My WordPress site is down – please help

WordPress is absolutely not compatible with PHP 5.2. We require PHP 5.6.20 or higher, and we recommend PHP 7.4 or higher: https://www.ads-software.com/about/requirements/

So, the first step is to get back on the highest PHP they offer. If that’s 7.3, that will be fine.

Next, 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 SFTP or FTP, or a file manager in your hosting account’s control panel (consult your hosting provider’s documentation for specifics on these), 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, but how can I reset my plugins without a dashboard?

Please follow the links in my reply above for the instructions.

Hi, Thanks for you patience James, somehow (tired and frustrated I guess) I missed that you sent me a link.

OK, so I followed your instructions. I used Filezilla to deactivate my plugins (renamed folder) and that gor me back into wp_admin! So far so good.

Next, I updated the php version with my hosting provider from 5.2 to 7.3.

This causes me to lose wp_admin again and brings the following message (this happened first time around too):

“Your PHP installation appears to be missing the MySQL extension which is required by WordPress.”

How do I fix that?

The online instruction for fixing this, that I can find, involve updating the WP version (in wp_admin) and/or using a info.php file. However, since I upgraded to PHP 7.3 I can access neither wp_admin (again) nor visit the info.php on my site – all I see is the “MySQL missing” message above. Is it possible to add/fix MySQL and/or update WP via FTP?

Another option might be to roll back to PHP 5.2 (again) to get access to wp_admin, but that is not a self-serve feature and they will probably charge me (again) to have a support person do it.

I can see instructions for this here. And I’ve downloaded the latest version. However, my set up seems to differ from the instructions in that the folders for wp-admin, wp-content, wp-includes and the ‘root directory files’ are not sitting in the root of my site but are sitting in a folder called ‘htdocs’. My assumption is that I should overwrite the content of ‘htdocs’ (I have downloaded a copy of my site using FileZilla). I assume that is my root folder. Is this a safe assumption?

“Your PHP installation appears to be missing the MySQL extension which is required by WordPress.”

This is something your hosting provider will need to fix, I recommend contacting their support about this.

Thanks,

This is what they said:

Has referred this to our engineers and as what they advise, the php version needs to be switch back to 5.4 and then you will have to update anything that needs updating to adapt to PHP 7.3.

Please let me know if you want me to change the php version back to 5.4 as advised by our engineers.

My old version of WP (and PHP) worked (mostly) fine. But you say that WP is only compatible with PHP 5.6.20 or higher. So will this work? Will this give me access to wp_admin and allow me to update WP and then PHP? And then my theme? Or should I instead stay on 7.3 and use an FTP client to overwrite all the WP files with the latest version?

The issue was:

“Your PHP installation appears to be missing the MySQL extension which is required by WordPress.”

The PHP installation is controlled by your hosting provider, and the MySQL extension is how PHP communicates with MySQL. WordPress is a PHP and MySQL software, so it needs that, it always has.

And, again, WordPress needs PHP 5.6.20 or higher (and PHP 5.4 was discontinued in 2015).

I recommend speaking to someone higher up in your hosting provider’s support, or switching to a more competent hosting provider: https://www.ads-software.com/hosting/