computerfriend

To clear your wordpress database, get into your control panel on BlueHost and Look under the Databases Bar way down the page until you find the PHPMyAdmin icon/link.
Open PHPMyAdmin and in the left sidebar, select your database from the dropdown menu.
At almost the bottom of the Structure tab you will see a “Check All” link. choose it, then in the dropdown menu just to the right of that, choose Empty which will empty all data out of the tables.
Or you might choose Drop which will get rid of all the tables in the database but keep the database set up ready for your re-installation.

Let me know if this doesn’t work for you.
Richard

Well, I’m not convinced that these bugs don’t exist. They exist in a number of different installations and have been commented upon by quite a few people here and elsewhere. If these bugs don’t exist in the programmers’ particular versions of PHP and MySql, then they don’t have the bug. However, quite a large number of sites and people do have the Widgets issues and the Cookies/Login/Logout error messages. So don’t assume just because you regard yourself as a holier-than-thou high fallutin programmer that these bugs don’t exist. They do. There are people who have run into both of these bugs on https://WWW.WORDPRESS.COM. So go figure that out and then come back and criticize my criticism. There are a lot of variables involved in programming and in the end-user experience,and what works for some or even for many does not work for all or a minority that could be as large as 49%. I don’t need to be right. I just need for WordPress to be stable and not offer any big surprises when upgrades are made from previously stable versions. We’ve been using WordPress for 2 years now on about 20 different installations, and we know enough about what we are talking about here to make statements.
Instead of telling me that I’m wrong, why don’t you spend your time finding out what might be causing a number of people here to have broken sites that weren’t broken before the 2.3.1 iteration made its appearance.

stevemacc, you have a different issue entirely from the rest of the posters here. What you have is most likely a permissions (CHMOD) problem where some of the files in WordPress that need to be accessed by the server are not available or cannot be read correctly in order to let you log in. I am not on a Mac, but I have two Macs. What is happening here doesn’t look so much like a corrupt database issue– it looks more like the server is trying to cooperate and cannot because it cannot make a “modification.”
If there is any way to get into your file manager on your server I would suggest that you somehow disable your widgets and see if that helps. Otherwise you are facing some trial and error in finding out which files don’t have the correct permissions set.
One of the biggest red flags that I see is that you have PHP4. That is a bit old. Also, if you want to find out what kind of programs are running on your server such as what version of MySql and PHP there is a program out there called servercheck.php which can help you. You upload it to your website or server and then type in the URL such as https://www.yourdomain.com/servercheck.php . . .
If you need a copy of this and can’t find it on the web, email me at computerfriend at hotmail.com
Something tells me that when you upgraded your WordPress installation you might have overwritten one or more files that should have been left in place.

Ok, well I have a pretty good answer to this whole debacle:
First, let’s reason this out: You are getting messages like this:
* “ERROR: WordPress requires Cookies but your browser does not support them or they are blocked.”
* “ERROR: The username field is empty.”
* “ERROR: The password field is empty.”
So, if you look at which file is causing this, it is the wp-login.php.
All i did was search inside the wp-login.php file for these error messages and then take the text out. I replaced one of the error text items to “Welcome to ArtonDisk.com which is my login. VOILA! No more error messages and no more problem.
Now if they could just let us select text inside widgets in WP 2.3.1 we would be done.
Here is the sample code that I changed (your line numbers may vary):

IN LINE 316 I see: $errors['test_cookie'] = __('<strong>ERROR</strong>: WordPress requires Cookies but your browser does not support them or they are blocked.');
I changed it to read: $errors['test_cookie'] = __('');

In lines 338-340 I see `$errors[‘user_login’] = __(‘ERROR: The username field is empty.’);
if ( $_POST && empty( $user_pass ) )
$errors[‘user_pass’] = __(‘ERROR: The password field is empty.’);`
I changed the code to read:

$errors['user_login'] = __('');
	if ( $_POST && empty( $user_pass ) )
		$errors['user_pass'] = __('');

Problem solved. We can all go on with our lives and pray for the next version of WordPress to not screw this up.
FOLKS, WHAT I AM TRYING TO TELL YOU IS THAT THESE ARE FALSE ERROR MESSAGES SO YOU HAVE TO GET RID OF THE ERROR MESSAGES OR JUST IGNORE THEM. NOTHING ELSE IS WRONG HERE.
I hope this helps somebody out there.
Computerfriend

I find it hard to believe that WordPress programmers would leave a bug so obvious as the Text Widget Text Selection Bug in WordPress 2.3.1. No, I haven’t been able to select text inside a text widget by dragging across it using Internet Explorer 6 or 7 on a PC which is what the majority of the world uses, regardless of what prejudices some computer geeks have.

