Categories and tags dissappeared

actually, problem is back again for no reason. gosh…

im hosted at anhosting and thankfully their support team is really fast, i submitted another ticket asking if something might be wrong with the mysql database, ill keep this post updated

I found the cause of the problem. The /tmp folder on the server is filled up. When that’s the case, the categories dissapear in wordpress. If you have root access to the server, then type:

df -h

This will give you the status of free space on your partitions. Make sure that /tmp isn’t 100% used by deleting the files inside it. try these commands to empty the /tmp:

cd /tmp
find . -exec rm {} \;

If you are hosting with a cpanel access, then on the left sdebar of your cpanel, there is a link called “Service Status”. Click on it and check the /tmp partition. If its’ full, contact your hosting technical support and tell them the problem and ask them to free the /tmp.

Good luck everyone ??

I’ve just noticed that I’ve got the same problem. Exactly the same as the screen shots provided by the original poster. Anyone any ideas? My tmp folder is empty.

If I create a post and view the recently used categories I can see them all there, but all existing posts have been changed to uncategorized and when I try and view the categories in the admin panel i just get an empty list like the screen shot above.

I’ve not touched my WordPress install since the last update.

My problem with vanishing tags and categories seems to be coming and going. They were gone earlier to day and returned, only to vanish again later. My tmp folder is at 3% only. I have deactivated and ractivated plugins over and over. Removed suspicious widgets etc and still the problem. They seemed to vanish not long after I added some new draft posts with tags and categories to my site.

One thing I notice on this issue all over WP Support is a total lack of any solution even though this problem predates 2.8.4. Nothing from WP techs at all. It is a persistent and ignored problem. Any blog needs categories and tags. How can something so fundamental be such an ongoing and unaddressed issue?

I’m experiencing the same issues. The temp directory is empty but I still get errors popping up about sessions unable to start, wcategories and tags that have disappeared, and my feed is now broken as there is an empty line at the beginning of my pages, despite fixing all plugins and theme files for blank spaces/lines.

This issue is really weird as it happened all at once without an upgrade. I’m using 2.8.4 on 12 or so sites. all are experiencing the same exact issues, so this must have something that WordPress caused on the server since I’m not the only server experiencing these same exact issues. The feed issue may be related, but it may bit be.

Does anybody know what happened?

I have the same problem, my categories and tags are disappearing and reappearing. Someone help please.

Yesterday they were there, today they are gone. Can anyone help me get my categories back ??

Hey guys thanks for this thread.. I was facing same problem and by reading your replies I figure out it is issue with tmp directory.

My tmp directory was 100% so I told hosting guys to delete it and my problem was resolved.

All the categories are back now.

Thank you!