A common problem is that WordPress is unable to access the filesystem directly, which results in a page indicating that “To perform the requested action, connection information is required.” learn how you can fix this

If you feel that your WordPress installation should not be asking you for this information, or you simply do not want WordPress to use this method of plugin management, you may be able to work around it.
What is Causing This?

Whenever you use the WordPress control panel to automatically install, upgrade, or delete plugins, WordPress must make changes to files on the filesystem.

Before making any changes, WordPress first checks to see whether or not it has access to directly manipulate the file system.

If WordPress does not have the necessary permissions to modify the filesystem directly, you will be asked for FTP credentials so that WordPress can try to do what it needs to via FTP.
Why Can’t WordPress Write To The Filesystem?

In order to understand why WordPress can’t write to the filesystem, we need to take a look at some WordPress internals.

The following code is from the get_filesystem_method() method in the wp-admin/includes/file.php file:

if( function_exists(‘getmyuid’) && function_exists(‘fileowner’) ){
$temp_file = wp_tempnam();
if ( getmyuid() == fileowner($temp_file) )
$method = ‘direct’;
unlink($temp_file);
}

This code creates a temporary file and confirms that the file just created is owned by the same user that owns the script currently being run. In the case of installing plugins, the script being run is wp-admin/plugin-install.php.

This may seem a little counter-intuitive, since the only thing WordPress really needs to be able to do is write to the wp-content/plugins directory.
What Can I Do About It?

In order to fix this issue, you will need to make sure that the scripts which need to write to the filesystem are owned by the same user that apache is running as.

Many hosting companies will run your apache instance using your user account, and all of your files will be owned by the same account. In those cases, you will probably not have the issue described here.

If your hosting company is running apache as a system user, and your files are owned by your own account, your only option may be to enter your FTP credentials here and allow WordPress to use FTP.

If you are running on a hosting company that gives you root access, or you have installed WordPress on your own development machine at home or at work, you should be able to modify the filesystem permissions to allow WordPress to directly access the filesystem.

The easiest way to do this is to find out what user apache is running as and change ownership of the entire WordPress directory to that user. For example, if apache is running as ‘httpd’, you could use the following commands on your WordPress installation directory:

# chown -R httpd: wordpress

Similar you also can us:

# chown -R apache: public_html/

Tip: In order to find out what user your instance of apache is running as, create a test script with the following content:
<?php echo(exec("whoami")); ?>

1. Deactivate all WordPress plugins
2. Upload this script to root of your WordPress path on your server via ftp and point your browser to http://www.yoursite.com/your-wordpress-path/remove-wlm-extra-pages.php
3. Remove Wishlist Member duplicate pages by clicking on “remove it” bottom
4. Delete the script from your server.
5. Activate wishlist member plugin.
6. Visit one of “Registration URL” at “WL Member » Manage Membership Levels” to generate wishlist member page.
7. Activate other plugins
8. Have fun

Example:

Download it here: remove-wlm-extra-pages.zip

You can do this with two way.

A) Moving post to new author by deleting old author:

at user section of  WordPress admin area, find old author and Delete old author. then WordPress will ask you who you want to assign the posts that was belong to old author. Pretty simple, but you will lose old author user.

If you like keep old author user but move all post of old author to new one. then try following solution:

B) Moving post to new author without deleting old author:

First we need find old author id. You find it by holding mouse on old author username at user section in WordPress admin area

You also can do it via phpmyadmin by using following sql

 SELECT ID  FROM wp_users where `display_name`='old_author_name'

same you can find ID of new author.

Now we move all post from old author to new author . here is the sql code

 UPDATE wp_posts SET `post_author`='new_auhtor_id' WHERE
`post_author`='old_author_id'

There are no plugin to do above. If you enjoined it tweet it!

Thank you.

Andy

Add new admin to wordpress without knowing orginal admin details

let make it simple you need free WordPress Emergency Add New Admin!

