Cannot Delete or Replace a Page

Rich, first, do you have tags called ‘Testimonials’?
I do not think so. If I did, where would I find these tags?

2nd, how did you go about creating the testimonials page
When I created the testimonials page the first time (this is the one that has since been deleted but now showing as “archives”), I clicked Pages –> New Pages –> Choose “Page Builder” format (Visual/Text/Page Builder) –> Insert Row –> Insert “Sydney FP: Testimonials” widget.

The Sydney Testimonials widget was previously configured via the Testimonials link on my sidebar, in which I added 5 testimonials. For some reason, each of these has a permalink like “subdomain1.rztutor.com/testimonials/(name)”.

I really wish I could post pictures here…

Rich, I’m also going to say something else in this context, & it may influence how we proceed, as you’ll see in a second.

Making this site a subdomain w/an eye toward eventually changing it to your production site has, IMO, the potential to seriously complicate your life considerably. What most WP devs generally do in this sort of situation is to create a separate install in a folder such as rxtutor.com/wordpress rather than what you did. The reason for this is that copying the index.php to the root folder, changing it to point to the WordPress install, & also making a change in the root folder’s .htaccess to point to the folder where WordPress is installed brings the new install live as rztutor.com very quickly. The way this is now, you’re going to have to do a search-&-replace on your database to eliminate the subdomain1 part. This can be done w/a search-&-replace script,, but it is a little bit more complicated.

Ok, so I think I got the pictures working. Hold on one second.

What most WP devs generally do in this sort of situation is to create a separate install in a folder such as rxtutor.com/wordpress rather than what you did.

Ahh. Thank you for the heads up, I had no idea! How would I go about doing this the right way then? Creating the rztutor.com/wordpress directory and all?

If that’s the case, we might not even have to deal with this mystery since I can just delete the entire subdomain and start fresh – although I’m the type of guy who always wants to get to the bottom of something so I know this will continue to bug me even if we are able to skirt around it! ??

Rich, Ok, so I’m smiling now, cuz even if you could post pictures here, I happen to be completely blind now, so… Remember the judge w/the guide dog in Alice’s Restaurant who couldn’t see the 127 photos being presented as evidence? Lol! Ok, so I have kind of a warped sense of humor & just find stuff like that a little funny. Please don’t be embarrassed. You couldn’t know. & like I said, if anything, it just makes me smile a bit because of the irony of it all.

I’m beginning to wonder if Sydney creates a custom post type called testimonials. Let me do a bit of research on that possibility & get back w/you. Hang tight.

Rich, you simply create the folder in your web root. If you used an autoinstaller via your hosting control panel, then all you need do is fill in the desired folder, i.e., wordpress, when it asks what directory you wish to use. Please back up both your files & your database prior to doing this, just in case stuff goes fubar.

Haha, no worries. Thank you again for your help, Jackie. I think image workaround is just to post a link to my photobucket account so I’ll use that if we need it – and I’ll make sure to make it big enough to see.

Rich, you simply create the folder in your web root.
Thanks, I’ll give that a go later.

Yep, it looks like Sydney does indeed create its own custom post types, of which testimonials is 1. The videos appear to be silent–*real* helpful for me–but they refer to creating custom post types in their documentation, so I now am convinced that’s what’s occurring. So–in 1 sense, you’re not actually creating a WordPress page. These are tough concepts to understand for someone just getting started w/WP. Let’s see if I can explain it, & you, in turn, can let me know what I need to make clearer.

I indicated to you in a previous post that posts & pages have differing properties. 1 other difference between posts & pages is that pages can be hierarchical, i.e. you can have an About page w/content about your company & then put pages about each employee under that.

Custom post types can kind of “mix & match” built-in WordPress properties, such that, for example, a custom post type could actually have a hierarchy, like pages do. So, they can be archived like posts, but have hierarchies like pages. I rather suspect that Sydney kind of hides these details, making them somewhat invisible to the user, which now takes us to the dilemma in which we currently find ourselves.

So the truth is you may have created a page, but not in the typical way that WordPress creates a page, if that makes sense.

Perhaps watching the Sydney videos might help you. I don’t know if you paid for the theme or not, but I would suggest that if you did, they would be a good place to seek assistance from.

