Possible to change Wordpress Theme without wp-admin?

**seobrien** · Mar 25, 2009 16:28

I can't get into my wordpress admin. I think I corrupted a theme and now I only get blank pages for both the blog and the admin.

Is it possible to change themes from something else? PHPMyAdmin?

Is there another possible cause?

Thanks!

Update. functions.php in the theme was different. Upon replacing that, I can get into the admin but the site is still blank. All themes EXCEPT default result in blank pages:

Code:

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" dir="ltr" lang="en-US">
<head profile="http://gmpg.org/xfn/11">

<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="

Default theme, which I've enabled so you can see it, returns the theme files but no content.

What's going on now??

**Dan Grossman** · Mar 25, 2009 16:51

The theme is just a set of PHP files, you can download them, edit and reupload to your site

They're all in the /wp-content/themes/themename/ folder relative to the location you installed WordPress

You can probably identify the exact file and line causing the pages to be blank (likely a PHP fatal error) by looking at the "error_log" file... you can probably find it somewhere in your host's control panel under logs or stats

**seobrien** · Mar 25, 2009 16:58

Thanks Dan, direction that I was unaware of.

That said, I'm not seeing any indication of a specific file causing a problem:

[Wed Mar 25 18:47:45 2009] [error] [client 71.135.69.48] SoftException in Application.cpp:544: Directory "/home2/rareexc/public_html/seobrien/wp-content/plugins" is writeable by group, referer: http://www.seobrien.com/wp-admin/the...activated=true
[Wed Mar 25 18:43:07 2009] [error] [client 71.135.69.48] SoftException in Application.cpp:544: Directory "/home2/rareexc/public_html/seobrien/wp-content/plugins" is writeable by group, referer: http://www.seobrien.com/wp-admin/pos...=edit&post=534
[Wed Mar 25 18:42:55 2009] [error] [client 71.135.69.48] SoftException in Application.cpp:544: Directory "/home2/rareexc/public_html/seobrien/wp-content/plugins" is writeable by group, referer: http://www.seobrien.com/wp-admin/edit.php
[Wed Mar 25 18:41:46 2009] [error] [client 71.135.69.48] SoftException in Application.cpp:544: Directory "/home2/rareexc/public_html/seobrien/wp-content/plugins" is writeable by group, referer: http://www.seobrien.com/wp-admin/the...activated=true
[Wed Mar 25 18:41:13 2009] [error] [client 71.135.69.48] SoftException in Application.cpp:544: Directory "/home2/rareexc/public_html/seobrien/wp-content/plugins" is writeable by group, referer: http://www.seobrien.com/wp-admin/the...activated=true
[Wed Mar 25 18:39:51 2009] [error] [client 71.135.69.48] SoftException in Application.cpp:544: Directory "/home2/rareexc/public_html/seobrien/wp-content/plugins" is writeable by group, referer: http://www.seobrien.com/wp-admin/themes.php
[Wed Mar 25 18:39:44 2009] [error] [client 71.135.69.48] SoftException in Application.cpp:544: Directory "/home2/rareexc/public_html/seobrien/wp-content/plugins" is writeable by group, referer: http://www.seobrien.com/wp-admin/theme-editor.php
[Wed Mar 25 18:39:29 2009] [error] [client 71.135.69.48] SoftException in Application.cpp:544: Directory "/home2/rareexc/public_html/seobrien/wp-content/plugins" is writeable by group, referer: http://www.seobrien.com/wp-admin/themes.php
[Wed Mar 25 18:39:05 2009] [error] [client 71.135.69.48] SoftException in Application.cpp:544: Directory "/home2/rareexc/public_html/seobrien/wp-content/plugins" is writeable by group, referer: http://www.seobrien.com/wp-admin/plugins.php
[Wed Mar 25 18:38:50 2009] [error] [client 71.135.69.48] SoftException in Application.cpp:544: Directory "/home2/rareexc/public_html/seobrien/wp-content/plugins" is writeable by group, referer: http://www.seobrien.com/wp-admin/
[Wed Mar 25 17:53:04 2009] [error] [client 71.135.69.48] SoftException in Application.cpp:544: Directory "/home2/rareexc/public_html/seobrien/wp-content/plugins" is writeable by group, referer: http://www.seobrien.com/wp-admin/the...ional+Business
[Wed Mar 25 17:52:58 2009] [error] [client 71.135.69.48] SoftException in Application.cpp:544: Directory "/home2/rareexc/public_html/seobrien/wp-content/plugins" is writeable by group, referer: http://www.seobrien.com/wp-admin/theme-editor.php
[Wed Mar 25 17:52:52 2009] [error] [client 71.135.69.48] SoftException in Application.cpp:544: Directory "/home2/rareexc/public_html/seobrien/wp-content/plugins" is writeable by group, referer: http://www.seobrien.com/wp-admin/themes.php
[Wed Mar 25 17:52:33 2009] [error] [client 71.135.69.48] SoftException in Application.cpp:544: Directory "/home2/rareexc/public_html/seobrien/wp-content/plugins" is writeable by group, referer: http://www.seobrien.com/wp-admin/plugins.php
[Wed Mar 25 17:52:27 2009] [error] [client 71.135.69.48] SoftException in Application.cpp:544: Directory "/home2/rareexc/public_html/seobrien/wp-content/plugins" is writeable by group, referer: http://www.seobrien.com/wp-admin/upd...nce=a0ef9872c5
[Wed Mar 25 17:52:22 2009] [error] [client 71.135.69.48] SoftException in Application.cpp:544: Directory "/home2/rareexc/public_html/seobrien/wp-content/plugins" is writeable by group, referer: http://www.seobrien.com/wp-admin/upd...nce=c2e786e117
[Wed Mar 25 17:52:10 2009] [error] [client 71.135.69.48] SoftException in Application.cpp:544: Directory "/home2/rareexc/public_html/seobrien/wp-content/plugins" is writeable by group, referer: http://www.seobrien.com/wp-admin/plugins.php
[Wed Mar 25 17:52:04 2009] [error] [client 71.135.69.48] SoftException in Application.cpp:544: Directory "/home2/rareexc/public_html/seobrien/wp-content/plugins" is writeable by group, referer: http://www.seobrien.com/wp-admin/upd...nce=ca8c328d32
[Wed Mar 25 17:51:57 2009] [error] [client 71.135.69.48] SoftException in Application.cpp:544: Directory "/home2/rareexc/public_html/seobrien/wp-content/plugins" is writeable by group, referer: http://www.seobrien.com/wp-admin/upd...nce=a75ba919e8
[Wed Mar 25 17:51:41 2009] [error] [client 71.135.69.48] SoftException in Application.cpp:544: Directory "/home2/rareexc/public_html/seobrien/wp-content/plugins" is writeable by group, referer: http://www.seobrien.com/wp-admin/plugins.php
[Wed Mar 25 17:50:57 2009] [error] [client 71.135.69.48] SoftException in Application.cpp:544: Directory "/home2/rareexc/public_html/seobrien/wp-content/plugins" is writeable by group, referer: http://www.seobrien.com/wp-admin/edit-comments.php
[Wed Mar 25 17:50:51 2009] [error] [client 71.135.69.48] SoftException in Application.cpp:544: Directory "/home2/rareexc/public_html/seobrien/wp-content/plugins" is writeable by group, referer: http://www.seobrien.com/wp-admin/pag....php&message=1
[Wed Mar 25 17:50:29 2009] [error] [client 71.135.69.48] SoftException in Application.cpp:544: Directory "/home2/rareexc/public_html/seobrien/wp-content/plugins" is writeable by group, referer: http://www.seobrien.com/wp-admin/pag...=edit&post=515
[Wed Mar 25 17:50:23 2009] [error] [client 71.135.69.48] SoftException in Application.cpp:544: Directory "/home2/rareexc/public_html/seobrien/wp-content/plugins" is writeable by group, referer: http://www.seobrien.com/wp-admin/edit-pages.php
[Wed Mar 25 17:49:46 2009] [error] [client 71.135.69.48] SoftException in Application.cpp:544: Directory "/home2/rareexc/public_html/seobrien/wp-content/plugins" is writeable by group, referer: http://www.seobrien.com/wp-admin/pag...=edit&post=485
[Wed Mar 25 17:49:35 2009] [error] [client 71.135.69.48] SoftException in Application.cpp:544: Directory "/home2/rareexc/public_html/seobrien/wp-content/plugins" is writeable by group, referer: http://www.seobrien.com/wp-admin/edit-pages.php

