I back up dilligently but I would be terrified should I have to restore.  Hopefully that isn't the case.

 

My hosting provider offers web access to the file structure, which might reduce the need for the FTP access?  When I hit the switch on my transition from Blogger to WordPress, I actually made an error in my settings which killed my access to wp-login and wp-admin, so I had to manually modify a couple of files to restore access.  I'm hoping that if anything terrible happened with a plugin install, I could use that method again.

yeah I totally backed up all my stuff now!! just in case....

My hosting provider offers web access to the file structure, which might reduce the need for the FTP access?  When I hit the switch on my transition from Blogger to WordPress, I actually made an error in my settings which killed my access to wp-login and wp-admin, so I had to manually modify a couple of files to restore access.  I'm hoping that if anything terrible happened with a plugin install, I could use that method again.

If you want to fix it yourself, here's what you can do. This is fairly technical but you may want to get the access even if you hand the maintenance off to a third party. It involves disabling the offending plugin by login to your server that hosts your blog. First, you need to apply for FTP/ssh access to your hosting account. Plan ahead for this because it requires about a day because the hosting company wants you to authenticate yourself with some paperwork.

When you get the access, you first generate a public/private keyset (this a step that is in your control panel). Then use a ssh/ftp client to access your account (download Putty, e.g.).

When you login, the default place you are put is typically at the root of your website. Here are the instructions to disable the offending plugin for BlueHost. When you install a plugin, it gets put into its own folder. You can disable it by renaming it.

ssh <username>@<websitename>.com <== this is the same username for your hosting service.

cd public_html/<website_name>/wp-content/plugins

ls <== see all your plugins

mv <offending_plugin> bad_<offending_plugin>

Once disabled, you should be able to get access back to wp-admin where you can deactivate or remove the plugin.

of course this is the very non-technical way of describing it : )

Aloysa said:

Happened to me once. I called my hosting company and they fixed it. What did you do? 

Fatal error: Call to undefined method stdClass::suppress_errors (then it lists some numbers)

This happened after I tried to download a plugin. But now I can't even access my login page. I have tried going through the FTP but haven't found a solution even though I've been working on it for over an hour. Can someone please help or recommend someone that helps with this sort of thing??

Thank you!!