Where has 'Front page displays' disappeared to in 3.1.3?

No – there’s no bug. This problem is specific to your site. Have you tried:

– deactivating all plugins to see if this resolves the problem. If this works, re-activate the plugins one by one until you find the problematic plugin(s).

– switching to the Twenty Ten theme to rule out any theme-specific problems.

– resetting the plugins folder by FTP or PhpMyAdmin. Sometimes, an apparently inactive plugin can still cause problems.

– re-uploading the wp-admin and wp-includes folders from a fresh download of WordPress.

Thanks esmi for the quick reply.

Yes, I’ve reverted to the Twenty Ten theme and deactivated all plugins, but the problem remains.

I’ll try the other things you suggest and let you know.

Tried renaming the plugins directory and creating a blank one but the ‘Front page displays’ option still not showing.

I deleted the wp-admin and wp-includes directories and uploaded new copies from a fresh download of 3.1.3 – still not working!

I’ll try a complete reinstall, but not tonight!

OH – that’s so weird. What is showing up on Settings -> Reading? Could you post a screenshot somewhere?

In case it helps, here’s a screenshot of the 3.1.3 blog and what it looks like on another 3.1.2 blog I have.

There should not be that difference between the 2 sites. There were no changes made to that Admin page in 3.1.3. It was just a security update.

Suggestion: with the plugins folder still renamed and Twenty Ten active, try re-uploading all files & folders – except the wp-content folder – from a fresh download of WordPress. Then try re-running the upgrade manually using wop-admin/upgrade.php.

Sorry, cross posted…

So I can keep the database (which has some content in it), can I simply delete all existing files (keeping a copy of wp-config.php) and unzip the fresh 3.1.3 files or do I need to run the install fully?

Alternatively, because there are only a couple of pages/posts, I could also delete the database and start completely from scratch.

Leave your database alone for the time being. Ditto your wp-config.php file. Fingers crossed, this is just a file corruption problem caused during the upgrade. So all you’re really doing to try to get a good set of files & folders uploaded and re-running the upgrade just in case it didn’t fully complete because of file corruption. None of your content at this point is threatened. That’s still safely tucked up in your database.

I understand – I’ll leave it till the morning, though.

One thing I did notice is that I only have 20 MB webspace left. I certainly didn’t get any errors during the upgrade, but I wonder if temp disk space was the problem?

Also, just realised: it was a new 3.1.2 installation, but it could be that the ‘Front page displays’ was missing from that as well – I might not have noticed because I still hadn’t decided what pages/posts I was going to have. So this issue might have been caused by a corrupt 3.1.2 installation.

I only have 20 MB webspace left

That is a little low and it certainly wouldn;t hurt to either buy some more space or have a grand clearout to free up some space. However, I don’t think that’s causing your Reading page problem. In similar situation, you can sometimes get a fatal memory error but that relates to PHP memory as opposed to disk space.

If the problem was caused by a corrupt 3.1.2 install, then, statistically, the upgrade should have fixed it and the complete re-upload certainly will.

OK, deleted wp-admin, wp-includes and root files, uploaded these from the fresh download I got yesterday and uploaded them, leaving the original wp-config.php file. This was v3.1.3, so no upgrade required. Still no ‘Front page displays’ settings.

I had forgotten to rename the plugins directory and create a new, empty one, but even doing this now, the problem is still there.

Only one thing left to try: delete all files and the database and reinstall from scratch! It doesn’t take long…

That’s fixed it! A new installation works OK (but you knew that!)

I’ll install the plugins I had previously done and upload the theme (created in Artisteer). If I don’t get any problems, I’ll assume it was a corrupted file or database in the initial installation. If the problem returns, I’ll let you know!

Thanks for all your help esmi.

All plugins and theme installed successfully and everything working OK.

Aaarrrggghhh!

It’s disappeared again! The ‘Front page displays’ settings have gone from the ‘Reading Settings’ page.

What on earth is going on here? I can reinstall yet again, but I don’t want this to happen again – the site goes live on Tuesday.

Anyone any thoughts?

This is beginning to annoy me! ??

Deleted all the files, deleted the database, deleted the database user.

Downloaded 3.1.3 and installed as normal. Everything OK and I could see the ‘Front page displays’ settings. Since everything was now working fine, I installed the plugins I wanted. Checked the ‘Reading Settings’ page and the ‘Front page displays’ settings had disappeared again!

Deactivated all plugins one by one: no change.
Deleted all plugins one by one: still no change.

This should now be back to a clean install, but the ‘Front page displays’ settings are now missing.

All I can see now is to re-install yet again and add one plugin at a time. However, I think I’m in the same position as earlier: I will just refresh the files and won’t delete the database.

I’ll let you know…