Error Publishing Posts Or Pages After Upgrading To 2.8.3

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5th
AUG

Posted by admin under Upgrading Wordpress

If you are a regular at wordpress.org/support forum you may well be aware of the problem with this error. This problem has two faces to it as listed bellow:

Problem #1

Content writing limitations – when writing a post or page, the text area limits the amount of content entered to a few paragraphs.
Even if you manage to write the full content, on publish only a portion of your input appears on the rendered post/page.

Problem #2

When attempting to edit previous post/page, the permalink title is displayed – but there is no content in the text area.
If you then make the mistake of clicking on the publish button, your entire post/page is lost resulting in a 404 page not found error

This is a deep bug within the tinymce files located within the wp-includes folder of wordpress. For some unknown reasons, when upgrading automatically the files seem to get corrupted or incomplete.

Am not an expert on intricate running of this script, but as far as I can see the issue lies with the js files of the tinymce. And as far as I know this is a third party script, developed entirely outside the wordpress development team.

The fix.

This is not a total fix of the deep rooted problem, which I must say is to do with how the files are uploaded by the auto update script – so there might be an issue with that too, but that’s another story.

To fix the problem you will need to delete* or rename* your current wp-inclides folder – (be sure to have an index.html page in place telling your readers that you a running a site meintenance, as the above action will result in a blank white screen.) – *This is important as overwriting the existing files will not work properly!

Download a fresh copy of wordpress (the same version as your install). Upload the wp-inludes folder to your installation folder.

That should fix the problem as outlined above. But should it fail to resolve the issue then navigate to the new wp-includes folder. Delete the js folder and upload a fresh one – again from the same core files where the wp-includes folder is located. That should cure the problem and you can start enjoying the best blogging platform once again

If you have encountered this problem and the above solution did not solve it for your, but were able to resolve it by any other means – please leave a comment with your solution so others can benefit from it.

Thanks,

Zulf – site admin.

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Reader's Comments

Kimi Wei | August 5th, 2009 at 7:50 pm
Fantastic. Fix works like a charm. Thanks so much for your help Zulf.
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admin | August 5th, 2009 at 10:02 pm
Hey Kimi, you are most welcome. Am glad that helped
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rock & republic jeans | August 9th, 2009 at 7:38 am
Great post. It is working fine.
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admin | August 9th, 2009 at 2:30 pm
Cool rock, glad to have been of some help. Good luck
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mens designer shoes | August 13th, 2009 at 10:47 am
You could have stayed back in the older version.
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admin | August 13th, 2009 at 11:25 am
New version are released for security reason as well as updating the code to current standards, so staying on older versions is not a safe option. Please watch the video I’ve just put up here Wordpress Security
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Wayne | August 15th, 2009 at 7:20 am
The best feature i like of wp 2.8 is the theme management.. i am a theme freak and changing themes just from our dashboard just makes it easier.
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blog-admin
Twitter: zulfnore
| August 15th, 2009 at 10:03 am
2nd that Wayne.

The feature is very handy indeed. In my line of work being able to quickly tag a theme from the repository in the search section, or simply grabbing a zipped one from my destop on the upload section save a heck lot of time.
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chikwendu | August 23rd, 2009 at 2:19 am
May someone explain it a little bit deeper for me, please?
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Zulfikar
Twitter: zulfnore
| August 23rd, 2009 at 3:50 am
@chikwendu – If you want to ask a specific question please raise a topic in the forum, I’ll galdly answer any querries you may have on the issues covered by this article.
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Kimi Wei | August 24th, 2009 at 5:28 pm
Hi Zulfi,

That problem is back. I upgraded per the security fix (without disabling my plugins) and the behaviour disallowing long posts came back again. I’ve tried reinstalling my entire wordpress blog, changing themes, and using your fix too but no joy. I still can’t post.

Any ideas?

Kimi
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Kimi Wei | August 24th, 2009 at 5:29 pm
PS. upgraded to 2.8.4
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Zulfikar
Twitter: zulfnore
| August 24th, 2009 at 6:58 pm
@Kimi Wei – Ah sorry to hear that Kim. Unfortunately its the plugins that have messed it up. You will need to reset your active plugins data in the database.

Access your phpMyAdmin and in the wp-options table look for the active_plugins (around line 38/39) and delete all the content in the value field – here’s a video that shows how to do it: http://wordpressreloaded.com/how-to-deactivate-plugins-when-you-can‘t-login/

Deactivation via ftp doesn’t tend to get rid of all the data and may still cause problems.

If no luck then shoot me an email and I’ll take a look for you.
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Fred | August 27th, 2009 at 9:59 pm
I always enjoy finding a “good” blog. Thanx and I’m going to add you to my RSS feed.
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Zulfikar
Twitter: zulfnore
| August 27th, 2009 at 11:20 pm
@Fred – Thats great and glad to hear look forward to provide more quality content and reading some of yours too.
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Keshavaya | September 3rd, 2009 at 11:48 am
gr8 resrch bro
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Zulfikar
Twitter: zulfnore
| September 3rd, 2009 at 5:19 pm
@Keshavaya – Thanks mate
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Kimi Wei | September 4th, 2009 at 1:55 pm
Hi Zulfi, my issue isn’t resolved yet. I just tried your plugin deactivation plan and will check later if it works. At the same time this problem developed, an additional one did too – I can’t move widgets into the sidebar. Any ideas on a fix for this?

