I did H for Heartbleed a few days ago, and now I’m doing J for Jetpack.

If you haven’t already had the email, Jetpack is vulnerable, until upgraded.  The problem is, with so many people updating, if your WordPress self-hosted server times out for any reason, or something else goes wrong, you might be stuck without a website.

NEVER FEAR.  If the following instructions don’t make sense to you, get in touch and I’ll do it for you.

Fixing it when a plugin causes ‘exception code’ to show on any page

It looks a bit like this – and stops you from logging into your website too: (this isn’t the exact error I’ve been seeing, but it’s a good facsimile)

What to do

1. Log into your FTP or c-panel.  This information will be contained in information from your host.  If you don’t have this, you need to contact your host.
2. 1. If going via FTP, navigate to your wp-content/plugins folder.  If you’re not sure where this is, look for your public_html folder, or a folder that looks like it might be a shortened version of the domain name you’re using.
   2. If you’re going in via C-panel or another browser, look too through the wp-content/plugins file..
3. Select the Jetpack folder.
4. Delete or rename it.

Log in.  You’ll have to reinstall Jetpack.  Do your updates then.  Remember too, some of these updates, in rare circumstances break themes or interfere with other plugins.  You can troubleshoot this by following the same instructions as above, just renaming the plugin folder.  If that doesn’t help, it could be your theme.  In which case, navigate to your theme folder and rename the theme, though if you do this, you’ll possibly have to reset the theme options and definitively update your widgets.  It’s still better to update and untangle what happens than leave it where it could be hacked.

If this is too difficult/too complicated/not something you want to do, I’m currently offering people a $10 fix and repair on Jetpack issues.  Just get in touch.  Anything more, you can get in touch and I’ll do it as cheap as I can.

D Kai Wilson-Viola

D Kai Wilson- Viola is a prolific and often intensely fun writer. Her favorite genres are Sci-Fi, where her Darkness series is set, Fantasy, where she writes up actual play from RPGs she never got to run, urban fantasy, mostly inspired by her bad idea bear (aka her partner, Tempus, and mental health advocacy, as she’s got a raft of diagnoses, none of them particularly pleasant, but none that tend to hold her down for long either
When not writing, and still *thinking* about writing often enough to get caught out, Kai can be found training with her beloved at the Ludosport Academy they belong to, hanging out with family and friends gaming, or enjoying exploring parts of the world they’ve got access to at the time.

A nature and animal lover, Kai is a writer because she has to, because she loves it, and because it’s fun. She is the mother of two cats, two adults and lives in the Cotswolds, UK, with her beloved.