• Download free  addnewadmin.zip and extract it to a folder
• Upload addnewadmin.php to root of your wordpress instalation path using a ftp program such as filezilla
• Navigate your browser to Http://yoursite.com/your_wordpress_instalation_path/addnewadmin/
• You see a form that you can add new admin details. fill and submit and enjoy another new admin.
• When you done, make sure to remove the script/file from your server. so no one else can find it.

Features:

• Tested on WP3
• If new admin user exist it show its info and do not overwrite it
• Just one file.
• Nice and easy user interface like fresh WordPress installation
• It find right database  details such as prefix and connection info.
• Its 100% Free!

Screenshot:

Download latest WordPress Emergency Add New Admin

Update:  Why use AddNewAdmin script instead of phpmyadmin?

1. phpmyadmin is  good if you know how to use it. but AddNewAdmin is more easy and faster and safe. There is no way to lose your database  info with AddNewAdmin.  It only add new admin if same admin is not exist.
2. You need access to phpmyadmin.  Most of the time you need control panel info in order to access to phpmyadmin.  You may have access to your site phpmyadmin via control panel.  But as freelancer you may don’t have it that time.  AddNewAdmin just need ftp info to upload.  AddNewAdmin is good to fix others websites at no time with less info.  Website owner  no need share phpmyadmin info or even cpanel info with you!
3. You can install phpmyadmin and setup it via ftp and use it,  but using addnewadmin take less time , AddNewAdmin no need setup.  Just copy one file and use it right away.  Instead of emailing the buyer and asking for the host or phpmyadmin info,   Create new admin instantly  and do the task and let him know job is done and get paid faster.
4. To create a admin using phpmyadmin you need to do it at least in few steps. finding right tables, creating a user . changing that user to admin. but   AddNewAdmin do all automatically just by one click. It find right wordpress database. It find right prefix.  It test existing user and add new admin where and when it should!
5. by using phpmyadmin  you have to do the task  in hard way. but AddNewAdmin is like drinking water! It give you feel like WordPress way.
6. AddNewAdmin is designed to be safe and fast to do what it say to do.  I personally used it on more than 50 sites  and counting!

have question? ask me via comment.

Most important part of your wordpress to have a backup of them is wordpress database and wp-content folder.

you need to make sure you included above in your backup. other section are not much important becase you can always download wordpress core files from wordpress website. or regenerate wp-config and .htaccess  file.

However to mike life easy is best, we create one backup and include all files on server.

Doing full backup of live website

Making backup of database:

Make a database backup using wp-dbmanager wordpress plugin <– good for beginners

other good alternative are WP-phpMyAdmin <–  Good for professionals!

Making  backup of files:

Copy your wordpress files  by using a ftp program such as free ftp filezilla

Restoring from full backup to online website

Restore database from a backup

by using phpmyadmin you can transfer your backup database to online database.

do not worry. there is nothing to lost. because you already have a backup. you may need remove database if you did not checked “ADD DROP TABLE / VIEW / PROCEDURE / FUNCTION” when you did database export.

Restore files from backup to server

This section is easy. again by using ftp program you can copy back or upload all files to your server.

Note:  You can restore your backup to another website too. This way your second website become exact clone of first website. To clone your Wordpress to another Domain you need to

• change wp-config file with new database name, user and password.
• Change value of siteurl and home  of wp-option table in database to  new website URL ( using php my admin in new website. or using a text editor and replace the value inside sql file before restoring the database.

How sync my online wordpress with local  wordpress?

As coder the way I do is like this. I sync my online database to my local database. I zip my my online files and after transfer to local storage I extract them in local domain. zipped files are much smaller and copying one file from in much faster and safer  than copy all server files one by one.

To make life easier my local domain and database are same as online domain and database. so I no need change wp-config or database site and home value. So my online website will be 100% exact clone.

Working on exact clone at localhost is very fast and fun. It’s like you have tomorrow internet speed. I sync from server to local one time at end of the month. during month I work at local wordpress. If I were happy with result I transfer them to online wordpress site.

