Login page won’t load, but site is live

Try manually resetting your plugins (no Dashboard access required). If that resolves the issue, reactivate each one individually until you find the cause.

If that does not resolve the issue, access your server via SFTP or FTP, or a file manager in your hosting account’s control panel, navigate to /wp-content/themes/ and rename the directory of your currently active theme. This will force the default theme to activate and hopefully rule-out a theme-specific issue (theme functions can interfere like plugins).

Thanks, James, but so far I haven’t been able to fix the problem. I deactivated all plugins, and also renamed the theme, but neither attempt allowed me to login to the website.

What else might be wrong with my site?

More info, this from the debug log…

[22-Aug-2017 01:55:53 UTC] PHP Warning: Illegal string offset ‘remember’ in /wp-includes/user.php on line 41
[22-Aug-2017 01:55:53 UTC] PHP Warning: Cannot assign an empty string to a string offset in /wp-includes/user.php on line 41
[22-Aug-2017 01:55:53 UTC] PHP Warning: Illegal string offset ‘user_login’ in /wp-includes/user.php on line 56
[22-Aug-2017 01:55:53 UTC] PHP Fatal error: Uncaught Error: Cannot create references to/from string offsets in /wp-includes/user.php:56
Stack trace:
#0 /wp-login.php(775): wp_signon(”, ”)
#1 {main}
thrown in /wp-includes/user.php on line 56

—–

If anyone knows what might be causing the Error 500 on the login admin page, I would be grateful for your help!

Ok, try downloading WordPress again, access your server via SFTP or FTP, or a file manager in your hosting account’s control panel, and delete then replace your copies of everything on the server except the wp-config.php file and the /wp-content/ directory with fresh copies from the download. This will effectively replace all of your core files without damaging your content and settings.

Some uploaders tend to be unreliable when overwriting files, so don’t forget to delete the original files before replacing them.

Thanks, James. I buckled down, took your advice, and deleted everything except the wp-config.php and the /wp-content/ folder. It certainly fixed my problem of logging into the admin (yay!)… but… it has caused a new problem…

Most of the pages are missing on the customer’s end of the website. The home page pops up, but when you start clicking around to other pages it shows a message from my hosting company instead, with “Error 404: File Not Found”.

WHY are the pages missing?

What kind of process would I go through now to get them back???? (I did back up the database and made copies of the all files through FTP before deleting them. I’m just not sure what I’m supposed to do to get those pages back online.)

I appreciate your help greatly!

Try re-saving your permalink structure at Settings/Permalinks in your admin panel. If WordPress cannot automatically edit the .htaccess file, it will provide manual instructions after saving.

Okay, something weird just happened. When I went to Settings/Permalinks, the page doesn’t load. It gives me HTTP ERROR 500. Everything else I’m clicking on in the admin seems to be okay, so why is the permalink page not loading at all?

Internal server errors (error 500) are often caused by plugin or theme function conflicts, so try deactivating all plugins. If that resolves the issue, reactivate each one individually until you find the cause.

If that does not resolve the issue, try switching to the Twenty Seventeen theme to rule-out a theme-specific issue (theme functions can interfere like plugins).

If that does not resolve the issue, it’s possible that a .htaccess rule could be the source of the problem. To check for this, access your server via SFTP or FTP, or a file manager in your hosting account’s control panel, and rename the .htaccess file. If you can’t find a .htaccess file, make sure that you have set your SFTP or FTP client to view invisible files.

If you weren’t able to resolve the issue by either resetting your plugins and theme or renaming your .htaccess file, we may be able to help, but we’ll need a more detailed error message. Internal server errors are usually described in more detail in the server error log. If you have access to your server error log, generate the error again, note the date and time, then immediately check your server error log for any errors that occurred during that specific time period. If you don’t have access to your server error log, ask your hosting provider to look for you.

James, here’s an update. I deactivated all plugins and the theme. I also renamed the .htaccess file. None of that fixed the errors I’m getting on the website.

So on to error logs. I’m encountering 2 types of errors right now; here’s a sample from each. I’m assuming though that once the first error is fixed, the second is probably dependent on the permalink error…. but that’s my totally uneducated guess. ??

Can anyone explain what I should to fix this? Thanks in advance!

98.179.236.20 – – [24/Aug/2017:18:31:49 -0600] “GET /store/wp-admin/options-permalink.php HTTP/1.1” 500 20 “https://bbsprouts.com/store/wp-admin/options-general.php” “Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/60.0.3112.101 Safari/537.36”

98.179.236.20 – – [24/Aug/2017:18:33:37 -0600] “GET /store/shop/ HTTP/1.1” 200 4584 “https://bbsprouts.com/store/product-category/bunting-banners/” “Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/60.0.3112.101 Safari/537.36”

98.179.236.20 – – [24/Aug/2017:18:31:49 -0600] “GET /store/wp-admin/options-permalink.php HTTP/1.1” 500 20 “https://bbsprouts.com/store/wp-admin/options-general.php” “Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/60.0.3112.101 Safari/537.36”

That one is the 500.

It would appear that something is wrong with the /options-permalink.php file.

Let’s try that re-install again, but this time do it via the “Re-install Now” button at Dashboard > Updates in your site’s Dashboard.

I went to Dashboard > Updates, but there’s no “Re-install Now” button. I was going to post a screenshot of it for you, but I dont’t see an area here to upload the image.

Anyways, the entire text on the Dashboard > Updates page says only this:

“WordPress Updates

Last checked on August 25, 2017 at 7:42 am. Check Again

You have the latest version of WordPress.”

Ok, you’ll have to do it manually again.

Try downloading WordPress again, access your server via SFTP or FTP, or a file manager in your hosting account’s control panel, and delete then replace your copies of everything on the server except the wp-config.php file and the /wp-content/ directory with fresh copies from the download. This will effectively replace all of your core files without damaging your content and settings.

Some uploaders tend to be unreliable when overwriting files, so don’t forget to delete the original files before replacing them.

Right. I figured I should do the installation again, and have just finished the new upload of WordPress. It didn’t fix it and I’m still in the same boat. I’m back to an error 500 on the admin login page, and error 404 on the pages that customers are looking at. This isn’t looking good. I’m not sure what else there would be to fix this?! I also tried loading an earlier version of WordPress to see if that would help (4.5), but it didn’t give me anything better.

I’m using Filezilla for the uploading. Let me know if there’s a better program I should try.

Okay, so I’m stuck. What would be left to try?

I also cleared cookies and cache in the browser just to make sure, but that didn’t help either.

Wait a second… I made it into the admin! Let’s see what damage I can do now…