Add New Theme Button Missing

I checked and all 6 of my wordpress websites are missing the ‘add new theme’ button.
I can assume that this might be a server/SQL problem,
but where to start looking!

Have you tried:
– deactivating ALL (yes all) plugins temporarily to see if this resolves the problem (plugin functions can interfere). If this works, re-activate them individually (one-by-one) to find the problematic plugin(s).
– resetting the plugins folder by FTP. Sometimes, an apparently inactive plugin can still cause problems.
– switching to the unedited default Theme (Twenty Sixteen, etc.) for a moment using the WP dashboard to rule out any theme-specific issue (theme functions can interfere like plugins).
– try increasing memory available for php.
– If all the above steps do not resolve the issue, then try MANUALLY updating. Download a fresh copy of the WordPress .zip file to your computer, unzip it, and use that to copy up all files and folders EXCEPT the wp-config.php file and the /wp-content/ directory. You may need to delete the old wp-admin and wp-includes folders and files on your server before uploading the new ones. Please read the Manual Update directions first.
– Backup: If you haven’t already done, always backup everything (including your database) before doing any actions, just in case something really goes wrong.

Hi Tara,

Many thanks for the pointers.
I checked with my server assistants and I am at Max php Memory limit so that will not help.
Can I ask whether the fact that if all six wordpress websites on my server are affected by this one issue, is it still worth my while deactivating and re-activating all of the plug-ins on each site?
I did try switching to a default wordpress theme on one of the sites but this was not successful.

Tara Hi,

I have just unearthed the problem – on a couple of my websites I was having problems logging in to the admin area using Internet Explorer, and so got into the habit of logging in to the interface in Firefox.
I just checked one of my websites in Internet Explorer, and the ‘add new’ button appears.
Many thanks again – William

Glad to know it ??

I have this problem on a brand new wordpress 4.5.3 site. No add new button for themes or plugins. There is one for users, however.

The comment by Foxsch wasn’t helpful. Is she/he saying there is an add new button on IE, but not firefox?

I am on Fedora 23 Linux. This is a problem for both Firefox and Chrome.

still having problems with this? I had the same problem, but discovered that I had installed wordpress as a multi-site, and you have to be in the network admin section to add a new theme. check under “my sites” at top left.