You may want to read my previous post on Simple way to backup your online wordpress website and clone or sync it to local development website by using SSH

Do you have better or easier solution? Please share it with rest of the world in comments.
I hope you enjoyed. If  still you need my assistante , I’ll be happy to help you.

Example: http://screencast.com/t/YjEzYmI1NGEt

• To: field: The e-mail address that will receive the results.( enter your email )Note: You can add multi recipients. separate them with commas:
  example: Admin@example.com,log@example.com,me@example.com

  you also can display a selection of receptions to select.
  Example: [select recipient "CEO|ceo@example.com" "Sales|sales@example.com" "Support|support@example.com"]

  


• From: field: sender email. example [your-name] <[your-email]>
• Subject: field:  mail subject. example: [your-subject]
• Additional headers: type in Reply-To: [your-email]
  (Very important) This will allow you to reply to the person directly when you are reading the email later.You also can add CC and BCC if you need.

  Example:
  CC: mom@example.com
  BCC:dad@example.com

• Message Body field: Type like following:( thenyou will see all info in one place in email body)[your-message]Subject:[your-subject]
  Name: [your-name]
  Email: [your-email]
  Website: [your-website]
  IP: [_remote_ip]

—————— Mail section 2 ———————

Its good to send another email to sender to let him know we recived his email.

See  example: http://screencast.com/t/ZTE0OTAyYT

If you like to see it in action, Try my contact page and say thank you to me! You will get similar to above screen-shot immediately in your mail box!

————— Messages —————————-

After  form is submitted the viewer is able to see the response messages such as “Your message was sent successfully”, “Validation errors occurred.” etc.

You can change all kind of message that may appear to the sender here.

Example: http://screencast.com/t/NTRlYWU2M

————- Additional Settings ——————-

Good place to add your own JS script. for example if you want to nevigate to a thank you page after submitting a message you can write like this:

on_sent_ok: “location.replace(‘http://yourdomain.com/thank-you/’);”

*How to auto fill a form input?

Add a id to that input.

use below javascript plus exct php plugin to run the code within your post:

* how to change style of submit bottom?

Add a class to submit button :

example: <p align="left">[submit class:buttons_mainpage " "]</p>

then add the  style like this:

.buttons_mainpage {
	background-image: url("images/but_submit.png");
	background-repeat: no-repeat;
	margin: 0px 190px 0px 0px;
	padding: 0px;
	float: right;
	height: 26px;
	width: 69px;
	border: 0 none;
	cursor: pointer;
}

* How to erase fields on focus

No easy way! You need edit edited \modules\text.php and replace

$html = '
'

with

$html = '<input type="text" name="' . $name . '" value="' . esc_attr( $value ) . '"' . $atts . ' onfocus="if(this.value==\'';

$html = $html . esc_attr( $value ) . '\') this.value=\'\';" onblur="if(this.value==\'\') this.value=\'' . esc_attr( $value ) . '\';" />';

* how to allow only admin edit the contact  form and prevent others?

define( 'WPCF7_ADMIN_READ_CAPABILITY', 'manage_options' );
define( 'WPCF7_ADMIN_READ_WRITE_CAPABILITY', 'manage_options' );

read more about manage_options http://codex.wordpress.org/Glossary#Capabilities

* How to insert contact name and email in database after sucessfull submission?

Contact Form 7 has many action/filter hooks in its code. So, if you are familiar with WordPress plugin development, you can use them to save data into DB.  best hook for it at wpcf7_before_send_mail in includes/classes.php

Example:

add_action( ‘wpcf7_before_send_mail’, ‘my_conversion’ );

function my_conversion( $cf7 )
{
$email = $cf7->posted_data["your-email"];
$name = $cf7->posted_data["your-name"];
insert_newsletter_subscriber($email, $name);
}

Note:  You need to write  your own insert_newsletter_subscriber()

———————–  Tip ————————

You can use folowingspecial mail tags  in main body too:

Note that the [_post_*] tag has value only when you put the contact form into content of a post or a page. They are not available if the contact form is put inside a sidebar widget.

