Broken Theme – can't activate

TriColumn appears to be a child of another theme. If you look in the theme’s style.css file, you should see an entry for Template: followed by the (folder) name for the parent theme. That might give you some clues. In the meantime, you can switch to the Twenty Eleven theme by renaming your current theme’s folder in wp-content/themes using FTP or whatever file management application your host provides.

where did you download the theme from?

were there any hints to a parent theme?

what does it say in style.css of the theme?
does it have a line with Template: whatevername very near the beginning?
whatevername would be the clue to the parent theme.

Thanks for the replies.

This is a very old theme I downloaded ages ago.

This is the info in the STYLE.CSS:

/*
Template: TriColumn
Theme Name: TriColumn
Theme URI: https://www.blogiseverything.com/wordpress/tricolumn-three-columns-wordpress-theme/
Description: Yet another 3 column theme for WordPress with simple layout.
Version: 1.1
Author: Matthew Phiong
Author URI: https://www.blogiseverything.com/

The CSS, XHTML and design is released under GPL:
https://www.opensource.org/licenses/gpl-license.php

PLEASE refer README.txt for more documentations!
*/

The “README” file says it’s only been tested on WP 1.5.2, so that may be the problem.. yet the error message makes me think not.

Not sure as I’m not that familiar with that part of WP themes.

Does this help in helping me in regards to the “parent theme missing”?

Thanks again,

The “README” file says it’s only been tested on WP 1.5.2,

Eek! That’s about 7 years old! It’s not a child theme at all. It’s just hopelessly outdated.

Does this help in helping me in regards to the “parent theme missing”?

absolutely –

remove the line Template: TriColumn from style.css and see if that works.

although, with a theme that old, you are quite likely to get trouble with deprecated functions.

I just downloaded v1.2 of the TriColumn. Even tho it’s still old, I was able to activate it.

So I’m thinking it’s possible when I got these (I have a few of them from awhile ago).. that most may have updated files.

SO.. for this instance, I think I’m going to be OK.. BUT for future issues with “parent theme missing”.. does it have all to do with what’s in the header of the style.css file?

Thanks again for ALL your attention to this issue. TYVM ??

does it have all to do with what’s in the header of the style.css file

Yes. alchymyth was correct. I was looking further down the comment block & missed it. The comment Template is a signal to WP that this is a child theme and here’s the name of the parent theme’s folder.

Given that the theme is so old, just be on the lookout for any “misbehaviour” both on the public side of the site and in the admin area. Not sure what the effect of any really old, no-longer-supported functions may be. That said, it should be possible to update the theme. I’ve got an archived blog that uses the same visual theme that it started with back in 2003. I’ve just been updating it, as appropriate, with each new release of WP but visually, you’d never know it had been updated.

Thanks esmi,

I wasn’t able to get the newest updated tricolumn theme to work even tho it activated, so I’m just going to find newer ones. I collected and collected and was going to try to put them up on a demo site to see what I had available.. but looks like I don’t have ANY available yet! hehe

Thanks so much! ??

Have a look on https://www.ads-software.com/extend/themes/ – especially themes updated since July 2010 as they will have undergone a pretty thorough review process.