Error message: Empty template: Index

Hey,

It sounds like your theme may have been edited. To confirm that is the case try switching themes to something like Twenty Twenty One temporarily to check if the error message still appears.

If that fixes the problem you know there’s an issue with your original theme. You might want to try re-installing it.

I tried a preview of another theme, and indeed the blogs showed up. How do I re-install the original theme? I am concerned that I may lose something if I do. I note that I have a ‘child theme’ and a ‘parent theme’ but I’m not absolutely clear what the difference is.

• This reply was modified 2 years, 9 months ago by ralphlee.

Do you have the child theme or parent theme active? If it’s the child theme, try previewing the parent theme and see if that solves the issue. If so we know the problem is with the child theme.

You may not need to do a full reinstall if the problem is localised to the Index template. Instead you could just replace that one file with the version that comes with the theme. To do so:

1. Download the theme, and unzip
2. Locate the index.php template file, and open it with a text editor
3. Select the entire contents of the file and copy it
4. In your WordPress admin navigate to Appearance > Theme Editor
5. In the file list on the right-hand side locate and click “Index.php”
6. Make a backup of the contents of that file, then paste in the contents from the index.php that you just downloaded, and save

Note that this is a live change, and it would be safest to perform this action in a test/staging environment to avoid any potential disruption.

Hopefully that will fix the issue. If not, replace the contents of the index.php file with the backup that you made and we can try something else ??

• This reply was modified 2 years, 9 months ago by James Koster.

This is really helpful information. My problem is that I have inherited this website, and so I am unfamiliar with the full use of wordpress to build a website.

So, I have the theme (child and parent called The Core) located in the ‘themes’ section of ‘appearance’. I’m not clear how I would download the theme to unzip the files.

Secondly, when I click on the ‘editor’ in the appearance section, I just get a blank page, so I am unable to find the ‘index.php’ file that you indicate. Do you think that indicates a rather deeper problem than what you thought?

UPDATE: I have located the ‘edit themes’ section in tools, and that gives me access both the the child and parent version of the theme, and in there there is an index.php file – is this getting close to what you have suggested? I have not edited these, as it is clear that this can have dire consequences! Just wondering if I am in the right sort of place.

The child theme does not appear to have its own index.php, only the parent.

• This reply was modified 2 years, 9 months ago by ralphlee.
• This reply was modified 2 years, 9 months ago by ralphlee.

Did you try activating just the parent theme to determine if the problem exists in the child theme?

> The child theme does not appear to have its own index.php, only the parent.

Could you share the contents of the parent themes index.php template?

Thanks again, I really appreciate this help!

If I activate the parent theme am I going to potentially cause problems that I can’t undo? The parent theme does not have a ‘preview’ option only ‘activate’.

Is this the detail that you asked for?

The Core Parent: Main Index Template (index.php)

<?php
/**
 * The main template file
 *
 * This is the most generic template file in a WordPress theme and one
 * of the two required files for a theme (the other being style.css).
 * It is used to display a page when nothing more specific matches a query,
 * e.g., it puts together the home page when no home.php file exists.
 *
 * @link https://developer.www.ads-software.com/themes/basics/template-hierarchy/
 */
?>
<?php get_template_part( 'archive' ); ?>

My blogs stopped appearing, a message appears saying ‘Empty template: Index’. Please help with this. I am not sure what to do.
I have tried to preview some basic themes like Twenty Twenty One and Twenty Twenty Nineteen, but it also shows nothing on those themes

You probably moved on to another template, but if someone else reaches this page with the same problem, this is what I did:

– create a file named ‘home.php’ in the parent theme folder (the-core-parent);
– open up the ‘index.php’ file from the parent theme and copy it’s contents;
– paste the content in the ‘home.php’ file and save it.

In my case the archive page started working again.