4.3 upgrade now can't get into dashboard

Okay, it looks like I shouldn’t have deleted parabola. I read around a bit and deleted all the plugins and the @#$#!#$ dashboard loaded. Sigh. The website itself won’t load … just a white page. I hope I can get it back via the dashboard.

THis is what I was told this morning and it worked

If you access your file structure via FTP or cPanel file manager, then navigate to wp-content/themes/ and delete the ‘virtue’ folder, WP should default back to its original theme and allow you to login/download the theme again.
Alternatively if you have a backup of the theme files on your computer, all you need to do is upload the framework.php back in to wp-content/themes/virtue/themeoptions – This in theory should also fix it.

Virtue was your parabbola

first before you do anything else.. ask your webhosts if they have a recent back up.
If they do have them replace what was there befroe you upgraded.
Then go into the cpanel and make a copy of your parabola theme and dl to your harddrive.
then do a back up
then disable all plugins
then do the upgrade
enable plugins one by one
the one causing you trouble will stand out
then delete that one from your server
and you should be good to go

I found the plugin (well, at least one) that was causing the problem. It was a purchased version of Form Maker, which I use all over the place. ?? All the forms are now broken. I’ve been re-adding the plugins (I physically moved them into a different folder). After I moved them all, the dashboard came up (with errors because it couldn’t find the plugins).

Frustrating. I’ll see if there is a backup anywhere.

Always Always take a backup of your site before updating WP core.

Lesson learned. First I had to figure out HOW to make a backup …

From the Master list post: https://www.ads-software.com/support/topic/read-this-first-%E2%80%93-wordpress-43-master-list?replies=4#post-7314897

WP_Widget error

If you are getting this message on your WordPress installation:

The called constructor method for WP_Widget is deprecated since version 4.3.0! Use
__construct()

Then your theme or plugin need to be updated. As a temporary work around look for define( 'WP_DEBUG', true ); in your wp-config.php file and set that to false.

If you look in the wp-config.php file and find that WP_DEBUG is already set to false, then please contact your hosting service, and ask them for the proper way for you to disable the PHP display_errors setting on your website. The display_errors setting is a developer mode setting, and it should never be enabled for a live website.

That only causes the warning to not be displayed, the theme or plugin should be updated.

i cant even get a login page. when i type in the address thiStrict Standards: Only variables should be passed by reference in /homepages/8/d571618567/htdocs/clickandbuilds/yrnxtfone/wp-content/plugins/slayers-custom-widgets/slayer_Custom_Widgets.php on line 51

Warning: session_start(): Cannot send session cookie – headers already sent by (output started at /homepages/8/d571618567/htdocs/clickandbuilds/yrnxtfone/wp-content/plugins/slayers-custom-widgets/slayer_Custom_Widgets.php:51) in /homepages/8/d571618567/htdocs/clickandbuilds/yrnxtfone/wp-content/plugins/custom-sidebars/inc/class-custom-sidebars-explain.php on line 55

Warning: session_start(): Cannot send session cache limiter – headers already sent (output started at /homepages/8/d571618567/htdocs/clickandbuilds/yrnxtfone/wp-content/plugins/slayers-custom-widgets/slayer_Custom_Widgets.php:51) in /homepages/8/d571618567/htdocs/clickandbuilds/yrnxtfone/wp-content/plugins/custom-sidebars/inc/class-custom-sidebars-explain.php on line 55

Warning: Cannot modify header information – headers already sent by (output started at /homepages/8/d571618567/htdocs/clickandbuilds/yrnxtfone/wp-content/plugins/slayers-custom-widgets/slayer_Custom_Widgets.php:51) in /homepages/8/d571618567/htdocs/clickandbuilds/yrnxtfone/wp-includes/pluggable.php on line 1207s is what i get.
ive deleted plugins and themes which didnt help

Do you use child theme?
Try to delete the parent theme then upload a clean one.

Whenever you update your wordpress site you want to start from the bottom and work your way up. If you begin by updating the wordpress version you will receive a lot of errors.

First you should update translation, which is only there if you are updating from a very outdated version. Then you update themes, even if you aren’t using the default theme it’s good practice to update it anyway. Then you update plugins and after updating everything else you update the wordpress version.

If you are still receiving errors, read them and it will tell you what to do next. If you think there’s nothing functionally wrong with your site and these errors are just annoying, then go to your config.php file and change “define(‘WP_DEBUG’, true);” to define “(‘WP_DEBUG’, false);” If the errors are still there then you cannot ignore them.

Ok so if the error message says anything about a file in the /wp-content/plugins folder then the error message is being caused by a plugin. As a website developer I think it would be best just to delete the plugin if it’s already updated. Cut your losses, it’s not worth it. Find a better plugin. It’s also never smart to edit anything outside of your wp-content/theme folder because everything will be wiped clean when updated. Also never download a theme and edit its files unless you plan to never update it, though the best thing to do when editing a downloaded theme is to make a child theme. That way you can still update the theme and your changes will not be erased.

If the error message says anything about a file in the wp-content/theme then update that file, again if it’s a downloaded theme it’s best to build a child theme. I like to use a sandbox theme like bones to build my themes, wordpress default themes are also classified as sandbox themes, they do not/should not use child themes.

Lastly if it’s anything in the wp-admin or wp-includes folder it’s the wordpress version itself and it is not translating properly, meaning you did not update it correctly from bottom to top. I’ve done this before and a quick fix is just to download wordpress from www.ads-software.com and drop the files that are causing errors directly into your site’s ftp folder. Yes this could be risky, but there isn’t any other solution I can think of. I had the exact problem you did because I did not update it correctly and this fixed it.

Lastly ALWAYS backup your work. Backup your Backup. Buy an external hard drive backup to backup your work, simple to use and update. You can also backup your work for free on https://onedrive.live.com/about/en-us/.

Hope this helps!