Wordpress themes not recognized

Wordpress themes do not manifest themselves

[pranavc]

Hi All,
This is one of a few posts I have made as a new member of this forum. I built my site using soholaunch website builder two years ago and have been updating it regularly over the last two years. I have been quite happy with the product. I recently had a soholaunch expert created an integration between wordpress and soholaunch such that one of my website pages is now a blog page created within the wordpress framework. The only problem is that NONE of my wordpress themes are manifested. I have tried different themes and none of them are recognized in the final representation (or the preview for that matter) on the blog. I tried making posts on the soholaunch forum and users blame it on wordpress. When I made a similar post on the wordpress forum, users blamed it on soholaunch. Have any of you run into this scenario wherein wordpress themes were not recognized. If so, were you able to circumvent this issue? If you did, please do let me know how you worked around this issue. Your input will be highly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Regards,

Pranav

[ergophobe]

Hi Pranav,

Welcome!

I'm wondering if it's a path issue or something like that. How is your site organized. In other words is it

example.com <== soholaunch root
example.com/blog <== Wordpress root?

And I assume that the default WP theme is working, but that you can't change it?

[pranavc]

Hi ergophobe,
Thank you so much for your prompt acknowledgment of my post. The site is organized as follows:

example.com/blog.php

Interestingly enough, even the default WP theme is NOT working. That is the bit I struggle with. Could this have to do with permissions that the web host is controlling? Just a wild though. Any input would be appreciated. Thank you once again.

Regards,

Pranav

[ergophobe]

Ok, that's sort of good news, because it means they probably all have the same problem.

Things to try:

Load one of your CSS files directly, as in

example.com/blog/wp-content/themes/default/style.css

Does it load? Then it's not a permission problem on the theme files (unless the PHP files don't have execute permission, this wouldn't check that).

Check the path. If you're using the default theme, it should be loading some images as backgrounds. In Firefox, go to your Tools->Page Info -> Media and see what images it's trying to find. Is the path right?

Are the paths right in the links in your WP Menu? If not, you might just have things set wrong for you site entirely. Go to your general settings in WordPress and make sure that WP is set to example.com/blog as its root directory.

Look

[pranavc]

Hi ergophobe,
Thank you once again for your helpful response. I will try loading one of the CSS files directly. I will keep you posted on how that turns out.

I am trying to use another theme as opposed to the default theme. I find the default theme quite bland. Either way, I will look at what is being loaded.

I will also check the general settings in Wordpress to make sure that WP is set to the correct root directory.

Thanks once again for your help!

Regards,

Pranav

[pranavc]

Ok. So I tried loading a style.css file into my themes/default folder and that worked just fine. I also tried doing the "page info" to see what images were loading. Since this is an integration between wordpress and soholaunch, only my soholaunch template photos load - which is what I want and expect. I checked general settings to make sure my root folder for the wordpress blog was correct.

Any other issue that I may have overlooked since I find the lack of recognition of themes as undermining the whole purpose of a wordpress blog installation.

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Regards,

Pranav

[ergophobe]

loading a style.css file into my themes/default folder

I meant loading it into your browser. That is, typing into your browser bar the direct address of where the CSS file is supposed to be and seeing if it loads in your browser or gives you some type of error.

When you open a page that should be managed by Wordpress and then look at the source, where is it looking for the stylesheet? Does that correspond with where the stylesheet for that theme is located?

Questions like these will enable you to figure out where in the process things are going wrong.

[pranavc]

It seems to be loading the correct stylesheet. There are no errors - which makes this even more confusing.

[ergophobe]

Pranav,

Sorry, but your answers are too brief and not precise enough for me to follow. What do you mean "It seems to be loading the correct stylesheet"? Are you verifying this with Firebug?

How do you *know* it's loading the stylesheet? Did you check with Firebug to make sure the stylesheet actually loaded and is being applied?

Did you request the stylesheet by direct URL? Did it show up correctly in your browser?

Is the stylesheet URL correct in your source? Did you verify the path?

[pranavc]

Hi ergophobe,
My sincere apologies for the vague answers. So here is what I did.

a. I copied the following example.com/blog/wp-content/themes/default/style.css

into my the URL location field of my browser and hit enter.