I’m very sorry I upgraded to this latest version of WordPress because I can’t go back now. This bug along with the “Login screen Error” bug has caused me to begin looking at switching to Joomla 1.5 because my clients are noticing these bugs and worrying about them. I taught my clients to log in and publish, now I have to apologize to them that things don’t work right after the latest upgrade.

It seems to me that before a release of WordPress is announced as stable, bugs like these need to be caught and fixed because they are so dad burned obvious.
If anyone out there is listening, please fix the text widget text selection bug and the login logout error message bug soon.

With all that being said, I have to appreciate all the wonderful things that WordPress authors have done right. It is a fabulous program and has enabled hundreds of thousands of people to self publish. What a great contribution to all of us. Thank you, programmers, authors, contributors!!

We have the same issue. We tried to fix it and it appeared unfixable and the error doesn’t show up in FireFox, only in Internet Explorer on our machines.
We went to a different web domain on a different server, installed a fresh copy of WordPress, installed the Widget plug-in and activated it. We followed the installation procedures exactly.
We get the same error with the Default WordPress Theme.
I’m wondering if the error is some minor glitch that is basically saying, “when the table cell that is holding the various widgets has too many widgets in it, it should expand to hold all the widgets.” And maybe the error is that the widgets kind of “hang outside” the table cell and don’t display correctly in the WordPress Control Panel –>Presentation–>Sidebar Widgets page.

If that is all it is, hey, we can live with that. Just don’t want to find out someday that all our widgets are toast because the error had something to do with a major malfunction.

Ok, it’s been two hours since I made the post above and even though it is past midnight, I have to say that the support messenger from WysiwygPro has gotten in touch with me, apologized for the delay in support and offered me a refund. He says that he has personally handled more than 200 support requests over the last day and it has overtaken him.
He also said that if there is a coding issue with WysiwygPro in relation to WordPress 2.0.5, it will be addressed ASAP.
I apologize for dissing this software and its creators. I’ve been very annoyed because I have a demanding research doctor client that is relying on me for training, and we couldn’t train train him on something that wasn’t working. WysiwygPro is actually a very useful program when coupled correctly with WordPress. It really makes the blogging experience very pleasant and allows untrained publishers to format pages easily. We just happened to purchase it right as the new version of WordPress came out, not realizing the ramifications. So, if you need this functionality (an excellent word processing toolbar) either use the slightly older version of WordPress or wait until they upgrade the plug-in to accommodate 2.0.5.

elspencer,
Here’s what I think is causing your problem: First, your header image is very wide. You should shrink it somewhat from left to right. (No matter what anyone else says, when we have had this problem of the right column sliding under the rest of the page, it is always because of one of two issues: either there is an image on the page that is too wide that is screwing up the rest of the page, OR there is a tag missing. I try to stay away from DIV tags whenever possible, but sometimes it is not possible.

That may sound ignorant to the long term PHP users in here, but div tags can often be replaced by other types of tags that don’t take over and screw up a page.

You can check out my blog at ‘www.artondisk.com’ and see that my right column works correctly.
Also, many times a right column will work fine for FireFox and not work right at all for Internet Explorer. It takes some patience to look through the code and content to figure out what is causing the right column to misbehave, but it can always be fixed and it is always just a coding or image size problem, in my experience. Good luck with that.

Hey, folks,
I’m guessing that you all are talking about the TinyMCE editor that is “automatic” in WordPress. First let me say that I love WordPress and our blog is a testament to some of the nicer things that WordPress has done for us.
HOWEVER, the implementation of TinyMCE is SO FLAWED that unless you are just posting one time for each article and not trying to do anything fancy, it is the screwiest most bug ridden awful thing that we’ve ever seen.

This is not a criticism of the programmers who make WordPress, it is a request for a MAJOR POWWOW (a huge meeting of the minds) to decide that this is the largest bottleneck and biggest hurdle that WordPress faces.

Why? Because it is one of the very worst features that WordPress has. Please go to my blog and look at this article– you may have to type it in because I don’t want people to think I am advertising, I am trying to help: ‘www.artondisk.com/blog/?p=137’.

That article could never be accomplished using TinyMCE because it ate the code up alive. I had to go into the Manage– Users account and turn off the rich text editor to create that article. Actually, I had to set up a back room version of WordPress so I could get some of the code from the TinyMCE editor, and some of the code from using the regular interface. I don’t know much HTML.

