WP 3.1 Admin Publish Widget/Sidebar Widget – JavaScript Error

Just to help out other WordPress 3.1 users.

I had a JavaScript error in both IE8 and F/F 3.6.14 when I logged in to edit a post/page or update/add a sidebar Widget.

I was unable to expand/contract Post/Page widget headers, or expand the “Status Published”, “Published on” links. I couldn’t click and drag sidebar widgets either… There was a JavaScript error in the status bar (IE8) as follows:

a.widget.prototype._trigger is undefined

The solution was to follow the “Resetting Plugins” in phpMyAdmin

Use phpMyAdmin
1. In the table wp_options, under the option_name column (field) find the active_plugins row
2. Change the option_value field to: a:0:{}

However, I needed to double check the issue so I coppied and saved the old data in Notepad from wp_options > active_plugins. Then after replacing the content with a:0:{} and saving the changes in the Database the JavaScript error was still there.

I pasted the old data back into the active_plugins field and saved the changes again… PRESTO! Back to normal and no js errors!

Hope this helps you out too.
Cheers