DWPenner

Hi!
I’ve been having problems upgrading to 4.5.3 The first of my sites gets stuck on “unpacking the update” No problem… I still have a working site. The second site I tried got further in, then froze. The maintenance page is up and the site won’t start… not even after deleting that maintenance file via FTP. I get Fatal errors… okay fine. I have a migraine, but I’ll update manually… well of course not being able to get into admin, I can’t disable the plug ins. So I go to follow the instructions on how to disable them using FTP… remember the migraine. I didn’t want to get into the whole PHP thing. Now following the instructions I get to one that has me rather stymied…

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How to deactivate all plugins when not able to access the administrative menus?

Sometimes it may be necessary to deactivate all plugins, but you can’t access the administrative menus to do so. One of two methods are available to deactivate all plugins.

Use phpMyAdmin to deactivate all plugins.

In the table wp_options, under the option_name column (field) find the active_plugins row
Change the option_value field to: a:0:{}

Or reset your plugins folder via FTP or the file manager provided in your host’s control panel. This method preserves plugin options but requires plugins be manually reactivated.

Via FTP or your host’s file manager, navigate to the wp-contents folder (directory)
Via FTP or your host’s file manager, rename the folder “plugins” to “plugins.hold”

Login to your WordPress administration plugins page (/wp-admin/plugins.php) – this will disable any plugin that is “missing”.

Via FTP or your host’s file manager, rename “plugins.hold” back to “plugins”

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Can you spot the problem? “Login to your WordPress administration plugins page…”
If I could do that, I wouldn’t need to be trying to do it via FTP. -sigh-

I haven’t had problems with other pages I have on the host I use updating themselves nor problems with doing auto updates. I just got a series of emails yesterday telling me that the sites were successfully updated.

What can I do… besides sleep on it or risk going through the manual upgrade without disabling the plug ins?

Thanks. (Sorry if I might sound cranky.)

Hi Petra,
I can understand the purpose of the grey rectangles. I can work around that doing previews. The other problem I am having, now that I am trying to include Getty images now, is that while you can alter the size of the image with the “handles” after clicking on the grey rectangle, I can’t see any way to control text flow around an image. Currently I want to flow the text to the right of an image I am wanting to add into my post. I am very used to using text wrap in things I post and publish. Not being able to do that with Getty images is a pain.
Thanks!
Darrell

I love the image selection from Getty. I don’t mind the Getty Images TOS, but when editing a post visually, the image just shows as a grey rectangle. It shows up okay in the preview, but there is no way to do the little things like wrap text to one side, properly change size of the image, etc. Zementa is a great tool, but really is a bit broken with regards to how Getty Images are implemented.

The problem of course only shows up in post editor. But my site is: https://wall.dwpenner.ca/

Hi! As a postscript:
I just updated to the Version 3.03.1 of the Shiword Theme by TwiBeers Crew.

All worked smoothly. All seems to be working in order on The Gnome’s Garden.

Sorry for the delay in getting back here. It took until now to do the update as I have been a bit busy in case I had problems with updates.

Thanks everyone!

Is it possible/would it help to alter the topic for the topic to reflect that the issue was with the Theme Shiword not being quite compatible yet?
(I might not be able to respond for a while… I was just struck with a blinding migraine and can barely read to write this.)

That was why I came back — in case there were a few others in my situation — when the help the people here gave me led me to go back to TwoBeers and check their Forum… where I found that posting. It was made sometime yesterday not long before I posted it here.

The hat… vintage 1978 or so. Bought in Banff Alberta. It’s corduroy and got it’s custom look partly by ending up on the floor of the back seat of my ’70 Maverick or ’72 Meteor for a Season, then ignored for a decade… Can’t beat a beat up vintage hat. LOL It’s sincere and since I grew up my first 19 years in Calgary Alberta, I’m entitled.

Anyhow that’s too much off topic.

Glad I could help someone. Feel free to drop by my blog mentioned in the thread.

PS I realized in retrospect that when I went to update, on the tool bar it read that there were 2 items to update. When I got to updates I looked and saw the two themes and checked them off… I didn’t note that in the meantime the “2” had changed to “3” and WordPress 3.4 had been added to the list… WordPress 3.4 doesn’t have to be checked… I realized this because when I looked at another of my boards to compare I noted how the numbers changed from 2 to 3 and how there wasn’t a check box for WordPress 3.4… Maybe that should be changed? It would have caused me pause… pause to back-up first or suspect this is what the issue was. I wouldn’t have necessarily known how to fix it and still would have had to ask for help… but it would have helped with the troubleshooting.

Thanks once again!

Sincerely,
Darrell

Okay, Option 2 worked.

Thank you to each of you:

esmi
Ipstenu
bcworkz

Each of you contributed in your own way.

Right now it is showing I only have to update TwentyTen. Ie TwentyEleven is up to date and I am running WP3.4

I think I’ll re-backup before updating TwentyTen LOL. I still have 5 or 6 boards to update. All but one are running TwentyEleven though. Perhaps one is on TwentyTen, but I think I changed that… I’ll double check that one other one with a different theme… I don’t know if I still run any on Suffusion. I used to use that alot. However Forewarned is Forearmed even or someone who has worked around computers for.. 2012 – 1972? Gulp…. 40 of my 54 years! erk!

Hi bcworkz, well, the problem is likely with Shiword. The problem is not being able to switch to TwentyEleven even by disabling Shiword at the moment… at least not with the help given me here… so far. (Not that I haven’t had much help. HOWEVER Shiword just came out with something: (caveat — I haven’t tried it yet.)

