{"id":1551,"date":"2012-02-26T14:15:12","date_gmt":"2012-02-26T20:15:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wiredprairie.us\/blog\/?p=1551"},"modified":"2012-02-26T14:15:13","modified_gmt":"2012-02-26T20:15:13","slug":"blank-dashboard-and-administration-screens-on-wordpress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wiredprairie.us\/blog\/index.php\/archives\/1551","title":{"rendered":"Blank Dashboard and Administration Screens on WordPress"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"image\"<\/p>\n

Apparently, there are a number of potential causes of a blank or empty screen when trying to access the Dashboard or administration screens of a self installed version of WordPress. <\/p>\n

Before doing anything to your installation, I\u2019d strongly suggest making a complete backup of your Database and installation folders. If your web host offers a handy way to do that, take advantage of it. There are plenty of walk-throughs on the Internet available with explanations of how to manually perform a backup. Don\u2019t skip this step.<\/p>\n

The most common apparently is a bad or incompatible plug-in. To test that theory, using an FTP application, just rename the plug-in folder that\u2019s located in the wp-content folder. <\/p>\n

\"image\"<\/p>\n

Navigate to the root of your WordPress installation, then the wp-content<\/strong> folder. Rename the folder currently named plugins<\/strong> to something like plugins-test<\/strong>. This temporarily disables the plug-ins. Don\u2019t worry, the settings for the plugins aren\u2019t stored here.<\/p>\n

Try again to navigate to the Dashboard.<\/p>\n

Some suggest that a bad theme can also cause this problem. Assuming you haven\u2019t directly modified the original copies of the themes of WordPress that are included with the default installation, twentyeleven<\/strong> and twentyten<\/strong>, rename the folder of your current theme (just add \u201c-test\u201d to the end again for example). This causes WordPress to revert to the default (which currently is twentyeleven). <\/p>\n

Try again to navigate to the Dashboard.<\/p>\n

Another option is to delete several of the folders of your installation and copy in the current versions. (Follow this<\/a> if you\u2019d like to try it). While fun to do, it didn\u2019t help with my problem.<\/p>\n

In my case, and the reason I\u2019m posting this, is that it wasn\u2019t any of those things. Somehow, the configuration file located in the root of the WordPress installation was no longer compatible with the current version of WordPress. I have no idea how this happened.<\/p>\n

I made a copy of the original file wp-config.php <\/strong>(by copying it locally to my computer). If you just make a backup on your web site host, don\u2019t give it an extension that makes it downloadable as it contains the keys to your installation<\/strong>. \"Smile\"<\/p>\n

Open the copy of the wp-config.php <\/strong>file <\/strong>that you\u2019ve made locally on your computer. By doing that, it will be much easier to grab the values from there that you\u2019ll need shortly.<\/p>\n

Now, as soon as you perform the next step, your web site will be unavailable for  a few moments while you get things running again. It\u2019s up to you if you want to do something special during this time (you could make a backup of index.php for example and edit the file to say that your site is undergoing a bit of maintenance).<\/p>\n

I chose not to as I knew that it would take about 30 seconds to create a new configuration file.<\/p>\n

Delete the file, wp-config.php from the root installation directory. Your web site is now officially down.<\/p>\n

Now, using your browser navigate to the root folder of your WordPress installation and append wp-admin\/install.php<\/strong> to the URL. It might look something like this:<\/p>\n

www.example.com\/blog\/wp-admin\/install.php<\/a> <\/p>\n

\u201cblog\u201d represents the root of the WordPress installation in the example above.<\/p>\n

WordPress notices that your installation is missing a configuration file. Go ahead and walk through the few steps. Refer to the original wp-config.php<\/strong> file that you opened locally to provide answers to its questions. Pay attention to the table prefix question in particular and make sure that it matches with what you were using before. Look for a line that looks like this in the configuration file:<\/p>\n

$table_prefix  = ‘wp_’; <\/strong><\/p>\n

The value in single quotes (wp_ in the example above) represents the prefix for the database tables that were created and being used by your WordPress installation. If you\u2019re using a shared database, it\u2019s very<\/strong> likely that you didn\u2019t use the default of wp_. If you don\u2019t match these up, you\u2019ll end up with a completely fresh installation of WordPress, which isn\u2019t likely what you want. (Don\u2019t worry, if that happens, delete the config file and start over and this time, be sure to enter the correct prefix).<\/p>\n

The other questions it asks should all have equivalents in the wp-config.php <\/strong>file you\u2019ve got opened locally. <\/p>\n

\"image\"<\/p>\n

When it\u2019s done, try logging in again. As soon as I completed the steps above, the WordPress Dashboard became available again. I renamed the plugin folder (removed the \u201c-test\u201d I\u2019d added) and renamed my theme folder (again, by removing the \u201c-test\u201d I\u2019d added). I went to the Plugins to re-activate each of them (as apparently, they became deactivated by default). <\/p>\n

