Widgets disappear from admin after manual upgrade

I should also add that switching to the new default 2011 theme doesn’t bring the widgets back in the admin. Still missing.

Have you tried:

– deactivating all plugins to see if this resolves the problem. If this works, re-activate the plugins one by one until you find the problematic plugin(s).

– switching to the Twenty Eleven theme to rule out any theme-specific problems.

– resetting the plugins folder by FTP or PhpMyAdmin. Sometimes, an apparently inactive plugin can still cause problems.

Yes, I’ve tried most of those things.

I”m developing several wordpress blogs, all on the same webhost server. Everyone that I’ve upgraded has this problem, whether it was going from 2.8 directly to 3.2.1, or from 3.1.3 to 3.2.1.

I just tried another test install and upgrade, completely from scratch. The install script that comes with the webhost installs verion 2.8. Then check that widgets are there, yes, and plugins deactivated. Immediately thereafter, I auto upgrade to v 3.2.1. And going back to the widgets admin reveals they are now gone from the admin.

The widgets exist on the live blog, but they are completely missing from the admin.

Changing to a newer default theme does nothing.

I did not add or activate any plugins in this test run. Not sure if it would change anything, but I will try resetting the plugins folder as you suggest.

Thanks

You could try installing WordPress 3.2.1 manually.

I tried deactivating the plugins, but no change.

The upgrade installation was done manually on some, and automatically on other blogs. They all have the same problem.

I’m starting to wonder if it might be server specific. But why the widgets? They seem to be the only thing affected.

Anyone have any ideas?

Difficult to say. On one server it might be widgets, on another the RSS feed doesn’t work. All we can really surmise is that, if this is server specific, then it will be something within that server’s configuration that is causing the problem. Is there anything in the server’s error logs that might give you a clue?

The server people are looking into it. They said they’ve never run into this before.

In the meantime, I tried a test – rolled back to version 3.1.4, manually on one of the blogs.

On home page, got the following fatal error
Fatal error: Call to undefined function is_multi_author() in wp-content/themes/twentyeleven/functions.php on line 583
Oops, probably should have reverted to old theme before rolling back to older WP version.

Went to log in, it said database update required. OK. At log in, it claimed password was wrong. Had to reset. But would it remember it more than once? So far, so good, and haven’t had to reset password.

And widgets work. So everything seems back to normal, SO FAR, using V 3.1.4. Was it 3.2.1 that was the problem then? And why?

I’m a little skittish to upgrade just now. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it! I’m wondering if I should roll the all back to v 3.1.4.

If you stay with 3.1.4, you run a real risk of your site being hacked. From a security perspective and when using open source software, staying a version or 2 behind is just about the worst thing you can do. Have you confirmed that your current hosting meets the minimum requirements for WordPress 3.2x?

Good to know, thanks.

Funny you should ask about requirements. That’s what prompted this whole thing. I had one live blog at WP 2.9, another at 3.1.3. Separately 2 blogs under development at 3.1.3. Before upgrading to 3.2, I checked and learned that the server was still on PHP 4.4.8 and MySQL 4.1.22. But everything was working just fine!

So I asked if we could upgrade the server, and they did. We’re now at PHP 5.2.11, and MySQL 5.0.88. After that upgrade, I went to upgrade all the WordPress blogs and it’s just been one headache after another. The other live blog has the looping login issue which I’m also trying to troubleshoot. That’s the only one I didn’t upgrade to 3.2.

My brain hurts.

I’m experiencing all the same issues as 2mooses. I have a WP install that was fine before the upgrade to 3.2.1 and after the upgrade, all but two widgets disappeared from my Widgets menu. I only see “MB – Featured Post” and “MB – User Login” now.

I only have one plugin installed. I have a Facebook Comments plugin. I’ve tried the usuals. I disabled my sole plugin and reverted back to Twentyten. I tried other themes too. All had the same result. My widgets seem to be gone.

Ok, I figured out what was going on.

2mooses, if you’re having the exact same problem I’m having then you need to turn off zend.ze1_compatibility_mode in your php.ini settings. This is the setting that allows your hosting to be (semi) backward compatible with PHP4, but it causes problems for some PHP5 scripts.

Hyperlinked, thank you very much for posting. I was beginning to think I was bonkers, as the only one with this problem.

I did a phpinfo, and sure enough, zend.ze1_compatibility_mode is set to on. I will contact my host provider to change that, as I don’t feel qualified to tinker in php.ini.

I’ll post the results here (which I hope will be positive) so that it might help others.

TTYS

hyperlinked! Thank you! Very, very much! This problem has annoyed me more than a year. It does not show 2.9 but prevented me to go to 3.x