landrew

Thanks, Alin, I was able to recover the site. But it appears that JetPack is incompatible, as well as other plug-ins, themes, widgets, and also WP 6.2 itself may pose problems. I need a total makeover! And a new host, IONOS is charging an arm and a leg and THEN nickle and diming to death. But thanks for the suggestion! Looking for a new developer and host.

I am going to mark this resolved, even though it actually isn’t. After going “down the rabbit hole” two days in a row and being closed out of my site, receiving a string of bizarre error messages I cannot begin to address, and being admonished by my host I shouldn’t have messed with anything, I am concluding that php 7.4 is the best I can do and that I need to change to another host or get developer who can either deal with 7.4, or can successfully update me to the current version and sort out any resultant issues. Thanks for all of your help. If I could delete this entire thread I would, but perhaps it might serve as a precautionary tale to others.

Thanks for trying to help!

I’m marking this resolved, although not at all confident the issue won’t recur. I cannot seem to update my php to anything above 7.4, and it seems my theme as well as multiple plug-ins also can crash the site. And possibly also WP 6.2 incompatibilities are playing a part here. Giving up with tinkering, just digs me in further. Thanks anyway!

Thanks again, @bcworkz for these clear and complete suggestions.

I have attempted to follow them to the letter (albeit in reverse order because I didn’t know where to find that wp-config.php file initially) and have again created a disaster.

First, I deactivated all plug-ins using bulk action.

Next, I activated 2021. It looked like my themes were thereby de-activated. The site looked pretty OK, albeit with obvious changed theme. I was still able to access my dashboard.

Next, I figured out how to update to PHP 8.1 on IONOS. I think the site still worked, but with altered theme. I was able to get into my dashboard, and then restored the theme. This must have been a fatal mistake.

First I got something about a critical error and to check my admin email inbox for instructions. I couldn’t locate such an inbox on my dashboard. (should there be one?) I was still able to access the dashboard.

When I attempted to re-revert the theme , I got another error message, which may have been this one:

 

Fatal error: Uncaught ArgumentCountError: Too few arguments to function

WP_Widget::__construct(), O passed in /homepages/14/d230231817/htdocs/blogOLD/wp-includes/class-wp-widget-factory.php on line 62 and at least 2 expected in /homepages/14/d230231817/htdocs/blogOLD/wp-includes/class-wp-widget.php:163Stack trace: #0 /homepages/14/d230231817/htdocs/blogOLD/wp-includes/class-wp-widget-factory.php(62): WP_Widget->_ construct() #1

/homepages/14/d230231817/htdocs/blogOLD/wp-includes/widgets.php(115):

WP Widget _Factory->register('adsWidget') #2 /homepages/14/d230231817/htdocs/blogOLD/wp-

content/themes/element/lib/custom_widgets.php(275): register_widget('adsWidget') #3 /homepages/14/230231817/htdocs/blogOLD/wp-includes/class-wp-hook.php(308): adsWidgetInit(") #4 /homepages/14/d230231817/htdocs/bloqOLD/w-includes/class-wo-hook.php(332): WP_Hook->apply_filters(NULL, Array) #5

/homepages/14/d230231817/htdocs/blogOLD/w-includes/plugin.php(517):WP_Hook-

>do_action(Array) #6 /homepages/14/d230231817/htdocs/blogOLD/wp-includes/widgets.php (1854): do_action('widgets_init') #7

/homepages/14/d230231817/htdocs/bloqOLD/w-includes/class-w-hook.oho(308):

wp_widgets_init("') #8 /homepages/14/d230231817/htdocs/blogOLD/wp-includes/class-wp-hook.php (332): WP Hook->apply_filters (NULL, Array) #9

/homepages/14/d230231817/htdocs/blogOLD/wp-includes/plugin.php(517):WP_Hook-

?do_action(Array) #10 /homepages/14/d230231817/htdocs/blogOLD/wo-settings.php(623): do _action('init') #11 /homepages/14/d230231817/htdocs/blogOLD/w-config.ohp(90): require once('/homepages/14/d.') #12 /homepages/14/230231817/htdocs/bloqOLD/w-load.php(50): require once('/homepages/14/d..') #13

/homepages/14/230231817/htdocs/blogOLD/wp-admin/admin.php(34):

require once('/homepages/14/d.') #14 /homepages/14/d230231817/htdocs/blogOLD/w-admin/themes.php(10): require once('/homepages/14/d..') #15 {main? thrown in homepages/14/d230231817/htdocs/blogOLD/w-includes/class-wp-widget.phponline

163

So I expect this means some widget/ the theme is the problem. However, now when I try to access the dashboard to do anything at all, I’m getting more error messages and am denied access.

I downdated to 8.0 at my host. Same result.

I downdated back to 7.4. Same result.

I THEN tried your first suggestion (maybe this was the problem, should have done this first but didn’t know where to begin) and started getting a series of parse errors.