**RetroNetro** · Mar 25, 2009 18:20

Which theme in your themes folder is giving you the trouble?

**seobrien** · Mar 25, 2009 18:51

All of them are doing this, I get a blank page with all of the themes but Default with which I get the theme but no content. Professional-Business http://wordpress.reviewitonline.net/ is what was installed when it happened.

**Thing** · Mar 25, 2009 21:01

Delete your themes and re-upload fresh copies. If you still have problems start deleting your plugins as its most likely a plugin causing the problem at that point.

**Shyflower** · Mar 26, 2009 07:40

I would definitely start with deactivating (not deleting) the plugins. More often than not, they are the troublemakers. If that doesn't help, then you will need to delete the themes. However, before you do that, be sure to back them up on your computer so that you can easily install them again.

If deactivating your plugins works, then when you reactivate them, do it one by one so you can find the culprit.

If you do delete your plugins, I would just create a list of the ones you use to reference. Then when you go to reinstall them, use the automatic installer in WP. The installer tells you in advance if your plugins are compatible with the new version of WP.

**Thing** · Mar 26, 2009 12:22

Good points, I said delete the plugins as I thought they couldn't access anything when they logged in and were essentially locked out. Think I misunderstood

**Dan Grossman** · Mar 26, 2009 13:24

If you're locked out because of a plugin, all you have to do is rename the sub-folder the plugin is in under /plugins/ to deactivate it. Or rename /plugins/ to deactivate them all. WordPress won't go looking for it in the new directories, it assumes they are new, deactivated plugins.

**seobrien** · Mar 26, 2009 13:27

Brilliant trick Dan; thanks all. I think this is resolved but the solution was strange. I deactivated on plugin that had just been upgraded. The default template then worked. I reactivated the template and the default template still worked. I tried other templates; some work, others do not. Good news is, an alternative works so I'm set.
Have no idea what happened though.

User Tag List

Thread: Possible to change Wordpress Theme without wp-admin?

Thread Tools

Display

Possible to change Wordpress Theme without wp-admin?

Bookmarks

Bookmarks

Posting Permissions