Wordpress Nuggets

Little bits that may help with problems with a Wordpress site.

Site stuck in maintenance mode

Sometimes (so far it has only ever been when updating a plugin via the web interface) a WP site will show that it is in maintenance mode, and you can't login via the web to do anything. You can probably regain access by simply removing the .maintenance file from the root of the Wordpress install root. However I usually do some basic checks to make sure that things are not still being updated. eg

 find /disk/data/wordpress -cnewer /disk/data/wordpress/.maintenance -ls

Site inaccessible after updating/installing a plugin

If a plugin has been been installed, or updated, and now the site is unusable, so you can't use the dashboard to disable the plugin, then just try moving the plugin files to one side. eg

  mv -i /disk/data/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/hello-dolly /disk/data/wordpress/wp-content
  # the same idea if you have theme issues in /disk/data/wordpress/wp-content/themes/

Assuming that fixes it, you should be able to get to the Dashboard again and you'll get a message about plugin/theme being disabled due to missing files. You can then probably try moving the directories back, and they will reappear in the Dashboard, but disabled. Re-enabling them may then work, or may get you back to a white screen of death.

-- NeilBrown - 11 Oct 2019