WordPress is a great blogging platform and it makes everything easy for you. There are tons of plugin considering your demands, a great tutorial forum to solve your problems. Nothing worth to say that you do some experiment with your blog, may be with design, plugin and even with the WordPress core files. But some time you make mistakes without your knowledge, as a result your blog sucks.
In such situation you must keep your head cool. Here are 10 tips to recover from that condition. In fact, I have faced this problem so many times.
1. If you are going to edit your theme templates then keep a backup of the total theme folder so that you can easily go back to the previous state.
2. If you are editing your functions.php template then be sure that the code you’ve added is correct. Incorrect php syntax can mess up the total site. If you forget to keep a backup of your theme file as well as the functions.php then download the functions.php template through FTP (Some time you cannot edit that from the WordPress admin panel for your previous mistakes in function template). Now delete the portion that you have added. If you modified some thing try to get back to the original. Important! – there should not be any blank line after or before of the code section in functions.php).
3. If you added any plugin recently, then check, if it works after deactivating that.
4. Have you updated any plugin or the WordPress recently? Some time updating of WordPress or plugins through you in the hole. So, always keep the complete backup of your database before updating WordPress or plugins. But what to do if you forgot to backup your database? Well, If you are confirm that you can’t go back to the stable state of your blog then you have still one option left (will be discussed at last in this post).
5. Have you edited the .htaccess file? Be sure that the problem is happening for your .htacess file and you can’t get back the original and even the default one. Then follow the steps below to get your site back.
- Connect your FTP client and go to root directory e.g /public_html/.
- Rename the .htaccess file as .htaccess_test by selecting that and pressing the F2 key.
- No go to your WP admin area > Settings > Permalinks.
- If you are using default permalinks then remember that or if you are using the custom permalink then copy the configuration and just add or remove a ‘/’ at the end.
- Save the changes.
- Now go to FTP again and you can find a new .htaccess file has been created.
- Go back to the WP admin panel and restore the previous Permalinks setting.
6. Take a break. It may solve your problem.
7. Lastly, if nothing does work for you, only reinstalling WordPress can solve the problem. But before that, at first export all your posts and comments through the WordPress Export tool. Keep a complete backup of all the content of /public_html/ folder. Delete all the files and folders under public_html except the wp-content folder as it contains the images of your posts (if you hosted images in a subdomain or different folder then keep that folder un-deleted). Create a new database and install WordPress at that data base. Now import the posts and comments from the downloaded post backup file.
Learn more about exporting and importing posts and comments in WordPress.
8. Comment here and share your problem with us. We shall take your words carefully.
Hey, nice and crisp. I like the way this has been crafted. Keep up the great work.
You are right Dude 🙂
Very informative post. I’ve been looking for some tips on how to improve my WordPress blog. I like to read more of your blogs, keep posting.
I also consider WordPress as a great blogging platform that makes everything easy for you. There are already a lots of WordPress tips and plugins that can surely help you solve your problems.