All I could see in the browser was the CODE for the style.css file. Looking at the first few lines of the code, it seemed to be referencing the default wordpress theme.

I did not check anything with Firebug (I have to plead ignorance on what that is!).

Once again, thank you for your help with this. Any additional input from your end would be VERY helpful.

Regards,

Pranav

[ergophobe]

Okay, so by putting the

example.com/blog/wp-content/themes/default/style.css

that shows there are no permission problems in accessing those files. That should be true for all your theme files, but ideally you would want to run that test again with whatever theme you're trying to use.

Now let's find out which CSS files your page is actually using.

Use the View Source function to look at the actual code being sent to the browser. In particular, look to find stylesheet references in the form

<link rel='stylesheet'.....>

Is it referencing the correct stylesheets. Are the paths defined correctly? In other words, if you take the path from the stylesheet reference and put *that* in your browser (adding the domain name if necessary), does it bring up the right code?

So in my case, I have all stylesheet links as absolute links (i.e. including the domain), so I can just paste that in.

Another way to do this is to use Firebug to see what stylesheets are being invoked. Firebug is the web developer's best friend. It's a plugin for the Firefox browser that lets you troubleshoot all sorts of problems and even edit CSS on the fly and play with new design ideas without changing any files.

So if you're going to be playing with your CSS, you'll want to start by downloading and installing Firebug on your Firefox browser.

[getfirebug.com...]

Restart FF, make sure Firebug is installed. You should have a little bug icon in the bottom right bar of your browser and you should also have a full FB menu under Tools -> Firebug in the main browser menu.

Now navigate to one of your blog pages.

Once the page loads, click on the little bug in the bottom bar or select Tools->Firebug->Open Firebug

You'll have a split window now with FB on the bottom. You'll see an arrow pointing into a box and then tabs named Console, CSS, Script, DOM, Net.

If you go to the CSS tab, it will have a dropdown menu that will tell you all the CSS files that are loading for the current page.

If you select the arrow pointing into the box, that's "Inspect Element". Click on the arrow and then hover over elements on your page. It will outline them as you do and will reveal the HTML and CSS defining those pieces of the page. Click on one and it will "freeze" there. Now you can see which styles are being invoked for that piece.

Are they the ones you expect?

So once you've done these steps, you will have a sense of where the problem is occurring and then you can work backwards from there.

[pranavc]

Hi ergophobe,
First, I want to thank you for devoting so much time to troubleshooting my long-standing issue. I truly appreciate it and am grateful for the existence of people such as you.

I tried doing the "view page info" option, and was surprised to see not even a single reference to any of the wordpress themes. I also tried looking at the drop-down css menu in firebug. That too, had no reference to the style.css file associated with any of the wordpress themes.

The only css file references are to the ones associated with my basic website template created in soholaunch. Is it possible to have my website's "content area" base off a wordpress theme stylesheet - at least for my blog page?

Any help with regard to this would be great! Thanks a lot.

Regards,

Pranav

[ergophobe]

HI Pranav,

View page info and View source are different. Open a page on your blog and (in Firefox) press CTRL-U (or

In the head of the document -- between the <head> and </head> -- look for things that look like

<link rel-"stylesheet".../>

Do you have any? Do they point to the stylesheets in your Wordpress theme?

[pranavc]

HI ergophobe,
I accessed "view source". It led me to the all the HTML code. There were a few references to <link rel-"stylesheet"> but NONE of them pointed to any of the stylesheets in the wordpress theme. My apologies for the late response AND for typing "page info" instead of "page source" in my last post.

Regards,

Pranav

[ergophobe]

Can you post a couple examples of the <link rel="stylesheet".../> in the view source?

For your privacy and protection, please change the domain name to example.com when you post.

[pranavc]

Here goes:

<link rel="shortcut icon" href="favicon.ico" />


<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="sohoadmin/program/modules/site_templates/pages/dwrcb11/custom.css" /><link href="sohoadmin/program/includes/display_elements/window/default.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />
<link href="sohoadmin/program/includes/display_elements/window/onscreen_edit.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />

[ergophobe]

Okay, now we're getting there. This is what I've been trying to ask for all along to determine whether sohoadmin or Wordpress is generating the pages. It appears that Wordpress is not generating those pages at all.