What this means most of all is that I can’t recommend WordPress to anyone I know because they just can’t handle it. I can figure it out, but it is painful and time consuming. So, there it is. This program needs a major overhaul when it comes to general word processing and html creation. TinyMCE generates new code that clogs up the system, molests normal code, eats up code that should be left alone, and at one point created things that changed font sizes, made 20 or 30 new tags that weren’t accurate, and just caused total mayhem. If I knew how to fix this I would do it in a heartbeat.

Someone on the development team, please help all users! It would be the best thing you ever did for this outstanding program. Thanks!!

What was your final issue? Since this is a permanent “troubleshooting” forum, your solution might help others soon.

Here’s a thought. Whenever we have “failure to open stream” fatal errors, it means that the permissions to “write” to a particular place or “read” a particular file or folder are not correct.
Use your CHMOD command and try giving more write permissions to particular files and/or folders that have “failure to open stream” issues. Sometimes my documentation says something like “CHMOD the folder to 766” when what actually works is CHMODding it to 777.

Anyway, that’s my two cents!

Computerfriend

I certainly understand both sides of this question. Blogs are hopefully all different, which keeps them interesting. My blog is geared towards my corporate graphics and photogaphy clients in Atlanta, so naturally, since that is what we sell and do for a living it would make no sense to feed them words. They all have fast connections to the Internet and probably 50% of them use Photoshop, so they know where we are coming from. We are very “left-brained” people and visuals are an escape from the right-brained accounting and business world we have to deal with on the other side.
So, go on, enjoy using just words. The English language is especially beautiful when used appropriately and creatively. Our posts will always use both words and pictures because we are artists by profession.

Ok, guys and girls, let’s not be down on graphics. Graphics are our lives over here at my blog, and they aren’t a distraction, they are the reason we have a blog. Text without graphics is like stew without any seasoning. Sure, some people over-do anything. And some aren’t very good at graphics and put bad ones up. But keep graphics and photos in perspective– they are there to enhance communication, and if a visual says what you need it to say, then by all means, place it right where it belongs. Just don’t pepper everything you do with silly distractions. Our graphics at https://www.artondisk.com are there to entertain and educate, as well as motivate us to become better writers and illustrators. So far people tell us that this is working. You too can use graphics effectively and often.

I’ll climb down off my dingy brown splintered wobbly creaking soapbox now. Did you see that visual? ??

Hey Cal,
You’re a genius!
OK, Alexify is working great! It works when the link opens in a new window on both Internet Explorer 6.x and on Firefox, on the PC. It is also working fine on our Macs which run Safari latest version and Panther OSX.

There is one way the thumbnail doesn’t work, and maybe this makes sense: If there is a “tool tip” or title the Alexa image won’t show up. Probably because it is replacing the tool tip in the first place. So, here’s an example:
<p><a href="https://www.blogger.com/" target="_blank">https://www.blogger.com/</a></p>
That works fine. However this one doesn’t show a thumbnail:
<p><a title="Go to Wilson's site" href="https://www.wilsonhurst.com/" target="_blank">https://www.wilsonhurst.com/</a></p>
That will not show the Alexa image. . . which is fine, since the image gives the viewer more information about the link in the first place and probably doesn’t need a callout.

You might also include in your instructions something similar to the following paragraph:

If your link to a domain website does not appear as a pop-up graphic but you are sure that other links on your page are working correctly with the Alexify plugin, this means that Alexa.com hasn’t taken a thumbnail screenshot of the site. You can remedy this yourself!
1. Go to https://www.alexa.com and click on the Traffic Rankings tab at the top of the screen.
2. Type in the URI of the website and click “Get Traffic Details.”
3. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click “Correct errors and omissions in this listing.”
4. In the middle of the next page, click “Update Thumbnail Image of “whateveryoursitenameis.com” .
A message will come up stating that Alexa will visit the site and make a thumbnail within the next 48 hours.
This really works. My site now has it’s own thumbnail . . .
Thanks for all your help, Cal. This is working just fine. I think that if it were to work for a sidebar, some piece of code would have to be placed in the sidebar.php file of a template– I’m just guessing. But if it doesn’t work, that’s fine. The main issues are solved. Thanks for your very prompt addressing of these issues. What a guy!
Richard

One more note about using your plugin, I changed my theme to something called Authurium Mix and also to the default WordPress theme and the results were the same– the thumbnails work in all cases except where the link is going to open in a new window. I tried it in a theme called Notebook and another one called “Sharepoint like” or something like that and it didn’t work at all in either of those. I think those themes are probably missing some elements or have disabled some elements that were present in the main default WordPress theme.
Whatever, I just thought you might like to know. So Jakarta theme isn’t the issue, it’s probably just one line of code or a tag somewhere that is preventing this from working just right.

Richard