Thesis Framework Child-Theme Disaster

Bought the Thesis theme and have been reading the documentation thoroughly. I’ve even downloaded 2 starter child-themes, one regular and one responsive. My problem comes when adding a “custom” folder to any one of the child themes. Lemme explain.

The Thesis framework folder structure has certain files that need to be present in the child-theme in order to function properly. At the very least these files are functions.php and style.css. However it seems like changes that I add to both of these files aren’t registered.

But if I then make a folder in my child-theme called custom and create 2 files in there called custom.css and custom-functions.php (following the structure of the original themes folder) and do my dirty work there, the changes are then registered. But then something awful happens.

In the WordPress admin area Thesis has awesomely amazing options that allow you to configure most of the site without the use of code. These 2 areas are called “Site Options” and “Design Options”. And my problem lies with the Design Options area. The MOMENT I create that custom folder in my child-theme…I can no longer access it. After trying for what seems like forever I’m met with a page timeout message or a message saying “the database of your site is down blah blah”.

I’ve read the user guide so many times and they even say that I need to create a folder claled custom so…what’s going on?