Urgent: Child theme missing - error 500

Support
#1

Hi there,

I’m experiencing a 500 error after updating my childtheme’s functions.php file. I know exactly what code to delete, but the file is missing.

I can’t get in to the front- or backend of the website. When entering the site via FTP I’m missing the child-theme folders. I’m only seeing wp-content/themes/pro and not something like /pro-child.

Can I just upload the unzipped files from the chld theme in the themes folder and replace the functions.php for my last backup? Won’t this influence any of the settings I’ve made for the theme? And can you give me the exact path for the child theme?

Hope you can help me ASAP because the deadline of this website is this week and I really need to get some work done. Thanks in advance!

#2

Hi there,

Yes, you can add the Child theme via FTP without losing the settings you have on the options. But now that you do not see any pro-child which should be on the path below:

WORDPRESS INSTALLATION ROOT/wp-content/themes/

Then the error 500 must be caused by something else as you do not have any child theme installed. Maybe you did the change to the parent theme functions.php?

Any way to make sure you need to enable the WordPress Debugging mode so that it will give you the exact error and not the error 500. Alternatively, you can contact your hosting service provider and ask them to give the error log which will show the actual cause of the error 500 with better information which will help you fix your code.

Thank you.

#3

Thank you for your quick reply. I’ve just placed the child theme files again. And as you already predicted, this didn’t do the trick.

When looking at the parent theme functions.php it is looking a lot different then the child theme’s. So I think I did not overwrite this one with the editing yesterday. I’ve just tried to enable WordPress Debugging mode, but I cant’get it to work.

I really don’t know what to do about it. Can’t see why it is not working, I’ve copied the code from the page you’ve given me.

Can you maybe help me with this?

#4

When checking the rest of the site I’m now seeing it also deleted plugin files… I really don’t know what has happened to my site :open_mouth: Do you have any clues?

#5

I’ve just asked the owner of the server to replace the site with a backup. Think this is the quickest way to solve the problem.

Still, I would really like to know if you have any clues regarding the missing files. I’ve experienced this like 4 times now that there are files missing from the server. The previous times it was after updating wordpress that I needed to reinstall some fo the plugins and re-upload some photos. These times I was able to get to the site with the front and backend, unlike this time.

I’m really flustered about this and would really like to know what is causing wordpress to delete files. Since I can’t find anything about this on the internet, I would really like to know if maybe you guys have experienced something like this before. Maybe you have a clue about what is causing this problem…

Thanks in advance. I hope the backup will solve the problem…

#6

Hey @annevdheijden,

The only solution to missing files is restoring from backup.

There are numerous reasons the files could be missing and most common is your host could have been infected by malware or got hacked. There could also be automated process in your host or your system that could delete files. But, rest assured that there’s no such feature in WordPress and themes out of the box.

Thanks.

#7

I’ve replaced the backup, so I’m able to work on the site again. A major setback, but nothing to do about it. Just start working :wink: Thank you for the information about the reasons for missing files. For now I don’t have a clue what happens, so just fingers crossed that it won’t happen again.

Thanks for the quick support on your side!

#8

You’re welcome. :slight_smile:

#9

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