Twenty Twelve child theme broken

Create a new stylesheet style.css with a text editor and put this at the top

/*
Theme Name:     Twenty Twelve Child
Theme URI:      https://example.com/
Description:    Child theme for the Twenty Twelve theme
Author:         Your name here
Author URI:     https://example.com/about/
Template:       twentytwelve
Version:        0.1.0
*/

@import url("../twentytwelve/style.css");

The values that are required are “Theme Name” and “Template”. The @import rule brings in the parent’s stylesheet from Twenty Twelve, don’t put any CSS rules above it.

Upload this new style.css to your child theme and see if the missing stylesheet message goes away.

https://codex.www.ads-software.com/Child_Themes#The_required_style.css_file

https://vudu.me/2012child

I have the most basic of child themes for 2012 here. It can be installed directly if you like, but it is useful to just extract and take a look at to see what is in there.

@ibit
Download Rev. Voodoo’s child theme.

First, much respect and thanks to you both. Second, I actually find your answer easier to deal with than Rev. Voodoo’s (I always was the counter-intuitive sort). I think I’m close to resolving this, with both your help. Anyway, below is what I uploaded to the twentytwelve-child folder I created. If someone can show/tell me the error(s), I think I can make this work. The stylesheet is derived from the CSS I first created for the template BEFORE trying to create the child theme:

[ Moderator Note: Please post code or markup snippets between backticks or use the code button. ]

/*
Theme Name:Twenty Twelve Child
Theme URI: https://www.ads-software.com/extend/themes/twentytwelve
Description: IBIT customized Twenty Twelve template
Author: Greg Gross
Author URI: https://imblacknitravel.com/about/
Template: twentytwelve
Version: 0.1.0
*/

@import url ("../twentytwelve/style.css");

#site-title a {
    color: #009900;
}

/*
Welcome to Custom CSS!

CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) is a kind of code that tells the browser how
to render a web page. You may delete these comments and get started with
your customizations.

By default, your stylesheet will be loaded after the theme stylesheets,
which means that your rules can take precedence and override the theme CSS
rules. Just write here what you want to change, you don't need to copy all
your theme's stylesheet content.
*/
.site {
	background-color: #FEFAF4;
}

.site-header h1 {
	font-family: Papyrus, Comic Sans MS, cursive;
	font-size: 305%;
}

.site-header h1 a:hover {
	text-decoration: underline;
}

a {
	font-weight: bold;
	color: #1919d2;
	text-decoration: none;
}

a:hover {
	color: #000080;
	text-decoration: underline;
}

/* Greg's Pages */
.pageline {
	font-family: Georgia, serif;
	font-size: 117%;
	font-weight: bold;
	text-decoration: underline;
	color: #3B4B21;
}

/* Greg's Custom CSS */
.intro {
	font-size: 115%;
	font-family: Georgia, serif;
	font-weight: bold;
	color: #b22222;
	line-height: 24px;
}

.cred {
	font-size: 75%;
	font-style: italic;
}

.fineprint {
	font-family: serif;
	font-size: 85%;
	font-weight: bold;
	color: #b22222;
}

.fineprint h1 {
	font-size: 95%;
	text-decoration: underline;
}

/* Greg's Digest CSS */
.dtag {
	font-size: 97%;
	font-weight: bold;
	font-family: Georgia, serif;
	font-style: italic;
	color: #4169E1;
	font-weight: bold;
	color: #00008b;
	text-decoration: underline;
}

.dhed1 {
	font-size: 110%;
	font-weight: bold;
	color: #B8860B;
	text-decoration: underline;
}

.dhed2 {
	font-size: 110%;
	font-weight: bold;
	color: #005a00;
	text-decoration: underline;
}

/* Greg's Pages */
.p-hed {
	font-family: Georgia, serif;
	font-size: 125%;
	text-decoration: underline;
	color: #3B4B21;
}

Try removing the space in the @import line between url and the parentheses. So instead of this:

@import url ("../twentytwelve/style.css");

it should be this:

@import url("../twentytwelve/style.css");

@wpyogi…just did that. No joy. WP still says “Broken link…Stylesheet is missing.” Clearly, I’m doing something wrong, but I don’t know what. Is it that a child theme won’t accept a pre-existing stylesheet? Should I delete the old version and upload a new one with the space deleted?

Should I delete the old version and upload a new one with the space deleted?

What are you using to make your style.css file?

The only thing I can think of that I”ve seen happen before is that folks make style.css using notepad/notebook

Which is not a problem by itself. But, they usually have extensions hidden on their machines, and do not check ‘all files’ when saving.

So the file looks as though it is style.css when it’s actually style.css.txt

I just want to make sure something like that isn’t happening for you

Also, if you are getting the ‘missing stylesheet’ error, it doesn’t matter what code you have in style.css right now, as the file isn’t even being recognized as existing….

A child theme will accept a preexisting stylesheet… any file named style.css works (as long as the header is in there, which you have). You should be able to freely edit it through the WP editor, through FTP, a file manager, etc.

Also, the folder you have created your child theme in… what’s it named? Does it have any spaces in the name or anything odd?

That may be the answer, Rev. I created the file in Smultron, but didn’t give it a .css extension. What kind of name should I give this file when I save it? I tried saving it just now as style.css, and when I uploaded it, FTP listed it as a stylesheet (something I should have noticed before). But WP still isn’t seeing it.

Both the folder and filename are twentytwelve-child, so I think that should be okay.

Both the folder and filename are twentytwelve-child

Which file?

should have a folder named twentytwelve-child inside your themes folder

Within twentytwelve-child should be style.css with the content you showed above

Not sure what you mean by filename, to which file are you referring?

Also, are the permissions appropriate on style.css? Just want to make sure it is readable by WP

Still no joy. I uploaded the style.css file via FTP into wp-content/themes/twentytwelve-child. I had indeed made the mistake of failing originally to save it as a .css file, but have since fixed that. Still, WP says “Stylesheet is missing.”

When I look on the FTP directory of wp-content/themes/twentytwelve-child/style.css via GoDaddy, it lists the stylesheet name as twentytwelve:style.css. Could this cauise a problem?

Not sure I can help, but I will try.

WP lists it as a broken theme.

Does that mean you can see it in “Themes” at your default Twenty Twelve Dashboard but it is being reported as broken right there?

Yes. In all, it lists three themes as being broken. For the first two, WP says “Template is missing,” which I suspect means the themes in question have been taken down. It then lists my attempted child theme, twentytwelve-child, as a broken theme, saying “Stylesheet is missing.” The struggle has been to find a way to make WP “see” the style.css file that was uploaded via FTP to the wp-content/themes/twentytwelve-child/css folder. So far, nothing has worked.

I got my own Twenty Twelve Child Theme started with nothing more than this:

/*
Theme Name: nny2012child
Template:   twentytwelve
*/
@import url("../twentytwelve/style.css");

That file must be named style.css, and it must be placed inside its own folder:
/www/wp-content/themes/nny2012child
Change my “nny2012child” to your own Theme Name, of course, and in both places.

I tried to copy the existing stylesheet created for the Twenty Twelve parent theme into the child theme’s file, but that clearly isn’t working.

Here is how things work: The @import url("../twentytwelve/style.css"); in style.css calls for the original, then anything following that line begins modifying things. So, use something like the above to get started and go from there.

wp-content/themes/twentytwelve-child/css folder

There should be no css folder. If you have style.css in a folder, that would be the problem

The style.css file should be in the twentytwelve-child folder

wp-content(folder)->themes(folder)->twentytwelve-child(folder)->style.css(file)