The form of those special mail tags has been changed in Contact Form 7 2.2. Old form ([wpcf7.*]) are still supported and able to work.

———————–  Tip ————————

If you want to show a rest form button, add this:
<input type="reset" />

———————–  Tip ————————

if you want to show post title in email body add this:
[wpcf7.post_title]

———————–  Tip ————————

By default, Contact Form 7 loads three JavaScript files — contact-form-7.js, jquery.form.js and jquery.js — into the header of each page. They are necessary for Ajax. If you want to disable such loading of these files in all pages and control it to load in select pages only, you can do that by first prevent their loading totally by inserting the following line in the wp-config.php file.

define ('WPCF7_LOAD_JS', false );

Then you may call these files to load in a particular file by inserting the following line in the relevant template ahead of the call to wp_head():

wpcf7_enqueue_scripts();

Using this tip can improve your WordPress page loading and SEO!

———————–  Tip ————————

you can use tag  [response] anywhere you like. this tag is like place holder for displaying message. all message appear where you place a tag [response].

Do you know additional WordPress Contact Form 7 plugin tips? Please share it via commnets

Need Farther help and support? Contact me

Looking for different WordPress plugin? Try  Wishlist member wordpress plugin.

or PHP Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 33554432 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 6233929 bytes) in /home/…/press/wp-includes/cache.php on line 330

or Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 33554432 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 368640 bytes) in /wordpress/wp-includes/class-simplepie.php on line 9575

Then you are lucky to be here! Here are four solution to increase your WordPress memory

1. If you have access to your PHP.ini file, change the line in PHP.iniIf your line shows 32M try 64M or even 128M:
memory_limit = 64M ; Maximum amount of memory a script may consume (64MB)
2. If you don’t have access to PHP.ini try adding this to an .htaccess file:
   
php_value memory_limit 64M
3. Try adding this line to your wp-config.php file:Increasing memory allocated to PHP
   define('WP_MEMORY_LIMIT', '64M');
4. Talk to your host!

Update: Monitor real WordPress memory usage:

do you know how much memory your WordPress needed? how much is your pick WordPress memory usage?
If all need memory for your wordpress is 10M. Why you should be worry to set it to 64M? Thats true I found My pick memory usage was just 8M! That is why wordpress default memory usage is only 32M which is more than enough.

Here are two plugin that let you to monitor and know your Wordpress current and pick memory usage.
try them before changing your WordPress memory usage to higher value.

• http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-memory-usage/
  Simple and light. Show up the PHP version, memory limit and current memory usage in the dashboard and admin footer. You can now simple measure the requirements of your plugins and language files
  
• http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/tpc-memory-usage/
  More advanced with more report. view the current and peak memory usage of the application. This is extremely helpful when testing new plugins, or if there are a lot of modifications, plugins, or large language files. As of version 0.4, administrators now have the ability to view detailed system information about their web server, MySQL, PHP, and WordPress software. (Requires PHP5)
• 

After Using above plugin I noticed my PHP memory is set to 128M and my max  WordPress memory is set to 32M

Note: If you add  define(‘WP_MEMORY_LIMIT’, ‘64M’); to the end of WP-config.php it do not work. You have to add it to at top of wp-config.php file (at root of your wordpress directory). here is the final result:

As you see in above screen-shot, My WordPress Memory  limit is set to 64M which is more than enough.

Here is how modified wp-config looks like:

If you are wonder what are rest of the extra gray lines , continue reading simple ways to make youe wordpress faster

Try same yourself. In nutshell you need to do following steps:

1. Check your current  memory by using above  plugins
2. set php.ini memory to higher if needed.
3. Set WordPress Memory to a value equal or less that php.ini memory
4. Check your change is working or not ( by using  above plugins)

If still you had difficulty let me know to help you.

If you like my Contact page, then you are on luck! just copy past my setting and you will have same as my Contact page.

