Widgets and main sidebar

Have you tried:

– deactivating all plugins to see if this resolves the problem. If this works, re-activate the plugins one by one until you find the problematic plugin(s).

– switching to the default 2012 theme to rule out any theme-specific problems.

– resetting the plugins folder by FTP or PhpMyAdmin. Sometimes, an apparently inactive plugin can still cause problems.

– re-uploading all files & folders – except the wp-content folder – from a fresh download of WordPress. Make sure that you delete the old copies of files & folder before uploading the new ones.

thanks for the reply. i tried deactivating all the plug ins and its still the same and also tried switching back to 2012 and again no difference. also i went to the link you suggested and in phpMyAdmin a:0:{} was already set as the option value. but the next part of the link says you should find the wp-options folder in (i think) cpanel. which i couldn’t find. can you tell me where its located please?or maybei don’t have it and thats the problem?

thanks

No – it’s not a folder. It’s the wp_options table in your database.

sorry that was meant to say “wp-contents” folder, not “wp-options” folder

also when it says “your hosts file manager” i take it that means cpanel?

Yes – the file manager in cPanel.

seems like that method didn’t do anything either, but it could be that i didn’t carry it out properly. here’s what i did, went into file manager and then wp-contents in cPanel, changed the name of “plugins” to “plugins.hold” then logged into my websites admin, clicked on the “menus” bit under “appearances” then changed the name back to “plugins”. did i go wrong there anywhere?

Are any plugins listed as active in the Plugins menu?

no, it just says “you do not appear to have any plug ins available at this time”

That’s fine. Try adding define('SCRIPT_DEBUG', true);to the bottom of your wp-config.php file (just before the require_once line).

when i go into file manager in the cPanel and click on wp-config.php, a box comes up saying “windows can’t open this file” then asks if i want to use the web service to find this program or do it manually. if i choose for windows to find it it comes up with 4 choices, Microsoft Picture It! Document, PHP HTML Scripting Language, Free File Viewer and Free Text Pad. which one (if any) should i choose?

maybe your last idea would be best?

– “re-uploading all files & folders – except the wp-content folder – from a fresh download of WordPress. Make sure that you delete the old copies of files & folder before uploading the new ones”.

i don’t actually know ahow i would go about doing that, because as i was saying earlier, i don’t really have a clue what i’m doing. do you think you could tell me in simple steps please?

a box comes up saying “windows can’t open this file”

You need to open the file in a plain text editor like Notepad.

ok i put “define(‘SCRIPT_DEBUG’, true);” just before the area you told me so it now looks like this at the very bottom of the file

/** Sets up WordPress vars and included files. */
define(‘SCRIPT_DEBUG’, true);require_once(ABSPATH . ‘wp-settings.php’);

but unfortunately still no change on my site with the widgets and main sidebar

i’ve figured out what it is. “accessibility mode” was on in the “screen options” section.

thanks for your help though. i’ve seen a few queries regarding the same thing i’m asking about but have never seen anyone reply with the answer of checking the screen options bit. so i hope this can be of some help to you as well when answering questions.

i’ve got a feeling this isn’t the end of this problem though and something else will come up soon enough haha.

see you later for now