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The solution to this issue wasn’t easy and I did as much experimentation and investigation into the issue as I had time for. In the end, this is what I ended up doing:

1. Export the existing data
2. Copy existing WordPress directory to a backup location
3. Drop the existing WordPress database
4. Create a fresh install of WordPress 3.3 with identical settings as 3.2.1 site
5. Before logging on to the new site for the first time, import the data from the following core tables only:

• wp_commentmeta
• wp_comments
• wp_links
• wp_postmeta
• wp_posts
• wp_term_relationships
• wp_term_taxonomy
• wp_terms

• Copy over templates, content, and plugins from backup site
• Log into new 3.3 site and finish up resetting the site as needed

Once completed, I had a functioning site again.

The issue was somehow related to the other core tables. However, checking the tables five ways from Sunday didn’t reveal any database related issues such as corruption or index problems.

This issue is definitely related to the 3.3 upgrade from 3.2.1. Just prior to the upgrade, I could publish posts. Immediately after the upgrade, the issue described in this ticket was in place.

A final note: This is a WordPress site hosted on my own server. For security, I don’t use tools such as webadmin, cPanel, or phpmyadmin.

Alright, I was forced to drill into the code.

The problem was the _wp_get_comment_list function was failing (/wp-admin/includes/template.php) because no index had been created on the comments.comment_date_gmt field. Presumably, this should have happened on the upgrade to 2.5. No errors were reported during the upgrade, rather WP reported everything was successful. Once an index was created on this field, the function worked properly and I was able to properly administer comments.

Update…

Tried disabling all plugins in case there was an issue there. No joy. Still cannot view existing or unmoderated comments.

Wow! Did I get lucky! After posting this issue, I clicked on the “thumbnail” tag I created for the post which listed this issue as # five in the list: PodPress disables image posting. I happen to have PodPress installed and once it was deactivated, the thumbnails appeared in the admin screen. I would have never guessed a conflict caused by a plugin.