Can’t save changes in Settings, theme screwed up

upgraded to what? I see 2.6.2 in the source.

the messages you are seeing are related to to the nonce bits in wordpress

Quoting Mark J.

A nonce is a number used once, and it is used for intention verification purposes in WordPress. Think of it as a password that changes each time it is used. WordPress’ implementation isn’t technically a nonce, because the electronic key only changes every 12 hours, and is valid for 24 hours (that is, the current key, and the penultimate key are valid), but it’s close enough. The idea is simple: we verify that user’s request is intentional by verifying that the request originates from within the WordPress admin. And we do that by providing a piece of information (a nonce) to them when that first page is requested. When the action is performed, the piece of information is passed along, and verified. Nonces can be locked down in many ways. They are unique to the WordPress install, to the WordPress user, to the action, to the object of the action, and to the time of the action (24 hour window). That means that if any of these things changes, the nonce is invalid. So if you (somehow) intercept a nonce being used by me, you would, first of all, only have 24 hours to use this key to attempt to trick me. And you’d only be able to use this key to trick me, on my blog, into doing a specific action to a specific item. So even if you got a nonce used to delete a post, the absolute worst case scenario is that you might be able to trick me into deleting that specific post. The nonce is useless for any other purpose.

Were this my site, instead of trying to figure out what I have done, I would take one of my database backups (because I have them) and would put the site back to what it was before the upgrade. That means putting back the older files also.

And then I would do an upgrade to 2.6.3, MY WAY

Before upgrading:

1. Change the current theme to the defualt theme
2. Disable all plugins
3. LOG OUT of wordpress

—

1. Get latest files, which are 2.6.3, not 2.6.2 (which is insecure)

2. If upgrading from a version of WP that doesnt include the secret key bits, edit the sample wp-config.php so that my mysql info was in it, AND the secret keys were added/changed.

3. Delete all the files of the server except for wp-config.php, my plugins, and three themes:

A. the default one
B. the classic one
C. The one I use normally

4. Upload the new 2.6.3 files, while making sure to overwrite the 2 themes that are included in WP, and the wp-config.php (remember I edited the the new one so I want that on the site).

5. Navigate to wp-admin/upgrade.php — click the button.

—

You could also, at this point export the data related to your posts, and import that into a clean install. That might be the easiest thing to do at this point.

Im throwing ideas out — its up to you to run with them. There’s no panacea for what you are seeing, as far as I kow, and Ive been around here a long time.

Thanks for the response! I’m not sure I understand all of it, especially the nonce stuff and your #2 point, but here’s what I’d like to try…

I’d like to export my posts and save those. Then wipe out everything that’s on the server and start from scratch by installing 2.6.3. I have very little technical expertise and really don’t know how to “edit the sample wp-config.php” file.

How do I export my posts??

The problems actually began before I upgraded to 2.6.2. I just upgraded on iridiax’s recommendation to see if it would solve the problems. It didn’t. I had to delete all of the plugins because I couldn’t disable them. that didn’t help either.

I haven’t decided on what theme I want to use yet, I’ve been experimenting with different ones that I like. Maybe that’s what caused the problem. I don’t know. But at this point I just want to start clean, reload my posts and move on. I’m not good at fiddling this stuff and don’t have the expertise anyway…

So if anyone reads this and thinks it’s a big mistake please let me know! Cuz I’ve spent way too much time on this already and just want to move on. Thanks everyone!

I would do almost exactly what you suggested, however I would NOT use the export feature. I would get a direct dump of what you already have on your site from the database directly using phpmyadmin.

you need all the tables but the options table basically

OH! and you dont want the users table obviously.

OK, upward and onward! Thanks everyone who contributed. ??

Well, I thought things were going to work, but I’m right back where I started with all of the same problems. After everything was deleted and fresh WP installed, I checked to make sure I had admin control back and everything worked fine. then I imported my backup database, and wham, all the problems came back.

I can’t make any changes to settings or pages, or have any kind of admin control at all. I get WP Failure messages when I make a change (like to the timezones) and try to save it. I can’t change themes. I can’t fix the theme display I want to use because its all screwed up. I can’t deactivate plugins without deleting them thru ftp.

All I want to do is start over and only save my posts. Can someone please tell me how I extract those from my db backup, because obviously there’s a bug in the db somewhere that’s being reimported. Thanks!

Well this is way after the fact, and I’m no expert, but can you just use the WordPress “export” feature, export all your entries to your desktop? Then wipe out your WordPress installation and start all over with a new install and database. Then use the WordPress “import” function to import your entries from that saved file? You should be able to find “Export” in your admin area.

It’s just an XML file which you can actually open in a plain text editor and look at, if you’re curious. I’ve imported entries from a saved file that WordPress made and it was fine. I’ve even imported entries from a backup file made by MovableType and it was fine too.

Hi, I’m having a problem after i installed the Addthis plugin into my WP.
Everything go smoothly when i activate the plugin and the addthis button had appeared on my blog pages. But i notice the dropdown function does’t works. Then i go back to my WP, choose Setting–> AdThis (checked the Use dropdown menu) and click save changes. But i get a message that says “Are you sure you want to do this?” and “Please try again.”

Any one there can help me on this? Thanks a lot.