Disaster!

Have you tried:
– deactivating ALL plugins temporarily to see if this resolves the problem. If this works, re-activate them individually (one-by-one) to find the problematic plugin(s). If you can’t get into your admin dashboard, try deactivating via FTP or SFTP or whatever file management application your host provides. If applicible, also remember to deactivate any plugins in the mu-plugins folder. The easiest way is to rename that folder to mu-plugins-old.
– To rule out any theme-specific issue, try switching to the unedited default theme for a moment using the WP dashboard. If you don’t have access to your admin area, you can switch to the default theme by renaming your current theme’s folder in wp-content/themes and adding “-old” to the end of the folder name using via FTP or SFTP or whatever file management application your host provides. Alternately, you can remove other themes except the default theme. That will force your site to use it.
– resetting the plugins folder by FTP or PhpMyAdmin. Sometimes, an apparently inactive plugin can still cause problems (because the hooks remain unless plugins completely removed or some plugins stick around in cached files. So by renaming the folder, you break them and force them inactive).
– If the above troubleshooting steps fail to resolve the issue, try manually re-uploading all files and folders EXCEPT the wp-config.php file and the /wp-content/ directory from a fresh download of WordPress. Make sure that you delete the old copies of files & folder before uploading the new ones. Read the Manual Update directions first!
– Always backup everything (including your database) before doing any actions, just in case.

Hi Tara – thank you for responding! Before I go your route my web host has asked me to move wp-load into wp-admin folder (as they cautiously and slowly guide me). Does that sound safe?
They haven’t been too bad in the past and are very helpful – but this latest thing they made me do was a bit of a booboo and I want to be careful.
I would also like to know how to back up – or if you can tell me where to read how to back up manually – I don’t think Softaculous is activated in my package … but can find out.

Then I will try your method if the other doesn’t work – but think back up is what needs to happen next.
Thanks again.

I think that they think that they can fix this …

I have no idea what caused your original problem, but neither do they…and all this moving things around is *not* going to solve anything!

Thanks Leejosepho,I know – this is bothering me. The original problem was that I was the only one who could see the website. The address was *mydomain*/wordpress/, so they told me – in cpanel to take my wpadmin /includes and content out of the WordPress directory and put them in the the public domain. Then it really didn’t work – for me either. Then they told me to put them all back again and its still broken – and now I can’t even see it.All that I’m getting is a backend Index page with ‘Parent directory, wp-admin, wp-content and wp-includes. If I click on wp-admin I get a warning message. In public html I have the WordPress directory with the 3 folders in and then a list of wp-folders beneath this, in amongst which I see wp-load. But I feel I need to do a back up – but what of if its all broken?

The original problem was that I was the only one who could see the website.

Do you have any kind of security setup allowing only your IP to access one thing or another?

they told me – in cpanel to take my wpadmin /includes and content out of the WordPress directory and put them in the the public domain.

More than that would have to be moved to relocate your installation, but moving anything at all was no way to try to solve whatever you had going on.

I feel I need to do a back up – but what of if its all broken?

What backups do you have, and what backups might your host have?

D

o you have any kind of security setup allowing only your IP to access one thing or another?

I don’t know about the ip thing – I will find out today.

More than that would have to be moved to relocate your installation, but moving anything at all was no way to try to solve whatever you had going on.

Where should the site be if it isn’t in the WordPress directory? Must I take it out if I rebuild and jhave the WP-admin wp-content and wp-includes floating free with all the other wp stuff?

What backups do you have, and what backups might your host have?

Me – no backups – was about to when the site was ready. The host may have something.
Thanks for you this

Where should the site be if it isn’t in the WordPress directory?

You can have it anywhere you wish, but you cannot just move it around like your host has suggested without changing other things to make it all work. So when you first set things up at the very beginning, was your installation where you had intended for it to always be or did you have some kind of temporary setup going on before making it “live”?

As I am a total newbie to all this I did not know that I in fact created a temporary setup. In fact I did. Because I built the site in the WordPress directory that everything came packaged in. I am reading up about it now and how things should have been done – but my site is broken now. Luckily its pretty simple and I kept notes as I went along. So I will rebuild. But am trying to decide whether to build it directly in the public_html and avoid all this drama ie. drag everything out of the WordPress directory after I install, before I apply theme and plugins etc.

trying to decide whether to build it directly in the public_html and avoid all this drama ie. drag everything out of the WordPress directory after I install, before I apply theme and plugins etc.

I originally had my primary domain in public_html, then moved it into its own sub-folder alongside the sub-folders for my add-on domains…and I think that makes everything neat-and-tidy rather than having the sub-folders for the add-ons sitting inside the same folder where my primary domain would otherwise be located. And to make all of that work properly with the desired URL, all I needed was a few lines of code in a special htaccess files inside public_html.

OK that sounds like a plan. am about to begin …. Again.