WordPress update failed, now cant access admin

I clicked on the link to upgrade to WordPress version 4.7. The updated timed-out, and now I am unable to access the admin pages

You may need to complete the upgrade by using the manual update process now. Instructions can be found here: https://codex.www.ads-software.com/Updating_WordPress

Please read carefully. There are files and directories that need some special consideration during a manual update.

Thanks for the tip. I have followed the instructions you linked to (https://codex.www.ads-software.com/Updating_WordPress#Manual_Update). When I reach Step 2 of the manual upgrade (accessing the admin Dashboard), I get the same error: HTTP ERROR 500

Any other suggestions?

Try this and see if you can get into the dashboard…

https://islandlifefinancial.com/wp/wp-login.php

…if you can, then go to

https://islandlifefinancial.com/wp/wp-admin/upgrade.php

…and see if it will let you complete the process. If not, you will probably need to resolve whatever is causing the 500 configuration error first. There can be a number of different issues that might cause that.

Internal server errors (error 500) are often caused by plugin or theme function conflicts, so if you have access to your admin panel, try deactivating all plugins. If you don’t have access to your admin panel, 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, try switching to the default theme for your version of WordPress to rule-out a theme-specific issue. If you don’t have access to your admin panel, access your server via SFTP or FTP, or a file manager in your hosting account’s control panel, 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.

If that does not resolve the issue, it’s possible that a .htaccess rule could be the source of the problem. To check for this, access your server via SFTP or FTP, or a file manager in your hosting account’s control panel, and rename the .htaccess file. If you can’t find a .htaccess file, make sure that you have set your SFTP or FTP client to view invisible files.

If you weren’t able to resolve the issue by either resetting your plugins and theme or renaming your .htaccess file, we may be able to help, but we’ll need a more detailed error message. Internal server errors are usually described in more detail in the server error log. If you have access to your server error log, generate the error again, note the date and time, then immediately check your server error log for any errors that occurred during that time period. If you don’t have access to your server error log, ask your hosting provider to look for you.

• This reply was modified 7 years, 10 months ago by Clayton James.

Thanks again for your help, Clayton. Very much appreciated.

1)
When I browse to /wp/wp-login.php , I am shown the WordPress login page. Not sure if it matters or not, but I’ll mention it. The password field is auto-populated when I visit the page, but When I try to log in by simply clicking on the login button, I get the error message that the password field was empty — which it’s not! It’s full of dots (hidden characters). When I click on the username field, and the username pops down, I click on it, nothing seemingly happens, but when I click on the login button after that, the system goes to log me in, but I get the same HTTP 500 error page again. I’m using the latest Chrome browser. Out of curiosity, I also tried in FireFox, just to see what would happen. The password problem doesn’t happen, but I do end up with a blank page.

Note that with both browsers, I am redirected to this page upon successfully logging in:
https://islandlifefinancial.com/wp/wp-admin/upgrade.php?_wp_http_referer=%2Fwp%2Fwp-admin%2F

And it’s on this page that I get the HTTP 500 error in Chrome.

2) I did try disabling all of the plugins. Since I don’t have access to the Dashboard, I followed some instructions to modify the wp_options table in the database directly, setting the value in the ‘active_plugins’ field to disable all plugins. This lead to some error_log errors and the homepage no longer loading properly. The error_log had the following:

[05-Jan-2017 17:48:43 America/Chicago] PHP Fatal error:  require() [<a href='function.require'>function.require</a>]: Failed opening required '/home3/REMOVED/public_html/_websites/islandlifefinancial.com/wp/wp-includes/load.php' (include_path='.:/opt/php53/lib/php') in /home3/REMOVED/public_html/_websites/islandlifefinancial.com/wp/wp-settings.php on line 19
[06-Jan-2017 00:12:32 UTC] PHP Fatal error:  Call to undefined function putRevSlider() in /home3/REMOVED/public_html/_websites/islandlifefinancial.com/wp/wp-content/themes/bluediamond-v1_03/page.php on line 19
[06-Jan-2017 03:10:10 UTC] PHP Fatal error:  Call to undefined function putRevSlider() in /home3/REMOVED/public_html/_websites/islandlifefinancial.com/wp/wp-content/themes/bluediamond-v1_03/page.php on line 19
[06-Jan-2017 16:46:01 UTC] PHP Fatal error:  Call to undefined function putRevSlider() in /home3/REMOVED/public_html/_websites/islandlifefinancial.com/wp/wp-content/themes/bluediamond-v1_03/page.php on line 19

And…

[04-Jan-2017 02:51:14 UTC] PHP Fatal error:  Call to undefined function is_plugin_active() in /home3/REMOVED/public_html/_websites/islandlifefinancial.com/wp/wp-content/plugins/black-studio-tinymce-widget/includes/class-compatibility-plugins.php on line 116
[04-Jan-2017 02:53:14 UTC] PHP Fatal error:  Cannot redeclare register_setting() (previously declared in /home3/REMOVED/public_html/_websites/islandlifefinancial.com/wp/wp-includes/option.php:1871) in /home3/REMOVED/public_html/_websites/islandlifefinancial.com/wp/wp-admin/includes/plugin.php on line 1795

3) I also tried renaming my current theme directory name. When I do this, the homepage no longer loads, and I get a blank page with this error message:

The theme directory “bluediamond-v1_03” does not exist.

4)
As for the .htaccess contents, I don’t believe this is the problem. It seems unlikely that the upgrade process would change the .htacess file, and the admin dashboard was working fine before I started the upgrade. Also, I checked the modified timestamp, and the .htacess file was last changed in 2015. If you think it’s important, I can post the contents. Let me know.

5)
My shared hosting provider is Hostgator. I’m not entirely sure where to look for the server logs you’re referring to. In the cpanel there’s a “Logs” section. In that section, I clicked on the “Error Log” icon. I didn’t see anything relevent to my WordPress site in there. There’s also a Raw Access Log icon. Not sure about that one. Where should I be looking?

Thank you!