Fatal error after automatically updating to 4.1.3

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).

Thanks for these suggestions, James. I’ll try them out. Thank you.

You’re welcome!

I tried each of those suggestions, i.e., renaming plugins to plugins.hold (and back) and tarski to tarski.hold (and back) but neither produced a change. I still get this message:

Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_CONSTANT_ENCAPSED_STRING in /home/mard/public_html/blog/wp-includes/default-constants.php on line 23

Hm, ok, thanks for checking that!

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.

Thank you for that. That will take me awhile and I’ll try to be careful. It’s been a long time since I’ve done any serious work with WordPress. So I’ll be cautious.

You’re welcome, and bust of luck!

I did it all, after downloading Cyberduck, and was able to log in to my blog, but then after the Update Complete message I got the following:

Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 67108864 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 30720 bytes) in /home/mard/public_html/blog/wp-admin/includes/theme.php on line 371

I took a look at theme.php line 371 but couldn’t make much sense out of it. I notice the number of bytes, 67108864, is the same as what I originally got after I was automatically updated.

Now when I try to log in I always get:

Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 67108864 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 30720 bytes) in /home/mard/public_html/blog/wp-admin/includes/theme.php on line 457

No mention of memory size anywhere near that line.

If you’re seeing this error either suddenly (no specific task was done to cause the error) or frequently, try deactivating all plugins to rule-out a plugin-specific issue and try switching themes to rule-out a theme-specific issue.

Otherwise, here are three ways to increase PHP’s memory allocation:

1. If you can edit or override the system php.ini file, increase the memory limit. For example, memory_limit = 128M

2. If you cannot edit or override the system php.ini file, add php_value memory_limit 128M to your .htaccess file.

3. If neither of these work, it’s time to ask your hosting provider to temporarily increase PHP’s memory allocation on your account. Keep in mind that most decent hosting providers allocate 32 MB to PHP under each account, and most decent hosting providers allow users to temporarily increase the memory allocation. If your hosting provider won’t accommodate you, perhaps it’s time to find a new hosting provider.

(in the above examples, the limit is set to 128MB)

This morning, instead of doing what you recommended first, James, namely to try deactivating plugins and switch themes, I tried your 1. and 2. above. I was able to do 1. OK but was not allowed to modify the .htaccess file. And I still got the Fatal error when I tried to access wp-admin.

So, I went away, visited my friend, had lunch and a walk on the beach with her here on the rugged coast of Maine. I worried that I’d have to contact my blog’s host.

Now I come back and find no more fatal errors! Everything seems to be working! I did notice an access to my plugins at 8:24 this morning. Anyway, it appears somebody fixed it! Many many thanks!

But I’ll give it a little more time before I change the topic to “resolved”. Maybe I’m hallucinating or something?

As long as it’s working, it’s working. ??

OK OK I see what I did! I forgot to activate the plugins!

Now as I activate them one by one everything is OK until I get up to the plugins that begin with “w”. It looks like two or three of them are causing the problem. Right now I’ve had to rename wordpresscom-stats-helper, wp-db-backup, and wp-postviews.

I’ll have to work more on this but I’m taking a break now.

Excellent, just try each one of those individually to isolate the problem.

I think I’ve got it now. I went carefully through them all and found lots of them that were not yet verified with the present version, and some were really old ones that were essentially useless. So, now I think all is OK. Whew…. unless….. no no forget that!

Thank you very much for your patient counsel!