comments disappeared

comments have disappeared from wordpress site

[Kimkia]

Yesterday, all the comments disappeared from my Wordpress 4.2.3 site, running Genesis framework with Foodie Pro theme.

I have tried disabling all plugins and deleting cache, checked that the right option is selected under Genesis site settings ie to allow comments on posts; also under Settings: Discussion.

I've tried another theme and it made no difference.

The comment form appears below posts, but I was unable to send a test comment - the site just refreshed to a blank page.

In the dashboard, under Comments, it reports no comments exist. Yikes! Please help me get my comments back.

[travelin cat]

Have you reached out to the developer of the theme to see if there may be some incompatibility with the new version of WP? Perhaps they can provide some guidance on the problem if it has affected others as well.

[Kimkia]

Yes, I've asked on the studiopress forum and am hoping for a reply. But to get support on the developer site I need to upload the receipt for my theme, apparently, and I can't remember offhand where I put it. I just know that I paid for it.

I tried two other themes, and couldn't get comments to reappear, so I was thinking it must be an issue with wordpress itself.

[LifeinAsia]

Have you taken a look at your error logs to see if you can find anything?

[lucy24]

You forgot to say what, if anything, you changed before the comments disappeared. Can you undo the change?

[Kimkia]

I was trying to think of that - but I was updating Amazon affiliate links in a number of posts, and that shouldn't have caused it. I also tried to alter the CSS on and AddThis social button bar, but changed it back because it didn't work.

Prior to that, for several days, I had problems with the site loading very slowly, and then it went down totally. Contacted web host, and was told that domain was creating "load" on the server and to place it maintenance mode when working in the backend. That's not a solution and told them so. They rebooted Apache and things seemed ok. Then this. But they say this is wordpress issue not a server one.

Not sure where to access my error logs. But I have tried disabling all plugins and deleting the cache, and that made no difference. Also tried a different theme, although it was another Genesis theme, so I could try one of the default wp themes, I suppose. Not sure what else to try.

[not2easy]

Do you (or your host) have a recent backup? It's a good practice to backup your WP sql database before making changes so you can revert in case things go wrong. Some hosts keep a backup in case you don't.

[Kimkia]

I have one emailed to me everyday, although I have no experience in importing the data. I'm doing a fresh install of wp-admin and wp-includes at the moment to see if that helps any.

[Kimkia]

Found the problem - two tables in the MySql database had crashed and needed repair. Had no idea how to do that, but put a trouble ticket in to my web host and they fixed it for me.

Thanks for all the help!

[travelin cat]

Great news. Glad you were able to sort it out.

[Webwork]

FWIW (now that the issue is "fixed"), the first path I would have ventured down would have been cPanel -> PHPMyAdmin -> Wordpress database -> Comments Table . . to see if the comments still existed. If so, I would have immediately taken steps to backup the existing comments and looked for any earlier backups of the comments table.

Now that things are fixed my concern remains whether you know what triggered the crash, if for no other reason, than to avoid the same fate in the future. If you don't know the cause or source how will avoid the next crash? Further, it might be some help to the rest of us that you explain - to the degree you are able - the cause or steps leading up to the crash.

If the table was "crashed" or corrupted in some manner I can't say what you would have seen via the path I outlined above, but I'd like to get a better idea if any of the experts are still hanging around.