart.

Thanks for clarifying, catacaustic. Just wanted to avoid an “Apples versus Oranges” situation…..

I would start by going to Appearance-Themes in the Admin panels to see what your Active Theme is, if any. Obviously, you need an Active theme to be able to view your site.

Of course, you can’t select your old theme as it has got problems.

You really have to decide whether to find a new theme or try and get the old one fixed.

Based on that message, there may be issues with your Theme. If you rename the folder /home/sgsss/public_html/wp-content/themes/response to …/response-test you should be able to login though it will default to the current default theme.

Not something I’ve run into, but this thread looks interesting:
https://wordpress.org/support/topic/database-repair-failed?replies=4

If not, you may wish to wade through this Search:
https://wordpress.org/search/database+repair?forums=1

Huge sites run on WordPress. In fact, the company behind WordPress provides fully-managed WordPress for many of these big sites: http://vip.wordpress.com/

I’ve never had a big enough site to warrant it, but Caching is one of several techniques to handle high traffic sites. I’ve even attended sessions at WordCamp by WordPress employees who have talked about the kinds of optimization they perform for their largest clients of these services.

As a retired I.T. guy who began programming in 1971, I think you are at a decision point on whether to buy or acquire the expertise on running high traffic WordPress. By “buy”, I mean searching out companies that provide hosted managed WordPress for huge sites.

You’ll see some famous clients listed on some of the different companies’ sites, including the link at the top of this post.