Site Down and Can’t Access Admin

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 (consult your hosting provider’s documentation for specifics on these), navigate to /wp-content/themes/ and rename the directory of your currently active theme. Hopefully, this will force the default theme to activate and rule out a theme-specific issue (theme functions can interfere like plugins).

Thank you for the reply @macmanx

Unfortunately I tried this on another site (with the same issue) and I got this message:

Configuration Error
Your?wp-config.php?file has an empty database table prefix, which is not supported.

Also, it automatically takes me to the https://www.markromerophotography.com/wp-admin/install.php

page instead of just the /wp-admin/ page. I mean, literally if I type in:

https://www.markromerophotography.com/wp-admin/

it redirects to

https://www.markromerophotography.com/wp-admin/install.php

After I renamed the plugins directory to plugins.hold

This was after I tried using the ftp method to rename the plugins directory to plugins.hold

(I used my markromerophotography.com site instead of marinhomephotography.com because bluehost has such a crazy ftp scheme I can’t even find the plugins forlder for my marinhomephotogrpahy.com site).

Any other suggestions? Do I just need to use PHPMyadmin to change the mysql tables as in the first suggestion?

Thanks in advance.

And just to clarify, in my wp-config.php the prefix is listed as wp_ which is what I see in my database for the tables.

For example. my posts table is:

wp_posts

• This reply was modified 1 year, 8 months ago by Justin Case.

That doesn’t make much sense at all, plugins don’t affect your wp-config.php file.

Try the phpMyAdmin method instead: https://www.bluehost.com/help/article/managing-your-db-using-phpmyadmin

(also, please don’t edit your threads here to re-add a redundant link that’s already been removed by a moderator, that behavior comes off as very spammy)

@macmanx

Thank you for the reply.

Yes, I have gone in to the database and changed the active_plugins value to a:0:{} and I still have the same problem. (I also used ftp to rename the plugins folder back to plugins)

And just to double check one thing: the wp-config.php file is supposed to be in the root directory (ABOVE the wp-admin, wp-content, and wp-includes folders), right?

And one other thing: the three sites of mine that are down all use the Genesis theme and a sub-theme (by directory press). Is it possible via phpmyadmin to select a different theme just to see if it a problem with the genesis theme?

But my fourth site is using the Twenty Seventeen theme provided by wordpress (version 2.4) and that seems to be working fine. It is hosted on the same account with Bluehost.

Is this a Multisite network, or 3 separate individual WordPress installations?

@macmanx I believe it is three separate installations. (Bluehost is kind of weird because the files are located in subdirectories of the main directory).

Sorry I can’t confirm 100% since I can’t get in to the admin area.

Ok, in that case, Genesis seems like the culprit.

Since that is a commercial theme, we ask that you please go to their official support channel, so you can get support from the people who know it best: https://my.studiopress.com

Forum volunteers do not have access to commercial products, so they would not know why it is not working correctly. Other community members who may have faced your issue might be able to help you, but your best bet is your product’s developer. We encourage you to use the official support venues, as it allows the developers to be aware of issues with their code and gives back to the community in a more robust way.

Thank you, @macmanx

Yes, I am trying to get support through studiopress as well.

In the meantime, supposing I have to reinstall wordpress and start from scratch, is there a guide on which database tables to copy so that I can reconstruct my posts / pages as easily as possible? Thanks in advance.

Re-installing won’t help StudioPress solve the issue, in fact it’ll make it impossible for them to diagnose and fix.

So, if you intent to keep using Genesis, keep it as-is until they can fix it.

If you want to use a different theme, sccess your server via SFTP or FTP, or a file manager in your hosting account’s control panel (consult your hosting provider’s documentation for specifics on these), navigate to /wp-content/themes/ and rename the directory of your currently active theme. This will force the default theme to activate and restore your site to a point where you can either keep using that or choose a new theme.

@macmanx Thank you for the help. I will try that out (renaming the folders with the themes being used) to at least confirm that it is a studiopree / genesis issue.

Thanks again.