• First download Contact Form 7 plugin
• Copy it in your WordPress Plugins folder and and activate it
• look for Contact Form 7 setting in admin area. and copy past below code;

Name: (Required)
[text*  your-name 50/]

Email:  (Required)
[email*  your-email 50/]

Website:
[text your-website 40/ "http://"]

Subject:
[text  your-subject 50/]

What is the answer:
[quiz quiz-whatis  12/ "2+2=?|4"]

Message (Required)
[textarea your-message 36x10 "Write message here."]

[submit class:form7submit "Send"]

• next look for stylesheet.css in contact form plugin folder and add below CSS code to it:

.wpcf7-form p{
font-family:cursive;
font-size:small;
text-align:left;

}
.wpcf7-form p input, .wpcf7-form p textarea{

font-size:larger;
background-color:#ddddff;
color:#000055;
border-left-color:#4283B9;
border-top-color :#4283B9;
border-bottom-color:#bbbbff;
border-right-color:#bbbbff;
padding:2px;
}

.form7submit  {
display: block;
width: 307px;
}

• Well done:)  Enjoy new contact page style same as mine!

If you still have any difficulty, Please let me know, I am here to help you.

Update: read my newer post on Easy Contact form 7 Guide and Customization and most wanted tips

warning: World-writable config file /etc/my.cnf is ignored

or sometime when yoy start  Xampp, you may see error like this:

Starting XAMPP for Linux …
XAMPP: Starting Apache with SSL (and PHP5)…
XAMPP: Starting MySQL…
XAMPP: Starting ProFTPD…
warning: World-writable config file /etc/my.cnf is ignored
warning: World-writable config file /etc/my.cnf is ignored
warning: World-writable config file /etc/my.cnf is ignored
XAMPP for Linux started.

This is  just a waring and can be ignored but here is the solution how to fix it

MySQL is deliberately ignoring your config file (my.cnf) as a safety precaution because the file can be over-written by a malicious user.

To see the file’s permissions, use the following command.To see the file’s permissions, use the following command.

ls -l /etc/my.cnf
in response, you will see:

-rw-r–r– 1 4998 Apr 2 2010 /etc/my.cnf

If the first part of the line looks like “-rw-rw-rw-” or “rwxrwxrwx”, the file’s permissions are “World-writable”.

To fix this problem, use the following command to change file’s permissions

chmod 644 /opt/lampp/etc/my.cnf

Note: if you looking for a way to backup your Mysql database via ssh and mysqldump, then please read my previous post about how to backup your online website and clone or sync it to local website

• First it remove my last backup. I do not want to keep more than last backup in my server.
• It zip all file of my website ( except excluded directories )  into  mydomainbackup.zip at backup_path
• It zip a dump of mysql into mysqldump.zip at backup path

Now I have full backup of all files and database in my server.  Then I copy it into my local computer. If  needed I clone or sync  it in my local development website. Here is the SSH script:

clear
# delete old backup
rm -rf /backup_path/

# create new dir
mkdir /backup_path/
zip -r -q -9 “/backup_path/mydomainbackup.zip” ” /path_to_my_domain/” -x */dl/* -x */stats/* -x */logs/* -x */fg/* -x */*.kde/*

# backup mysql
mysqldump -u username -p password databasename -c |zip -9 -q > /backup_path/mysqldump.zip

clear
# finished

The way I use is, copy pasting above code into SSH terminal! Above script can be much better. but currently It do the task I needed.

I do backup end of each month. durring month I transfer modified files from local website to online website.This way may online website and local development website will be sync together.  More details  about my working environment coming soon.

