Okay, you discovered your website is severely damaged, and you have no way to get your WordPress site up and running; you need to reinstall WordPress from scratch. If you were reconsidering your content to be republished, be sure to have a backup of all plugins, databases, and other data on your website. If you have sensitive data, always encrypt them in an encrypted drive, or secure location. If you have valueable content what you’ve created for years, you may need to have your content be restored,–if you have a backup copy.
Why you should reinstall WordPress?
If you experienced your site is not working correctly, or it’s severely damaged, you must address what problem what you’re experiencing on your website. Common problems with WordPress is outdated plugins, outdated themes, malicious scripts; 3rd party themes from other sources infected with malware, 3rd party plugins infected with malware, malicious users on your multisite, or comments posted by visitors linking to malicious scripts.
The WordPress plugin directory requires us to maintain plugins on a regular basis. Think about a plugin, Advert… it was an ad-managing plugin that was closed because a violation of their policies. That almost infected my website.
Reinstalling WordPress is one common technique to fix problems, and restart from scratch. However; reinstalling software like this may require you to rewrite content, or reinstall plugins, and set your site up from scratch.
Signs when to reinstall WordPress:
- Your site rings up errors.
- Broken files used to run WordPress itself.
- Corrupted folders and files
- Malware
If you can access your admin panel of your website:
Go to your admin dashboard, and go to the updates link, and activate it.
Before you activate the button, be sure to update plugins what you’re using. This is necessary to keep your plugins up to date.
Update your themes on a regular basis. If you didn’t update your themes; update them.
Activate the button to reinstall WordPress.
If you have a multisite install; go to your network control panel, and reinstall WordPress by using a button.
If the problems go away, you are done!
This is a quick method that can be activated via an admin panel.
There’s no affect with your current users on your website.
Doing this on a regular basis flushes away broken folders and files.
If you can’t access your admin
If you can’t access your admin, and you have trouble reinstalling your CMS software; you may need to perform a fresh reinstall of your CMS. This is common if your website is infected with malware, or severely damaged. Usually, if your site is severely damaged; you may experience the following:
- Uncontrollable posting by a malicious virus, worm, or trojan horse
- Plugins that fail to stop after being deactivated via FTP or CPanel, etc.
- No possibility to log into your admin panel
- Users can’t log into their accounts
If you use a fast 1-click install of WordPress
Log into your hosting panel of your server. If you have a 1-click install app available; navigate to your installs of your site software list.
At the software list, or something similar; look for your broken install of WordPress.
Before you do anything; do the following:
- If you have other software on your website, be sure to pause their functions, or turn them off.
- Check if your website is infected, if infected with malware, you need to remove malware from your servers.
- If you have users on your website, advise them to backup all of their content.
- Download all of these plugins what you want to keep.
Go to a selector box or choose delete from this list.
Confirm your action.
Reinstall your WordPress CMS. You may need to perform initial setup of your website from scratch, and restore all backups of your content.
If you rely on a manual method
Perform a manual deletion of your folders for running your WordPress site.
Go to wordpress.org to download an official version of their software.
Delete your old SQL database that is infected. You may need to refactor your website with strong SQL passwords, and difficult to guess names.
Speak to your host to scan your server for malware.
Unzip your files and folders for your new install of WordPress
Edit your wp-config.php file to add your SQL information and password. To get help with this, go to codex.wordpress.org.
Create Your user name and password. Always choose a strong password.
Finish the process of installing WordPress.
Restore content and plugins, if you have a backup.
Install security software to prevent infection.
Curious about why WordPress sites break down overtime?
Software do have code rot overtime. But it doesn’t mean it’s the end of the road for old code; open-source software is usually reused,–so people can create other products that is different than an original. And unlike other software… code within WordPress often be changed by a community.
Although; some malicious users often turn WordPress sites into a malicious software that is so huge, that can cause, issues with internet users.
What happens if you don’t reinstall WordPress?
If you don’t reinstall WordPress when necessary, you may experience these difficulties like errors, broken files, corrupted files, broken php codes, broken control panels, and more.
Reinstalling helps you solve problems with your website, but that applies to minor problems.
Infected websites can lead you to the following:
Infection on your website, and no way to return it to working state leads to loss of revenue, content, software what you’ve installed,–even with licensed software with license keys, loss of customers, loss of intellectual property; and loss of trademarked materials.
Loss of patents is common for a data loss caused by WordPress sites infected with malware. Reinstalling WordPress is necessary to restore your website. It’s always a good idea to backup your content on a regular basis,–at least once a month.