Custom post types (CPT’s) are a very powerful thing, as they allow you to vary greatly from what WordPress does w/content by default, but the whole concept can be a bit difficult for someone who doesn’t understand the in’s & out’s of WordPress content initially to get their head around.

Rich, you can’t make an image big enough for me to see it. Just is not gonna happen, unfortunately. I use a computer that talks to me. It has absolutely no idea what to do w/pictures. If it helps, I was taking a computer forensics course. I could recover files by piecing them together on the hard drive. But they used pictures to represent porn, cats for child porn & dogs for adult. Despite being able to do all that hard drive recovery, I couldn’t tell whether pictures were dogs, cats, or something else entirely, which is somewhat humiliating, since any 5-year-old child can do that. Like I said, the irony of it all is a bit humorous. I configure servers, repair hacked websites, assist on these forums, host websites, develop websites, but throw a screenshot at me & I’m pretty inadequate to the task. Lol.

Jackie, I want to apologize for thinking you were just being hyperbolic. I sometimes stare at a computer for so long that my eyes get so blurry I can’t see anything and thought that’s what you meant. My bad! That computer forensics course sounds pretty interesting though haha

Your explanation made perfect sense however I’m rather lost on what my options are and what my next steps should be. Here are my thoughts:

1. If I delete my subdomain installation of WP and essentially start from scratch with the correct install that you mentioned earlier, would that resolve this issue?
2. Should I contact the theme developer to see if they have a solution for this?
3. If you wouldn’t mind linking me to the video that you are referring to or give me the search terms that you used to find it, I could take a look and try the DIY way.

Glad to know I’m not crazy though and that I at least knew the difference between a post and a page haha.

Hey Rich, no problemo. Most people when they understand the extent of my eyesight loss can’t quite fathom how I do what I do at all. I’m quite used to it. I’m always a bit concerned about lawsuits regarding broken jaws cuz they hit the floor when I tell folks about my eyesight lol.

I think what may be happening here is that Sydney creates some pages by default, 1 of which might be testimonials. I’m not sure of that. 1 way to tell would be to activate a default theme, then go to ‘Pages > All Pages’ & see if there is in fact a ‘Testimonials’ page. What I’m thinking it does, though, is to create a testimonials custom post type, though I wouldn’t stake my life on it at this point.

Let me take your questions 1 by 1, if I may, & let’s see if I can help some more.

“1. If I delete my subdomain installation of WP and essentially start from scratch with the correct install that you mentioned earlier, would that resolve this issue?”

No, likely not. It’ll just make your life easier down the line when you turn this into a production site.

“2. Should I contact the theme developer to see if they have a solution for this?”

It’s always a good idea when themes or plugins depart from usual WordPress behavior to contact the developers, in order to determine how such departures affect the site in question. This is something that we as support forum volunteers likely wouldn’t know unless we ourselves used that particular theme/plugin. We’re familiar w/built-in WordPress behavior, but when that gets altered by themes and/or plugins, then things become a bit more complex.

“3. If you wouldn’t mind linking me to the video that you are referring to or give me the search terms that you used to find it, I could take a look and try the DIY way.”

Absolutely!
https://athemes.com/documentation/sydney/

I do hope you’ll keep in touch w/us & let us know how you progress. I am concerned & interested. I know how important a good website is for an online presence.

Jackie, thanks again for your time and effort on trying to solve this. Will definitely keep you posted if I find the solution.

activate a default theme, then go to ‘Pages > All Pages’ & see if there is in fact a ‘Testimonials’ page.

By the way, tried this – nothing. ??

I’ve posted a support thread on athemes.com. Fingers crossed!

Maybe not :(. I think what that tells us, Rich, is that Sydney actually does create its own default page called testimonials. Now precisely how that works is the question. But it does seem to confirm my hypothesis that this is the case.

That sort of information may seem to have netted you nothing, but I think in reality it shows us that this theme/plugin combination does in fact create its own set of default pages. That is important information to have. It may also mean that whereas the content can be deleted, the page itself cannot, i.e., that this theme/plugin combination may have created this for its use, & I’m not sure it’ll let go of it, as it were.

Not going to lie, Jackie…my head hurts from all this wordpressing haha.

Anyway, sounds like it’s all up to the folks at Athemes now!

I hear ya. But school’s starting up pretty quickly. You’ll want to have a nice spiffy site lol, though I suspect crunch time tends to start after the first of the year?