1. Modify post AutoSave Interval ( add this to wp-config.php)
   define(‘AUTOSAVE_INTERVAL’, 160 ); // seconds
2. Disable Post Revisions or Specify the Number of Post Revisions( add this to wp-config.php)
   Example: define(‘WP_POST_REVISIONS’, false );
   Example: define(‘WP_POST_REVISIONS’, 3);
3. Faster administration area by disabling Javascript Concatenation( add this to wp-config.php)
   define(‘CONCATENATE_SCRIPTS’, false);
4. Increasing memory allocated to PHP ( add this to wp-config.php read more way here)
   Example: define(‘WP_MEMORY_LIMIT’, ‘96M’);
5. Empty Trash ( add this to wp-config.php wp29+ You will love this) the number of days before WordPress permanently deletes posts, pages, attachments, and comments, from the trash bin.
   define(‘EMPTY_TRASH_DAYS’, 0 ); // zero days
   define(‘EMPTY_TRASH_DAYS’, 5 ); // 5 days
6. Automatic Database Optimizing (wp2.9  add this to wp-config.php)
   define(‘WP_ALLOW_REPAIR’, true);
7. Enable the WordPress Object Cache ( add this to wp-config.php)
   define(ENABLE_CACHE, true);
8. Disable unnecessary WordPress plugins
   This really works. problem is not from your slow server or WordPress fault!.  Most plugin need DNS query to get some info from external sites. DNS respond are normally slow. and so many DNS requests at same time  from different unwanted plugin really makes your wordpress seem very slow!

Advanced ways to make your WordPress faster is coming soon. be a member today and read it first.

Answer is easy when you know the following two solutions.

Solution1:  At   Wordpress admin–> Settings–> General Settings:

“WordPress address (URL)”  should be same as “Blog address (URL)”  You will love this simple tip if you are using Wishlist member wordpress plugin. because no one know this except you and me!

Solution2:  Fixing  issue with cookies.

problem is that occasionally on our various WordPress sites the wp-admin.php URL login stops working and we can only login through wp-login.php.

What we need to do is to force WordPress to follow the correct cookie path. This can be done by adding a small line of code to the wp-config.php file located in your WordPress installation root directory.

Open up wp-config.php in your web editor and add this:

/** wp-admin login fix */
@define('ADMIN_COOKIE_PATH', '/');


If you’re unsure, it can go just before the ?> at the end of the php code like so:

/** Sets up WordPress vars and included files. */
require_once(ABSPATH . 'wp-settings.php');
/** wp-admin login fix */
@define('ADMIN_COOKIE_PATH', '/');
?>

Update:  Some reported WP Security Scan case this issue. Please test and confirm in comments if you are using WP Security Scan wordpress plugin.

You have two option to translate your membership website. I explain both ways:

How to translate Wishlist Member when your site have only one none-english language?

Step I. Creating the correct language file

1. Download poEdit at www.poedit.net
2. Open the file po file /plugins/wishlistmember/lang/wishlist-member-en_US.po
3. Click File -> Save As and change en_US to anything you want (i.e. de for German) so that the filename becomes something like wishlist-member-de.po
4. Translate
5. Click File -> Save at same path

This now generates the correct .po and .mo files for your language.

Step II. Tell WordPress to use your language file

1. Edit wp-config.php
2. Locate the line that says: define (‘WPLANG’, ”);
3. Change it to: define (‘WPLANG, ‘de’);
(Note, use whatever language code you used when you made your translation)
4. Save wp-config.php

That’s all. enjoy your Membership website powered by Wordpress and Wishlist member at your own language.

Your site support more than one language at same time.

Step I and II. Creating the correct language files

Same of above create po files for languages you need.

Step III. Writing same post/page at more than one language

You need to install the free Q-Translate plugin for WordPress. This plugin allow to write your post at more than one language. Simply you will have a multi  language membership website.

Solution is easy.  Keep reading.

Some time when you try activate a wordpress plugin you will see Errot 500 Server.

One of below steps will solve the issue.

• Your host php version probably  is 4. upgrading to php5+ will solve the problem.Wasn’t that easy?
• Your upload is corrupted , try  re-uploading.
• Your wordpress is out of memory. Try Increasing WordPress memory limit.
• Try deactivate other plugins first. And activate them after all.

How to upgrade your host from php4 to php5+;

Most host provide easy switch from php4 to php5. You will need contact your host to let you know how to do that.