very strange problem/challenge: Missing much of dashboard!!

What happens if you switch to the Twenty Twelve theme?

@esmi…the same thing. I attached it in the screen shot.
I can’t see the Appearance menu, so I have to switch themes via FTP. I changed the name of the theme folder to force it to use default (TwentyTweleve?) theme. I know the theme has switched because the public site goes white and the dashboard loses the theme-specific menu items…but still missing all the rest. (see the bottom section of the screen shot linked above)

Doesn’t seem to be theme-related…

Try switching to the Twenty Twelve theme and resetting the plugins folder by phpMyAdmin and re-uploading all files & folders – except the wp-content folder – from a fresh download of WordPress. Make sure that you delete the old copies of files & folder before uploading the new ones.

esmi, I did all of the above and the menu items are still missing.

Since I wasn’t sure what all the files were, I only deleted the files in the www folder that I was going to directly replace with the fresh copy of wordpress (1 for 1). Therefore, after deletion, these files/folders remained on the server in the www folder:

cgi-bin (folder)
richardg (folder)
>.ftpquota
>index.html
wp-content (folder)
.htaccess
SermonPodcasts.xml
index.html_
php.ini
php5_error_log (this file is big…2,736,299 and was generated 1-14-13)
robots.txt
wp-app.php
wp-config.php
wp-pass.php
wp-register.php

Seems like maybe I should have deleted some of the wp files, but wasn’t sure which ones were needed to log back in…

Thanks so much for your help!

I only deleted the files in the www folder that I was going to directly replace with the fresh copy of wordpress (1 for 1).

That’s the correct procedure but I’d also suggest removing wp-app.php. wp-pass.php and wp-register.php as these are from older copies of WordPress.

Next, try adding define('SCRIPT_DEBUG', true);to the bottom of your wp-config.php file (just before the require_once line).

Okay, I deleted those three files and added the line to the wp-config file.
Still nothing.

Should I try asking my host to restore to a previous backup of my entire server files?

I really appreciate the help…

Did you reset the plugins folder using Phpmyadmin?

Yes.
Before my initial post, I had disabled them by renaming the folder in ftp. But after your suggestion, I re-activated them via ftp, then disabled in phpmyadmin.

I have been toggling between the default theme and my theme after I try things because I can’t really have the site be a white screen. But I do switch to the default theme to try the suggestions. If I need to leave it at the default theme, let me know.

Can you access the site & the full Admin area when you switch to the default theme?

No. With default theme activated, all I see in Admin area is:

On the left:
Dashboard
>home
>updates

Media (which does work…I can upload images)
Users (which I can access…all users set to ADMIN)

<collapse menu

In the main area:
Content boxes for:
Recent Comments
Wordpress Blog
Other wordpress news

That’s it for the entire dashboard area. When I switch to my theme, it is the exact same, except there are four more theme-specific menu items on the left. When I click on these theme-specific menu items, I get “You do not have sufficient permissions to access this page.” error.

Can you create a completely fresh install – no additional plugins or themes – on the same server?

In a different folder just to test? Is that what you mean?

Or should I totally take the site down and do a reinstall? Ack. This site is pretty big…over 120 pages, lots of mp3 audio files, etc.

(I’m a designer with adequate knowledge of css, php, html, but not much experience with the server and database stuff! This one’s killing me.)

In a different folder just to test? Is that what you mean?

Yes – exactly that. ??

I haven’t had a chance to try this and I’m heading out of town for 5 days. Can this thread stay open? ps. I checked with my host and they can only do a restore up to 5 days ago. So that option is out. Which means I REALLY have to get this figured out when I return.

Until then..