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WordPress

Posted by Nick Barry
Nick Barry
2,197 Points

Customizing A Wordpress Theme

Hi All, I'm not sure if anyone else has had this issue. I've been following the video for Customizing A Wordpress Theme. I've been making the basic customizations shown in the video, removing the headline, changing background colors etc.

For some strange reason it's not allowing me to Save & Publish. I thought maybe it was an issue with the theme, so have tried it with multiple themes, sadly to no-avail.

Can anyone help? I like working along with the videos so don't want to skip ahead without having done these bits.

Thanks in advance for any help!

3 Answers

Derek Hanson
Derek Hanson
7,838 Points
Derek Hanson
Derek Hanson
7,838 Points

Hi Nick,

Not sure exactly what your issue is with customization. If you are using Twenty Eleven it is incredibly simple if you follow the video. Perhaps you give some more information as this is fairly vague.

1) Are you on a Wordpress.com website or self hosted? 2) What theme are you using? 3) When you are using customizing it and pushing Save & Publish do you view it by click preview.

One thought might be your browser might be caching the page so it doesn't show edits.

Derek Hanson

Nick Barry
Nick Barry
2,197 Points

Hi Derek,

Thanks for the response. I'm currently using Twenty Eleven, but I've tried a couple of other themes also, including Twenty Thirteen. I'm hosting wordpress myself. My hosting site (site5.com) provides a service that installs it all etc with 1 click, creating the mysql server and all the files on my hosting space. It's hosted here ( http://www.picturesandtext.co.uk/wordpress/ )

It's bizarre. I make the changes, they preview as I want them, just simple things like hiding the title, but when I click save and publish nothing happen. I go to the link ( http://www.picturesandtext.co.uk/wordpress/ ) and nothing has changed from the default settings.

I've done a little more experimentation and it seems I'm having a similar problem with widgets. I'll drag widgets onto the main sidebar and there will just be a gray loading pinwheel, forever I assume.

Is this a problem with my hosting? Any information/help would be much appreciated.

Thanks,

Nick

Nick Barry
Nick Barry
2,197 Points
Nick Barry
Nick Barry
2,197 Points

-

Derek Hanson
Derek Hanson
7,838 Points
Derek Hanson
Derek Hanson
7,838 Points

Hi Nick,

Alright, It is hard to say that it is the host or not. The one click install used to be that some hosts would setup writable restrictions to help protect database or installs from hacking or other issues. After looking at your site and at your plugins based on the code I would start with two things. The second thing I posted is more likely the cause of your problems because it sounds like some of your files do not have permission to change.

1) Turn off all your plugins. Then try updating. The themes you've tried shouldn't have any problems since they are produced and coded by WordPress and are basically guaranteed to work themes. If it works then turn back on plugins and make changes to see if it works. If it doesn't help change things then you know it is likely your host. 2) If it is your host then it is likely a permissions settings that your host sets. This doesn't necessarily mean that it is hosting problem but more of a protection against vulnerabilities. I can attempt to explain how to change this but it might be faster for you just to contact them and find out if the permission settings are set to and have them change your settings to be able to edit them. If you are interested in learning about some rewrite issues and you know something about using FTP client then a read from Wordpress would be helpful. WordPress on permission files.

If your problems continue then it might be a javascript problem. Not likely and I would say try these two solutions first. If you still have problems then I would look at javascript and there are things you can do to resolve that.

I hope this helps.

Derek Hanson

Nick Barry
Nick Barry
2,197 Points

Hey Derek,

Turning the plugins off then turning them back on seemed to work.

Thanks a lot!