But in the first post, you're telling me that you are able to create content from Wordpress and access the Wordpress backend and all that, but the theme is not getting invoked.

Can you confirm that?

That seems strange, because the links are clearly not being created by WP. It's not just getting mixed up. Those are not the way WP creates its stylesheet links (they would be absolute links to /wp-content/themes/theme-name).

Also, can you edit down your .htaccess files from both root and /blog and post theme. This could reveal sensitive info about your site, so be careful just cutting and pasting. At least, change out any domain name links for "example.com".

This just isn't making sense.

[pranavc]

Hi ergophobe,
I only create content from within the wordpress backend. Yet, the theme does not get invoked on the website. In fact, when I type up a blog post through the wordpress backend, and then try looking at the preview of the post, the theme still DOES NOT get invoked – even in the preview.

I only have an htaccess file at my root. I have posted its contents below.

# To set your custom php.ini, add the following line to this file:
suphp_configpath /home/username/public_html

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /Blog.php/
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule Blog.php(.*)$ /blog/index.php$1 [L]
</IfModule>

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /Example_Blog.php/
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule Example_Blog.php(.*)$ /Example_Blog.php$1 [L]
</IfModule>

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /Example_Blog.php/
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
</IfModule>

I hope this helps. Once again, I cannot thank you enough for investing time in helping me with this. I truly appreciate the effort you are taking.

Regards,

Pranav

[ergophobe]

Okay, I'm not a mod_rewrite expert, but there are clearly some problems there.

How did you come up with those rules? Were they given to you by your host or by soholaunch? To me, they make no sense at all on many many levels.


1. There is a lot of repetition - you check for mod_rewrite 3 times and you do the file and directory check three times.

2. RewriteBase would typically be a directory. I don't think you can use it as a file as that simply doesn't make sense. Also, setting it three times makes no sense, nor does setting it to three different things. It's either your base or it isn't. So I would get rid of the RewriteBase directives.

So let's start by getting rid of all that junk.

3. You don't have anything to exempt the WP directory from your rewrites.

So....

If Soholaunch is not needing any rewrites, then just get rid of (after backing up) all of this. rename your .htaccess to .htaccess-bak. Then it will get ignored. Does soholaunch still work? If so, then just put the Wordpress default .htaccess in the Wordpress directory (/blog) with all your other wordpress files.

If soholaunch does need a rewrite, then do this for your .htaccess

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^blog
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]

If soholaunch doesn't *need* a rewrite to index.php, but generates an automatic menu link to something like Blog.php as in your first set of rewrites, then use something like this:


RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^blog
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule Blog.php(.*)$ /blog/index.php$1 [L]

only use one of these options!

In order, try the following:

1. No .htaccess in your web root

2. If your soholaunch site is completely screwed up by this, then try my second option.

3. If your soholaunch site is working, but the in-built menu item doesn't link to your blog, try my last version.

[pranavc]

Hi ergophobe,
Thank you so much for the detailed responses. It might take me a day or two to get to this since I am winding up with a vacation and returning to the US in two days. Once I get back, I will try this out. Thank you so much for devoting so much time to my issue.

Regards,

Pranav

[ergophobe]

No problem... it's very strange, but I'm guessing that as usual, it will be obvious once the solution is found.

[pranavc]

Hi ergophobe...my sincere apologies for not having posted here in a while. I was in the middle of a move from one city to another. I got in touch with the person that outlined the integration between soholaunch and wordpress. Apparently, the way the integration was set up, wordpress themes are blocked completely. The only way around this is to copy out the elements of the style.css from my wordpress theme into the base template (i.e. base .css file). I am going to try this and see how this pans out. I will keep you posted. Once again, my apologies for the delay.

[ergophobe]

This would depend on the degree of integration you need.

You might consider having WP served out of one directory using the WP theme, and just mimic the soholaunch theme. Dynamic elements won't be easily shareable b/w WP and SL, but it will be easy to maintain.