I verified the web site again was working and behaving as expected, and went on my regularly scheduled day. Hours lost: 3. \"Sad<\/p>\n

Hopefully this will help someone else.<\/strong><\/p>\n

(FYI, the new configuration file that was generated by the \u201cfresh install\u201d was syntactically and structurally different from the original. I don\u2019t know why this was the case or when it happened, but I was happy to get things working again).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Apparently, there are a number of potential causes of a blank or empty screen when trying to access the Dashboard or administration screens of a self installed version of WordPress. Before doing anything to your installation, I\u2019d strongly suggest making a complete backup of your Database and installation folders. If your web host offers a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[8],"tags":[73],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pd5QIe-p1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1541,"url":"https:\/\/www.wiredprairie.us\/blog\/index.php\/archives\/1541","url_meta":{"origin":1551,"position":0},"title":"Adobe Lightroom and exporting to subfolders","date":"February 8, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"For some reason, versions 1 \u2013 3 of Adobe Lightroom cannot export images in a way that mirrors the original structure of your photo library. I can\u2019t offer a reason why other than it was missed by the development and design teams. There\u2019s been enough interest in it apparently that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Photography"","img":{"alt_text":"image","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.wiredprairie.us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/image2.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1676,"url":"https:\/\/www.wiredprairie.us\/blog\/index.php\/archives\/1676","url_meta":{"origin":1551,"position":1},"title":"Do your support organization a favor: create better error messages!","date":"June 5, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"From Adobe Illustrator CS6: While it\u2019s possible that Adobe has a codified error database for \u201cCANT\u201d \u2026 it would seem more likely that someone will need to search through source code to find out what operation cannot complete. (To fix the above problem, I reset the settings for Illustrator by\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Coding"","img":{"alt_text":"SNAGHTML11d999cc[4]","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.wiredprairie.us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/SNAGHTML11d999cc4_thumb.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":78,"url":"https:\/\/www.wiredprairie.us\/blog\/index.php\/archives\/78","url_meta":{"origin":1551,"position":2},"title":"How to use Vista’s Search Folders (You should try them!)","date":"April 7, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"If you aren't using Vista's Search Folders yet, you should! (At least try them!). Here's how to create one. I'll use PSD files in this example. PSD files are files created by Photoshop. But you can substitute any file type as you follow along. First, start Windows Search: Windows Start\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.wiredprairie.us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/04\/image-thumb9.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":35,"url":"https:\/\/www.wiredprairie.us\/blog\/index.php\/archives\/35","url_meta":{"origin":1551,"position":3},"title":"SMTP on Windows with WordPress","date":"April 5, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"My blog is hosted on a shared Windows web server running IIS. My web host does not support Wordpress' ability to send e-mails as notifications without a modification. This problem occurs in Wordpress 2.3, and Wordpress 2.5, but may occur in other versions. Thankfully, there's a simple fix without requiring\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Software"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1397,"url":"https:\/\/www.wiredprairie.us\/blog\/index.php\/archives\/1397","url_meta":{"origin":1551,"position":4},"title":"A post not related to Nest thermostat hardware….","date":"January 3, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"I typed in https:\/\/www.nest.com this evening and instead of the nice looking Nest.com web site, I got this: What?! I hadn\u2019t actually noticed that I\u2019d typed https at first, so I was a bit baffled for a moment. After closer investigation, Nest doesn\u2019t have HTTPS apparently for their marketing\/support web\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Coding"","img":{"alt_text":"SNAGHTML69c9dbf8","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.wiredprairie.us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/SNAGHTML69c9dbf8_thumb.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":331,"url":"https:\/\/www.wiredprairie.us\/blog\/index.php\/archives\/331","url_meta":{"origin":1551,"position":5},"title":"Velocity — a rockin’ distributed in memory cache for ASP.NET","date":"June 3, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Velocity, the code-name for a new in-memory distributed caching system for ASP.NET was released as a Community Tech Preview today. What is it? It's described in the documentation: Microsoft project code named \"Velocity\" provides a highly scalable in-memory application cache for all kinds of data. By using cache, your application\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Coding"","img":{"alt_text":"image","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.wiredprairie.us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/06\/image-thumb.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wiredprairie.us\/blog\/index.php\/wpjson\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1551"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wiredprairie.us\/blog\/index.php\/wpjson\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wiredprairie.us\/blog\/index.php\/wpjson\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wiredprairie.us\/blog\/index.php\/wpjson\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wiredprairie.us\/blog\/index.php\/wpjson\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1551"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.wiredprairie.us\/blog\/index.php\/wpjson\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1551\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1552,"href":"https:\/\/www.wiredprairie.us\/blog\/index.php\/wpjson\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1551\/revisions\/1552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wiredprairie.us\/blog\/index.php\/wpjson\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wiredprairie.us\/blog\/index.php\/wpjson\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wiredprairie.us\/blog\/index.php\/wpjson\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}