That Theme is crippleware.
It includes a function, in “functions.php”, that kills the Theme if the Footer text is modified.
The fthemes site claims that the Theme is licensed under CC-By-3.0, but invalidly applies that license to claim that you must leave footer credit links intact.
Alternative #1: buy the link-free version
Alternative #2: remove the offending function from “functions.php”, line 88:
function wp_initialize_the_theme_load() { if (!function_exists("wp_initialize_the_theme")) { wp_initialize_the_theme_message(); die; } } function wp_initialize_the_theme_finish() { $uri = strtolower($_SERVER["REQUEST_URI"]); if(is_admin() || substr_count($uri, "wp-admin") > 0 || substr_count($uri, "wp-login") > 0 ) { /* */ } else { $l = 'Designed by: <a href="https://www.spdiet.com">diet</a> | Thanks to <a href="https://optometry.com">lasik</a>, <a href="https://www.bestonlinecollegesdegrees.com">online colleges</a> and <a href="https://www.seo.us.com">seo</a>'; $f = dirname(__file__) . "/footer.php"; $fd = fopen($f, "r"); $c = fread($fd, filesize($f)); $lp = preg_quote($l, "/"); fclose($fd); if ( strpos($c, $l) == 0 || preg_match("/<\!--(.*" . $lp . ".*)-->/si", $c) || preg_match("/<\?php([^\?]+[^>]+" . $lp . ".*)\?>/si", $c) ) { wp_initialize_the_theme_message(); die; } } } wp_initialize_the_theme_finish();
And then modify \lib\Themater.php, lines 512-513, accordingly.
Alternative #3: ditch this Theme, and henceforth only get your Themes from reputable sources.
