WordPress Tries to Download Plugins Page Instead of Loading, Plus Gallery Glitch

The symptoms you describe do not point to a specific problem, it could be a number of things. One possible cause is an incomplete update (5.9 just recently became available). Try using the Reinstall button on the updates admin screen. If the button says Update instead of reinstall, do that. If using the button doesn’t help any, you may need to do a manual update, even if it’s an “update” to the same version.

If this doesn’t help, we’ve at least eliminated a number of possible causes.

Wordpress wasn’t up to date, but updating it didn’t fix either of the issues.

What are some other things I could try? I’ve been trying to fix this all week now…I don’t know what to do, and my readers are expecting a post in the morning.

Are all of the plugins still deactivated? From the file manager you do so by renaming the /plugins/ folder. Also switch to the Twenty Twenty-one theme. From file manager, rename the folder of your current theme. WP should then switch to the latest default theme.

With a fresh update, no plugins, and a default theme, if you still have the same issues the problems then lie with your server configuration. The only thing I can think to do for that is rename the .htaccess file where WP is installed. Pretty permalinks will no longer work, but it might fix other issues. If that helps we can further isolate problem code in the file. If it doesn’t help, you likely need assistance from your host.

I tried disabling the plugins and theme through file manager, as instructed, and renamed the .htaccess file as well, but none of that changed either of the two problems.

When i disabled the theme, it also left me with absolutely no content on my site, besides an error message that said:
“Deprecated: Directive ‘allow_url_include’ is deprecated in Unknown on line 0”
I’m not familiar with what that means, so i don’t know if it has anything to do with these issues. I’ll investigate and try to fix that in the meantime…

Is there anything else you can think of that it could be?

Turns out it isn’t an issue with my website, after all.

There’s something wrong with how Google Chrome is saving cookies on WordPress admin sites–or something like that. Everything works perfectly if i use Firefox.

I haven’t been able to figure out how to fix Chrome, but for now I can just use other browsers and cross my fingers that the next Chrome update will resolve the problems.

Thank you for the help! At least I learned more about troubleshooting my website–so i really appreciate that!

I’m glad you isolated the issue. Sorry it took a bit of a wild goose chase to get there. If it were solely cookies, you shouldn’t have been able to access the admin area at all. Something more subtle is amiss. I’ve not heard of others having issues with Chrome, so I wonder if it’s due to browser extensions or security settings. Have you tried incognito mode (assuming it has no active extensions and accepts cookies)?