ce_kevinw

Hi Joe Jord,

To confirm, you’re looking at “Reading” under “Settings” in the Dashboard?

I see options to show “latest posts”, or “a static page”. Which option do you have selected?

Hi dwong,

Do you recall exactly what you had changed? Did you change a file (if so, which one), or did you update something else?

Hi irkab,

It may be a plugin that is making the modifications, I’m not too sure. Out of curiosity, have you checked your server logs for wp-admin/options-discussion.php to see if anyone is making changes other than yourself?

No crickey82, don’t give up!!!

Let me guide you through this, we’ll get it going.

Do you have a web hosting account already? Such as bluehost, mediatemple, inmotion hosting? If so, respond back with your host and I’ll dig up some more information for you.

Hi jmarquand,

I would recommend looking at the differences between a set of virtual hosts that are not working.

For example, find the virtual hosts in the apache config file for one specific site (ssl and no ssl), and then find what is different between them. Do they both show the same IP address but different port settings?

If you can post some of the details, I’d be happy to review.

Hi katiekeenan,

I’m a big fan of phpMyAdmin, and I recommend you install phpMyAdmin yourself and then go from there. Even if your host no longer offers it, you should be able to install it from scratch.

A quick search on Google should bring back sites you can use to install phpMyAdmin.

Keep in mind for the database to work, several things must happen.
1. The database must be created
2. A database user must be created
3. The database user must be assigned with certain privileges to the database.

Hi oneweekwebsites,

If the article suggested by tcbarrett doesn’t help, give us more information about the problem and I’ll be happy to look into further. For example, what is the domain in question, what exactly is not working, any errors?

Hi crickey82,

In addition to esmi’s response, I’d like to point out that if you’re very new to this type of thing, installing WordPress from scratch may be a little overwhelming. If you’re not much of a documentation reader, I suggest searching youtube for “manual wordpress install” to find a video that shows you how to run through the install. It can definitely help get you out of the dark.

Hi ifrydr,

Can you supply us with the domain in question so we can test ourself?

What do you see when you go to yourdomain?

Many hosts include a landing page, named something similar to index.html, that says “Website coming soon”. If you’re seeing something similar to this, then their landing page may be overriding the WordPress index.php file and loading first. What you’ll want to do is check if this is the case, and if so, remove the index.html file they’ve included with your account.

Hello,

I also use Easy Adsense and just did a scan of it with no red flags. It is possible that it was either a false positive, or your website was hacked at some point and the hacker replaced the default file with a malicious file. Just to be safe I’d change your FTP/cPanel passwords in case it was compromised.

Kevin

Hello,

Here are some quick pointers:

• Make sure that WordPress is always updated to the most up to date version, as each update often patches some security holes
• Have a very secure WordPress admin password, and also if you have an FTP or cPanel password make sure that is very secure as well.
• Install security plugins such as Secure WordPress

There are other things as well but those I’d say are some of the most important steps to give your site more protection. You can read more in-depth information here.

– Kevin

Does your host use cPanel? If it does, then in the cPanel Error Log it will show the cause of the 500 error. For example:

[Fri Apr 08 06:08:14 2011] [error] [client 174.77.92.170] SoftException in Application.cpp:264: File "/home/username/public_html/wordpress/index.php" is writeable by others

If you do not have access to the error log, you should be able to contact your host and get it from them. That will make it easier to track down exactly what is causing the error.

– Kevin

Hello,

Yes, WordPress will require its own database. Just create a new database for your WordPress, and connect the installation to the new database instead of to the vbulletin forum database. Then you should be all set.

Kevin

Hello,

Was that the website that you got the theme from? If you downloaded a free theme, then the maker of the theme generally wants their name/website in the footer so they get credit for the theme they created. They are in the footer so they don’t take away from your general site, but more are there as a reference.

Kevin

Hi exumastarfish,

I’m not familiar with WordPress stats. Are you using WordPress.com, or are you using a plugin named “WordPress stats”?

Any further details you can provide would be helpful.

Thanks!

[Please stop referencing your web hosting site]