Everything has gone

Most likely you over-wrote your wp-config.php file.
(Was it an automated upgrade? – those are doing this kind of idiotic things…)

If you have the original wp-config.php file, try to upload it and see what happens.

Thankyou, I did overwrite the wp-config.php file with an amended version of the original that came with 2.6 to add in the three secret keys. Seems I left out some vital info further down. Apart from the three keys I have now uploaded a file that is identical to my 2.51 wp-config.php file. But a new problem has arisen as prior to the upgrade I activated the maintenance mode plugin (v 3.2) and I’m now unable to get to the login panel. I’m thinking i should delete the plugin but I am not sure if thats the best thing to do.

Deleting always deactivates any plugin… but why are you unable to get into your admin panel?
example.com/wp-admin should be easy to remember for everybody…

when I try to get to the admin panel the URL changes to https://www.sannyasnews.org/latest/wp-admin/upgrade.php?_wp_http_referer=%2Flatest%2Fwp-admin%2F
and then I get the maintenance mode screen.

That’s crazy…
Can you check your Database via phpMyadmin? What are the “home” and “site_url” values in the wp_options table?

I been to mysql server and there are now two sets of tables the original tables and a new set, i think created by my mistake with the wp-config.php. Whwn I click the options part more information appears similar to that in the sidebar but with a lot of other data but i can not see the urls you are asking for. (See Screen shot at https://www.sannyasnews.org/Picture2.png)
I have not yet tried deleting the maintenance mode plugin.

In the _options row under Actions click that very first icon (Browse). You will see what I am talking about ??

You can try deleting the plugin via FTP.

The site url is https://www.sannyasnews.org/latest , cannot find anything for home.
Have deleted mm plugin and now when i go to the dashboard i get ‘Database Upgrade Required’. Is it safe to do this given that there are two sets of tables now?

1. Because the “home” row is usually on the second page. There are nice little > and >> links there, people should learn to click on them ??

2. The message means that you did NOT upgrade your existing blog – you installed a new, empty blog (that’s the second, empty database).

3. Hopefully, the two databases don’t have anything to do with each other, so I would click on that Upgrade required link.

WAIT! Do you have a backup copy of you database? Just in case you screw up something? If you don’t, go back to the phpMyadmin, and do an Export of those wpi4f tables. When done, run the upgrade.

Thank you so much, It all seems to be working now. Can the 2nd (new)database be deleted? Or could I use it for testing purposes?

You can use it for testing – just not with the WP files that are in your live blog.
Make another subfolder (test, playground, demo… whatever) and put another set of WP 2.6 files there. Make sure the wp-config file points to the second set of tables. Actually you do NOT have a second database, you are using the same database just the table prefix is different! So, make sure the prefix is wp_ in the config file… wp_ is your empty set of tables.