Dashboard won't load after logging in

Try manually resetting your plugins (no Dashboard access required). If that resolves the issue, reactivate each one individually until you find the cause.

If that does not resolve the issue, access your server via FTP or SFTP, navigate to /wp-content/themes/ and rename the directory of your currently active theme. This will force the default theme to activate and hopefully rule-out a theme-specific issue (theme functions can interfere like plugins).

Also, you’re using WordPress 3.3.1, which has a few publicly known security vulnerabilities.

Once you have recovered access, I strongly recommend upgrading: https://codex.www.ads-software.com/Upgrading_WordPress_Extended#Upgrading_Across_Multiple_Versions

Thanks for the suggestions, but unfortunately neither of them seems to have worked. First I tried the instructions:

Or reset your plugins folder via FTP or the file manager provided in your host’s control panel.

Via FTP or your host’s file manager, navigate to the wp-contents folder (directory)
Via FTP or your host’s file manager, rename the folder “plugins” to “plugins.hold”
Login to your WordPress administration menus (/wp-admin)
Via FTP or your host’s file manager, rename “plugins.hold” back to “plugins”

Afterwards I refreshed my Dashboard but it was still just a blank page. I also tried clearing my cache and cookies, but to no avail.

I then tried your suggestion with renaming the theme directory, but when I refreshed the Dashboard nothing changed — the only thing that was different was the front-end of my blog no longer displayed anything anymore either. (I have since changed the theme directory back to it’s regular name.)

Is there anything else I can try? I’m afraid I’m really out of my depth on this one.

Did you rename your active theme only – not the entire themes folder? That’s what you need to do.

Yes. My current theme is called “fangirl” — I went into my themes directory and changed the folder called “fangirl” to “fangirl_test”, but it didn’t do anything other than make the front end of my blog not load.

With the current theme’s directory still renamed, download this theme, expand it, and upload it to your theme’s directory: https://www.ads-software.com/themes/twentyeleven

That should force your site to switch to that theme.

I renamed the current “fangirl” directory to “fangirl_rename” and uploaded the unzipped twentyeleven theme. (Turns out I already had a twentyeleven theme installed but I replaced the file anyway with the new one.)

Unfortunately, still no luck. If you go to https://www.beans-etc.com/fangirl/ now you’ll see that the front end of the website just doesn’t load at all when I change the theme. When I use Chrome’s inspect element tool, the blog coding isn’t there.

Any suggestions?

And this is with all of your plugins disabled too?

If so, try downloading WordPress again and delete then replace your copies of everything except the wp-config.php file and the /wp-content/ directory with fresh copies from the download. This will effectively replace all of your core files without damaging your content and settings. Some uploaders tend to be unreliable when overwriting files, so don’t forget to delete the original files before replacing them.

WHOO! Never mind, it’s fixed now! A dev friend on Facebook pointed me to this support fix: https://wordpress.stackexchange.com/questions/127427/how-to-fix-empty-dashboard-issue-in-wordpress/127486#127486 and it worked like a charm. Now I’m going to update to the newest WP version so it doesn’t happen again.

Thanks for all your effort and suggestions! I appreciate you taking the time to try and help!

You’re welcome!