front page will not display either posts or a static page; other pages working f

Have you tried:

– deactivating all plugins to see if this resolves the problem. If this works, re-activate the plugins one by one until you find the problematic plugin(s).

– switching to the Twenty Eleven theme to rule out any theme-specific problems.

– resetting the plugins folder by FTP or PhpMyAdmin. Sometimes, an apparently inactive plugin can still cause problems.

– re-uploading all files & folders – except the wp-content folder – from a fresh download of WordPress 3.4.

Thanks so much for your response!

I had already tried the theme switch, and now I’ve done the plugin deactivation/reactivation as well as resetting the plugins folder via ftp, and re-uploading fresh copies of all wordpress files.

It seems to be something related to the setting that determines what to show on the homepage–the site won’t allow me to change the url for the page that’s set to show up on the front page. Could there be something there?

the site won’t allow me to change the url for the page that’s set to show up on the front page

Can you elaborate on that?

yes, it’s a page called “BOOKS” that’s set to be the homepage. when I go in to edit that page, the place where you could normally click on the url and change it is uneditable: it’s set to be eroynfranklin.com/wordpress.

If I change the settings so that a different page is set to be the front page, books starts working again but the new page now has the uneditable url problem.

Does that make sense?

Yes – you cannot edit the permalink of your currently chosen static front page. This is by design.

I see. So it’s probably not the explanation of the issue I’m having with the site?

Not the permalink, no. It’s more likely to be an issue with the page’s template file. Does it use a custom page template> Does your theme include a home.php or a front-page.php file?

No, the theme doesn’t have either of those. I haven’t customized the page template at all.

Does the front page use a custom page template? Does your theme include a home.php or a front-page.php file?

No, it just uses single.php and page.php.

in that case, your static front page will be using the default page.php template file. If you switch the front page to list your latest posts, it will use the index.php template file.

OK, but whether I switch between posts or pages, nothing shows up on the front page in either case. Is there a string I can look for in index.php or page.php to fix this?

Switch to the Twenty Eleven theme first.

I have the same problem when I switch to Twenty Eleven: nothing shows up on the home page, regardless of whether I choose ‘posts’ or ‘static page’

Have you tried checking the server’s error logs?