Be well,
Kimi
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Zulfikar
Twitter: zulfnore
| September 4th, 2009 at 2:49 pm
@Kimi Wei – Hi Kim. Sounds like a compflict of jQuery scripts to me. Mainly this is an issue caused by plugins whose script is compflicting with the included wordpress jQuery script. Some themes have also been know to cause the problem.

You might have to troubleshoot by a combination of deactivating the plugins and switching to the default theme – at worst it may invlove removing both the additional themes and plugins in order to narrow it down to the core wordpress install.
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Kimi Wei | September 7th, 2009 at 6:26 am
Hey Zulfi . . .

. . . OMG these blog issues are Driving Me Crazy. I’ve tried all the fixes and two complete manual reinstalls but Nothing Works. Found a related tidbit about tinymce file problems here http://www.wpbeginner.com/showcase/evolution-of-wordpress-user-interface-2003-2009/

Any more of your world class great suggestions on tap today? I could sure use a new fix.

Best,
Kimi
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Zulfikar
Twitter: zulfnore
| September 7th, 2009 at 7:54 am
@Kimi Wei – Awww am sorry Kimi, sounds like the problem is deep rooted one than just the core wordpress files. I’ve had two clients with the same issues, no matter how many new re-installs they did the problem could not be resolved.

I did a work around by installing to a new database and then importing just the posts, postmeta, comments, users and usermeta tables of the database from the original install. I then re-uploaded the original theme plus the plugins to get the blogs back to their normal and original state.

That worked perfectly, so you might want to take that aproach instead of installing over the same database which in effect is not an actual re-install. Let me know how it goes or if you want me to do it for you, will be glad to help you out
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Kimi Wei | September 7th, 2009 at 1:45 pm
Zulfi, if you can direct me to some instructions I’d like to try this myself.

First, how do I tell wp I’ve created a new db?
Do I use phpmyadmin to transfer those 5 tables you mention? Are there any others that need to be moved?

I appreciate your help.
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Zulfikar
Twitter: zulfnore
| September 7th, 2009 at 5:23 pm
@Kimi Wei – Sure Kimi, and yes you will need to do the database extraction via phpmyadmin.

First of all back up your database (all the tables)plus your current install and save a copy on your desktop. Delete everything in the current install – if your blog is in a folder called blog then just delete the entire folder. If its in the root the delete everything wordpress including the htaccess.
(Do Not Delete the Database)

Set up a new database do a new install of wordpress linking it to the new database per norm (No new theme and no new plugins yet at this point). One you are satisfied everything is working fine then its time to start importing your database.

The way I do this is go into the old database and export the posts, postmeta and comments and then import them into the new database. The user table needs a carefull handling as you need to make sure it has no unwanted hiden users. A safe bet is to just ask your users to register again, but if you have so many then it can be a bit of a task.

If you choose the import users route the export both the users and usermeta tables and check the new blog’s stability. If all goes well you should now have a fully fucntioning blog with the original posts, comments and users. Add back your original theme and plugins, activate one at a time cheking for stability and that should be it.

Note: Since you are doing a new install, wordpress will have created the tables that you are going to import. What you need to do is your new database is drop the new tables and then import the old ones.

Hope that solves the problem for you. It is quiet a task and you might wana do a dummy run by installing in a subfolder to test things first.
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Zulfikar
Twitter: zulfnore
| September 7th, 2009 at 5:26 pm
@Kimi Wei – First, how do I tell wp I’ve created a new db?

Use a new wp-config.php with the new credentials. You do not want to use anything from the old installation apart from your theme if it is customised and a premium one. If not then download a new one to be sure its not the culprit or part of it and that its upto date.
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Kimi Wei | September 7th, 2009 at 11:44 pm
My server admin took a look at our end of things today – I figured, cover all bases before I go to a full new install. He found out that the long post not appearing bug has to do with a server side security feature called mod_security. He changed some setting and now that behaviour has disappeared. I can make long posts again. Also, my sidebar customization shows now too.

Unfortunately, I still can’t move widgets around and can’t add tags to blog posts either.

Thanks for the instructions, Zulfi. Very helpful!
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Zulfikar
Twitter: zulfnore
| September 8th, 2009 at 2:03 am
Cool, glad you are getting somewhere without having to go through all that work. Am gona look into the widget and tags issue in some depth later on today and I’ll let you know if I find a cure.

And you are most welcome
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Kimi Wei | September 8th, 2009 at 5:59 am
Work is right. The admin solved the other problems too apparently. My js folder wasn’t showing up in the files list. When he uploaded it the functions I was concerned with worked fine.

Thanks Zulfi for helping through this big misadventure. It’s been very reassuring to have your help. BTW, the admin identified the missing js file by doing a new install and comparing its files with mine.
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Zulfikar
Twitter: zulfnore
| September 8th, 2009 at 10:21 am
@Kimi Wei – Now there’s something you dont see very often, your admin deserves a pat on the back

If this is your web hosting admin then an extra pat on the back, because the stance with most of them is to tell you its a wordpress problem go take it up with them.

Glad its all working now and hope this experience will go a long way to help others facing the same problem, thanks for sharing – I’ve learned something too in the process
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