Overview
One of the most useful aspects of building a site with WordPress are the thousands of third party plugins. There's a plugin for just about everything you might need to do. Unfortunately, this massive ecosystem of plugins also creates a lot of variation across items like versions and security. By far, the most commonly reported WordPress specific issues are plugin related.
- Some common issues caused by plugins can include:
- Site showing up as a blank page
- Site is running slowly
- Site pages are showing error messages
- As well as other varying issue
The following article will provide information on how you can disable your theme as a means of troubleshooting WordPress issues.
Please keep in mind that troubleshooting the configuration/functionality of third-party applications is not covered by our statement of support. These resources were provided as a courtesy to assist you to the extent of our abilities. For more information on our statement of support, feel free to click here.
Instructions
wp-admin
- Log into your wp-admin dashboard.Log into your wp-admin dashboard.Log into your wp-admin dashboard.Log into your wp-admin dashboard.
- Hover your cursor over Appearance. Then click on Themes.
- Locate a default WordPress theme (such as TwentyNineteen) then click Activate.
- The current active theme will be disabled, and your site will now be using TwentyNineteen.
- If changing the theme resolved your issue, you may want to try re-installing your theme, updating your theme, using a different theme, or contacting your developer.
phpMyadmin
- Log into phpMyAdmin.Log into phpMyAdmin.Log into phpMyAdmin.
- Ensure the correct database is selected. Click on wp_options. Then click on Browse.
- Navigate through your tables until you find stylesheet and template. You will notice these are set to the active theme.
- Click on the
icon next to each table. - Change these to a default WordPress theme (such as TwentyNineteen). Then click Go.
- The current active theme will be disabled and your site will now be using TwentyNineteen.
- If changing the theme resolved your issue, you may want to try re-installing your theme, updating your theme, using a different theme, or contacting your developer.
File Manager
- Open your File Manager.Open your File Manager.
- Navigate to your websites root folder.Navigate to your websites root folder.
- Navigate to the /wp-content/themes/ folder.
- Locate the active theme and rename it to something like activetheme.disabled.
(replacing activetheme with your theme's name) - The active theme will now be disabled.
- The front-end of your site may not display content, but you should be able to open wp-admin which can now be accessed to install/activate a theme for the front-end to re-appear.
- If changing the theme resolved your issue, you may want to try re-installing your theme, updating your theme, using a different theme, or contacting your developer.
FTP
- Connect to your server via FTP.Connect to your server via FTP.Connect to your server via FTP.Connect to your server via FTP.
In this example we are using FileZilla. - Navigate to your websites root folder.Navigate to your websites root folder.Navigate to your websites root folder.Navigate to your websites root folder.
- Navigate to the /wp-content/themes/ folder.
- Locate your active theme and rename it.
- The active theme will be disabled.
- The front-end of your site may not display content, but you should be able to open wp-admin which can now be accessed to install/activate a theme for the front-end to re-appear.
- If changing the theme resolved your issue, you may want to try re-installing your theme, updating your theme, using a different theme, or contacting your developer
SSH
- Connect to your server via SSH.Connect to your server via SSH.Connect to your server via SSH.Connect to your server via SSH.
- Navigate to your websites root folder.Navigate to your websites root folder.Navigate to your websites root folder.Navigate to your websites root folder.
- Navigate to the /wp-content/themes folder using the cd command.
cd wp-content/themes
- Rename the /plugin folder using the mv command.
(Replacing activetheme with your theme's name)mv activetheme activetheme.disable
- The active theme will now be disabled.
- The front-end of your site may not display content, but you should be able to open wp-admin which can now be accessed to install/activate a theme for the front-end to re-appear.
- If changing the theme resolved your issue, you may want to try re-installing your theme, updating your theme, using a different theme, or contacting your developer
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