Shiword + WP 3.4 = custom_background error

WordPress just relesed its last update 3.4, which is great, with a lot of new amazing features and bla bla bla….

The WP team also cleaned the code, changing the beaviour of some existing functions, like add_theme_support( ‘custom-background’)… the result is that Shiword will generate a fatal error!

So, first of all, if you’re using Shiword, DON’T UPGRADE YOUR SITE TO V3.4 before making one of the following fixes!!!

fix #1:

go in theme options page, under “other” tab, and deselect the ‘custom background’ checkbox! Easy uh??

fix #2

Open shiword/lib/admin.php file and find the line

add_theme_support( ‘custom-background’, array( ‘callback’ => $header_callback ) );

(line 515 for shiword 3.02, and 395 for shiword 3.03)

and delete the whole line

fix #3:

wait for Shiword 3.03.1 that will fix the problem

Note: Shiword 3.03 is on the way to be published, but it doesn’t fix this issue

…Hmmm fix #3 seems to contradict itself…. ahhh 3.03.1!

They do try to keep current. But I think they are just after the cusp of WP development instead of right on it. LOL Sort of like me…

Since I can’t get the Back end to work, I think I am stuck with option #2.

I shall do that and return shortly. (I hope my block quote works… I can’t find a preview on this forum…)

Should index.php in the themes directory really just say

`
<?php
// Silence is golden.
?>
`

Edit….
I just checked another WP Blog of mine for comparison and see that it’s index.php is identical. Sorry getting antsy and trying to figure out a next step in trouble shooting…Totally removing other Themes… reverting to an earlier version of WP? I’d rather not… Since the Front end is working… I figure the database is intact… so the issue is in the files that haven’t been replaced. (Also since I can access the backdoor of my other WP sites it isn’t a weirdness of my personal computer.) So it is in the files that were not replaced in the manual update…

I have replaced everything except wp-content
In wp-content I have replaced twentyeleven
I have run it with shiword renamed to shiword-old and plugins renamed to plugins.hold

I still could replace twentyten and I could replace shiword.

I have a backup from a while ago of the database and the whole site. It is not extremely active so I do not back it up frequently. IE I have made one message yesterday and the message before was mid-May.

I know it must seem like I am not following your instructions – because I am not coming back with the results you are expecting – but I have been involved with computer programming, computer science, electronic engineering, automation and robotics, and computer maintenance long enough to understand the importance of following steps…

LOL

Apologies. I should have mentioned “FTP” when I said:

“I have Downloaded a fresh copy of 3.4 and uploaded it to my site with the exception of the wp-content folder.”

What I had done was: I unzipped it removed the wp-content folder as Esmi instructed and then used FTP to upload it… Again, I am sorry I did not use the term FTP.

I followed uploading it via FTP by running wp-admin/upgrade.php

I was following step-by-step the instructions that Esmi gave me.

Try:
– switching to the Twenty Eleven theme by renaming your current theme’s folder inside wp-content/themes and adding “-old” to the end of the folder name using FTP or whatever file management application your host provides.

– resetting the plugins folder by FTP or phpMyAdmin.

– re-uploading all files & folders – except the wp-content folder – from a fresh download of WordPress.

– running the upgrade manually via wp-admin/upgrade.php

I was told that when I renamed Shiword to Shiword-old WP would default to TwentyEleven? How should I pick another theme? I find that wishing doesn’t do the trick. I only have four themes now. One is a duplicate of TwentyEleven called “broketwentyeleven” then there is shiword; twentyeleven; and twentyten. I renamed shiword to shiword-old. There is a file called index.php as well… however nobody said anything about editing it. Should someone have told me to edit it?

I don’t know what I should do if following the instructions step-by-step isn’t appropriate. Right now I am at a loss and mentally exhausted. You may go to my site and see that it is working with that theme if you don’t believe me that the theme is working with 3.4 https://gnomestead.com/

No, I updated to 3.4 — I believe, I can’t access “About” to confirm, but I am 95% certain I updated WP to 3.4 in the last short while — It was running just fine. (actually make that 99.5% as WP told me that I didn’t have to update…)

Today, with WP running just fine, I was informed to update two items — TwentyTen and TwentyEleven — during the update of those two themes the backside broke.

The site is still working just fine with Shiword.

If I disable Shiword, the frontside breaks and displays a white screen. If I reenable Shiword the site comes back.

I have Downloaded a fresh copy of TwentyEleven and disabled the existing copy of TwentyEleven and that copy does not help.

I have used FTP to disable the plugins by renaming the Plugins folder to Plugins.hold as recommended by the Troubleshooting and here in this thread.

I have Downloaded a fresh copy of 3.4 and uploaded it to my site with the exception of the wp-content folder.

I manually upgraded to 3.4 by going to wp-admin/upgrade.php and my WP told e that there was no need to upgrade. I assume this means that the board was already running 3.4. Upon accepting this announcment I was directed to that blank white screen.

I tried atain with the Plugins directory reenabled. Still the blank white screen.

I reenabled the Shiword theme and, the board was back and running… but no backside.

The only change I made was to let WP 3.4 update TwentyTen and TwentyEleven

I could try and download a new copy of Shiword… but that seems to be working…. I could try download each of the plugins…

I am at a loss… I’m no developer… just a very old school programmer !FLAG DB

Did the error message:

Fatal error: Cannot redeclare class Custom_Background in /homepages/2/#########/htdocs/##########/gnomestead/wp-admin/custom-background.php on line 16

Mean anything? (I replaced part of the address with hashmarks The first set refer to my actual site and the second to the actual location on the site. I would rather obscure that from hackers. But can provide them…)

Oh, and if I revert the Shiword filename back, the board comes back to normal.