Archive | February, 2010

The Requested Theme Does Not Exist – Wordpress

24 Feb

WordPress logo stackedThis is a quick fix for anyone who has seen the following error appear when trying to edit a WordPress theme through the admin section:

The Requested Theme Does Not Exist

I remember seeing this and immediately fearing the worst (that I had broken my WordPress blog somehow) but I had a think of what I had been changing on the site before I got this error (the CSS file) and after a quick look on Google I found this article.

The article mentions that the commented-out information at the top of the CSS file (containing the theme details) is used by WordPress to pull out the theme name:

/*
Theme Name: WordPress Default
Theme URI: http://wordpress.org/
Description: The default WordPress theme based on the famous <a href=”http://binarybonsai.com/kubrick/”>Kubrick</a>.
Version: 1.6
Author: Michael Heilemann
Author URI: http://binarybonsai.com/
Tags: blue, custom header, fixed width, two columns, widgets
Kubrick v1.5
http://binarybonsai.com/kubrick/
This theme was designed and built by Michael Heilemann,
whose blog you will find at http://binarybonsai.com/
The CSS, XHTML and design is released under GPL:
http://www.opensource.org/licenses/gpl-license.php
*/

At the time I wasn’t too familiar with WordPress and had just deleted the code to save about 15 lines in my CSS file. If you delete the code or use certain special characters in the theme name (such as an ampersand – &) WordPress cannot find the theme and display the templates or CSS in the admin section for you.

To fix this quite simply check the commented code at the top of the theme’s CSS for any characters which may be causing the error. Or if you did what I had done and delete the commented code completely, put it back in via ftp and WordPress will load up the editor section straight away.

Unable to Locate Wordpress Content Directory wp-content

19 Feb

WordPress logo in greyI encountered this problem when attempting to upgrade my version WordPress (for this blog) and also upgrade my WordPress plugins to the newest versions.

I chose to upgrade my WordPress blog automatically, entered the correct ftp details and came across this error:

Unable to Locate Wordpress Content Directory wp-content

I racked my brains for a while making sure that all the permissions to the necessary files were correct and after about 45 minutes I found a blog post by Hui Wang which provided the answer.

The problem may not necessarily be with WordPress or any of my files / permissions but actually my hosting company. My blog is currently hosted through byethost.com and quite a few people who have WordPress blogs get the same problem.

To fix the problem, add the following code to the bottom of your wp-config.php file:

/** Override default file system method*/
if(is_admin()) {
add_filter(‘filesystem_method’, create_function(‘$a’, ‘return “direct”;’ ));
define( ‘FS_CHMOD_DIR’, 0751 );
}

The above code overides the default file system method to allow WordPress to upgrade, delete plugins directly (without using ftp details). It works for me and saves me from having to download .zip files and uploading them through my ftp client etc… which takes up a lot of time when you have a lot of plugins.

Let me know if it works for you or if you have any other problems or solutions let me know and I’ll write a post about it.