Is there a way to undo what I have done and do it in your original order? It was rather daunting to try programming myself, but I THINK I did it correctly, changing just the one word in line 81 from true to false without changing spacing or anything and adding a new 82 (I did justify it with 81). That didn’t help, so I removed the new 82. The resulting parse errors were pretty simple, except for the last one which was talking about an ‘unexpected token “(“, expecting “:” on line 86’ however, there were several “(” s on line 86 which looks like this (beginning with line 85:)

/** Absolute path to the WordPress directory. */
if ( ! defined( ‘ABSPATH’ ) )
define(‘ABSPATH’, dirname(FILE) . ‘/’);

I tried sequentially replacing each of the (s with : and nothing helped.

So now, I am again stuck and unable to access my dashboard to do anything at all.

IONOS does provide a sample wp-config.php file which looks a little different from mine starting with the equivalent to line 81: (actually it is line 86 so something must be different before this.)

define( ‘WP_DEBUG’, false );

/* Add any custom values between this line and the “stop editing” line. */

/* That’s all, stop editing! Happy publishing. */

/** Absolute path to the WordPress directory. */
if ( ! defined( ‘ABSPATH’ ) ) {
define( ‘ABSPATH’, DIR . ‘/’ ); }

/** Sets up WordPress vars and included files. */
require_once ABSPATH . ‘wp-settings.php’;

But even cutting and pasting the equivalent of line 86 from the sample to MY wp-config.php did not resolve the issue. I’ve waited several hours and it is not correcting.

I’m afraid to do anything else considering my track record.

I do not see any way to just revert the entire wp-config.php file back as it was when the site was functioning (albeit with PHP 7.4) earlier today.

Do I need to throw myself to the mercy of IONOS?

I apologize for the length of this. It is amazing if you have made it all the way to the end in an attempt to help me. Thank you so incredibly much for your patience and willingness to try.

Thanks again, @bcworkz, very helpful.

I am not with 7.4 (actually, it seems to be 7.3) by choice. In fact, I want to be at 8.1 or higher, as my host is charging “support” to maintain these older versions. However, when they changed it to 8.1 for me, this caused the first crash. Should I ask them to change it back to 8.1 now that the update has completed? Or can I change it myself? When I look at my dashboard, it only seems to give me choices up to 7.3. But this may be resulting from compatibility with existing plug-ins. I’m slightly reluctant to start deactivating plugins because doing that was at least temporally related to the crash, even though as you surmised it might be coincidental.

You suggested that I should “In wp-config.php, define WP_DEBUG as?true?so you will immediately be advised of any code issues.” Could you please advise me as to how to access wp-config.php?

Basically, I think I am in way over my head here. And I need a more supportive host than IONOS!

Thanks again for being so patient with a pretty clueless user.

Very odd that the helpful suggestions offered by others seem to have disappeared! At any rate, the problem resolved itself at almost the exact same time I received notice that WP had updated to 6.2…. so I am wondering whether somehow the changeover caused all of this angst.

At any rate, my site is back up and running.
THANKS to this community for being so responsive!

Thank you, bcworkz (are you in BC? I’m on VI).

I will use 2021 for debugging, if I ever dare to use HealthCheck again for troubleshooting (I realize you love it).

My site came back up today WHILE I was speaking with my host, concomitant with a message from WP.org that I had been updated to 6.2 (although I thought I had already seen that at the bottom of my screen prior to the crash). This seems mighty coincidental, and I notice lots of other new HELP messages surrounding this update.

I still seem only able to access anything beyond PHP 7.3, which means I will incur extra support charges at IONOS, which wants me to use 8.0 or higher.

Is this likely to be a permanent issue (WP 6.2 not compatible with PHP 8.0), or is it something that I should just wait for and hope that I do not need the extra support? Can you possibly recommend a host that will support PHP 7.4 without additional charges? This site is a labor of love, NOT profit.

Thanks so much to both of you for these excellent suggestions.

I will try to find the theme’s dedicated support channel if I continue to maintain this site. I assume twenty* means that either 22 or 23 are appropriate default channels, which I had set while deleting all priors.

There were lots of issues with WordPress Complete, which I deactivated since I already had a backup on Updraft Vault.

Meanwhile, I seem to have lost the site entirely by attempting to temporarily shut down Jetpack to troubleshoot this issue.

I don’t even know where or how to begin to recover it.

Totally bummed out today.

Thanks, ayeshaumar for all your suggestions.

I did #1 immediately. No change. Site keeps going to /default

I can’t do #2 because I don’t know what my DNS settings were BEFORE doing this. Trying to find out what they are now, but not sure that alone will help me.

I can’t do #3 or #4, because my entire site disappeared from WordPress, so I have no dashboard from which to reactivate or inactivate. I tried getting it directly from Jetpack, but because the site was externally hosted they apparently will not deal with me.

I can’t access Jetpack support because I did not have the paid version, just the one that was offered by WordPress.

I did find another poster who says the same thing happened to her. So, it DOES appear that this can happen with JetPack.

Fortunately, I had backed up earlier on UpdraftVault. Waiting to hear from them whether this might salvage the situation.

Thanks again.

I have a similar problem although the font doesn’t change every time I log in. Without doing anything to the site, a key character (an ampersand) which is the reason I selected the template (Element) has changed from something elegant to something silly. Using the same computer (MacAir) and OS as the one on which the site was built. I haven’t messed with anything lately. Is there a way to find out what happened, and to substitute back in the original font?