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WordPress Visual Editor Problems

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Plagued.  That’s how I’ve felt today.  But I finally solved the problem, and it had nothing to do with installing any plug-ins or uninstalling any plug-ins or the server, or anything like that.  However, for good measure, I’ll lay out the basic steps that I took before I actually solved the problem.

The problem at hand deals with using the visual editor to write your posts in WordPress.  It’s a feature that allows for quick formatting using a toolbar above your composition area.  If you are unable to switch between Visual and HTML editing modes (tabs in the post editor) then you’ve got the same problem I had.  Your mouse may appear to recognize that there is a link when you roll over Visual or HTML, but nothing happens when you click.  It’s a very annoying problem.

Sometimes solving this problem requires Safely Reinstalling WordPress to ensure the latest files are uploaded to your server.  If you aren’t familiar with this process, please read my article on how to do this.

If you don’t want to do this, then I can’t guarantee that you will solve your problem.  After all was said and done, I actually didn’t need a complete re-installation.  I narrowed the problem down to one simple silly problem.

There was a space between php?> and <?php somewhere in one of my files.  It turned out that my custom_functions.php file ( I use Thesis as my theme ) had a few empty spaces after the end php tag ( php?> ) in a few different spots.  Once I found those and removed them, the problem was gone.  It helped to have installed a fresh copy of everything, but it was more time consuming.

If you aren’t using Thesis, the culprit may in fact be another file in your blog folder structure, most likely a plug-in.  You should deactivate all of your plug-ins in order to troubleshoot this issue.  Deactivating all of them is okay now because they’ll all be lumped in a “recently active” heading which enables you to bulk activate them when you’ve found the problem.

Of all of the solutions that have been offered, the only one that I have found to fix the problem is removing blank spaces from within php code.  If you suck at code surfing, you may have trouble with this, but I would bet that if you’re self-hosting your WordPress blog, you have probably picked through your php files to figure out some things here and there and will be able to figure it out.

How to Reinstall WordPress Safely

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There may be a time when you need to re-install WordPress on your server due to some sort of compatibility error, or server change…you name it.  It’s a good idea to practice this process if you’re running multiple blogs and/or managing blogs for other people.  If you have one blog, and you don’t use the self-hosted version of WordPress, then you might just want to stick to using WordPress.com to host your blog.  There are advantages and disadvantages to using the hosted vs. self-hosted versions.  For this tutorial, you’ll need to be one of the self-hosted adventuresome bloggers.

When WordPress releases new versions, sometimes things go wrong with older plugins.  Prior to upgrading, just to be safe, I backup everything. How you backup is up to you, but the basics of backing up WordPress involve saving a copy of your wp-config.php file in the root of your blog, and the wp-content folder (and all sub-folders) which contains your plug-ins, themes, uploads, and any other special files that are specific to your blog.  In addition to backing up your WordPress files, you also need to backup the database that WordPress is reading and writing to and from.

If you don’t backup your data, you are at risk of screwing everything up.  I’ve done this many times, unfortunately, but will never have this problem again.

Basic Steps to Reinstallation

Stage 1: Backup and Deactivate

  • Backup your WordPress files, themes, plugins…basically everything in the wp-content folder AND the wp-config.php file in the blog root.
  • Backup your Data.  I use SQLyog to export my data in a long SQL statement to a text file on my desktop.
  • If you don’t have the original version of your blog stored on your computer, download your entire blog root and sub-folders and keep them safe just in case you need to revert to the old version.
  • Deactivate all of your plug-ins just to be safe.

Stage 2:  Delete The old Crap

  • Delete the entire blog root, except for wp-config.php (yes, you backed it up, but why add a step later?)
  • Delete the entire wp-admin folder and the entire wp-includes folder.
  • Rename wp-content to wp-content_old (for extra redundancy)

You now have a dead blog, but you’ve preserved your important configuration and data.

Stage 3:  Upload WordPress

You’ve already “installed” wordpress (which involves creating a new database) so all you’re doing at this point is uploading the newest files in place of where your old blog was.  Upload everything you unpack from either version 2.6RC1 or the latest version to your blog root.  Overwrite everything.

Stage 4:  Restore Your Theme and Plugins

  • From the folder you renamed to wp-content_old, using your favorite FTP client if you’re remote, or windows exploder (explorer) if you’re on the server itself, drag all of the folders under wp-content_old to the new wp-content folder that you just uploaded to your blog’s root.
  • Your wp-config.php file should have remained where it was in the blog root through this entire process.

Stage 5:  Run the Upgrade Script

  • This is easy and always will be.  Point your browser to www.yourblog.com/wp-admin/upgrade.php and follow the instructions.  This is why you backed up your data.  If this process fails, you have a backup.

That’s it.  You should now have a completely backed up prior version, a completely backed up data set as of the date of your upgrade, and a brand new installation, ensuring all new files are uploaded and no overwrite errors occurred.  It’s always possible for there to be a problem when you upload a new version over an old version which is why I always do a fresh upload of the entire structure.

Installed or Hosted: Which is better?

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In this next series of articles, I will be outlining the ins and outs of hosting your own server applications as opposed to farming them out.  The principals are similar in nearly any industry.  In real estate, you can buy or rent.  When you remodel, you can do it yourself (DIY) or pay someone else.  If you run an office, you probably lease your office equipment and have someone else do the maintenance.  The concept is the same.  Both have their advantages and disadvantages, but when you depend on cash flow to make your monthly nut, sometimes the DIY route is the way to go.

Note:  I will always advocate hiring others to do the repetitive, mundane work, as long as the value received outweighs the dollar spent.