Admin area weird after update to 4.1.1

try a few basic troubleshooting steps:
– Flushing any caching plugins you might be running, as well as server and/or browser caches.
– deactivating 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). When you can’t get into your admin dashboard, try deactivating via FTP or SFTP or whatever file management application provided by your hosting provider (cPanel…). Also remember to deactivate any plugins in the mu-plugins folder (If you have created such folder). The easiest way is to rename that folder to mu-plugins-old.
– If that does not resolve the issue, try switching to the unedited default Twenty Fifteen theme for a moment using the WP dashboard to rule out any theme-specific issue (theme functions can interfere like plugins). When you don’t have access to your admin area, use FTP or SFTP or whatever file management application your host provides. Navigate to /wp-content/themes/ and switch to the default theme by renaming your current theme’s folder by adding “-old” to the end of the folder name. Alternately, you can remove other themes except the default theme. That will force your site to use it.
– If that does not resolve the issue, try resetting the plugins foldervia FTP or SFTP or whatever file management application your host provides. Sometimes, an apparently inactive plugin can still cause problems.
– If all the above steps do not resolve the issue, then try MANUAL 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 copies of files & folder on your server before uploading the new ones. Read the Manual Update directions first.
– If you haven’t already done, always backup everything (including your database) before doing any actions, just in case something really goes wrong.

Tara

Thanks for your suggestions as to how to fix my problem. I’ve tried everything you have suggested, but when trying to delete the wp-includes directory, I cannot delete the css file as permission is denied. I tried changing permissions to 0644, but couldn’t – all boxes are ticked and can’t be changed. I tried renaming the css file and then tried to delete it, but that didn’t work either.

Can you suggest what I can try next?

The site is a community website that I only work on part time, which is why there has been such a gap between this and my first post.

Regarding the permission issue, you need to contact and discuss it with your hosting provider.