WP Assist » Reader Sumitted Questions

WordPress RSS Feed showing SQL Error

Lisa — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 08:14:54 +0000

A reader of this blog submitted a question regarding a problem he is currently having with the RSS feed in his WordPress installation:

I am the webmaster of XXX and i am having a problem with my feeds.

When i try to validate them it shows me this:

You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near ‘ON ( wp_posts.ID = .object_id ) WHERE 1 = 1 AND .term_taxonomy_id.term_taxonomy_’ at line 1

Do you know what i can do to fix it?

I am using v2.2.1
Kind Regards

My recommendation is to upgrade your WordPress installation to the latest version available: 2.3.2.

Reason? The error message you are receiving refers to a database table called term_taxonomy_id.term_taxonomy.

That database table did not exist in version 2.2.1 – - it was introduced into the WordPress core in version 2.3.2.

I would suspect that you may have attempted an upgrade – but forgot to follow through with all the upgrade requirements. If you have uploaded the files for the new WordPress 2.3.2 version – try visiting http://yourdomain.com/wp-admin/upgrade.php (where ‘yourdomain.com’ is YOUR actual domain)…. it may be that you neglected to perform this vital piece during the upgraded which would mean that your WordPress files are updated… but your WordPress database is not. The upgrade script will also update your database and it may remove that error for you.

I do have detailed instructions on how to upgrade your WordPress blog on this blog. Good luck and let me know how it goes for you! Thanks for writing in.

Can I add a theme to my WordPress.com blog?

Lisa — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 03:35:05 +0000

This question came in via my email today, from a reader of my WordPress For Dummies book, regarding adding themes to a WordPress.Com blog ¹ :

How do I set up my wordpress.com blog to use your xMark theme? The setup instructions on the website say to send the xMark folder to the server, but that sounds like a wordpress.org setup. …. Recently I’ve tried again using the wordpress.com setup, and found that was more my speed. Now that my blog is up, http://dominickrusso.wordpress.com/ I’m trying to find a fluid theme, and that’s why I wanted to try xMark.

The simple answer to this is you cannot add any theme you want to your WordPress.Com blog. You are limited to the themes that WordPress.Com provides for you – you are not able to add any new themes to your WordPress.Com blog. For a fee, the best you can do is upgrade your WordPress.Com account so that you are able to edit the CSS for the template you’re currently using – - if you know how to edit/write CSS, that is.

However, if you find a WordPress theme on the web that you’d like to use, and it’s not included in the WordPress.Com themes page — then you’re out of luck. There is no way around it – you cannot upload themes to your WordPress.Com account.

Your best bet is to obtain your own domain name, hosting account and begin using the WordPress.Org software on your own hosting account – - you can change themes to your hearts content at that point!

Have a theme that you think the folks at WordPress.Com should add to their theme selection? Then read this!

404 Permalink Error on WordPress Blog

Lisa — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 22:25:26 +0000

A reader of my WordPress For Dummies book¹ submitted this question today:

I’ve been through WordPress for Dummies twice already.

I’m setting up a new blog and I’m running into something I’ve not experienced before. I have two (2) sticky posts displaying on my front page, each post tagged with several categories. For some reason when I click on any link, I’m getting a 404 Not Found Error. I’ve set up several WordPress blogs, but never with this issue.

Can you suggest a solution for resolution?

Thanks and Happy New Year!

My response:

Check your permalinks rules (under Options/Permalinks in your WordPress Administration Panel) and make sure your .htaccess file has the correct re_write rules written to it to make sure the permalinks work correctly. When you set the permalinks in your WordPress Administration panel – WordPress will only write those rules to the .htaccess if that file exists and is writeable… and if the server you are working on has the Apache mod_re_write module installed and activated.

If you don’t know whether or not the server you are working with has the Apache mod_re_write module installed – contact your web hosting provider, they should be able to tell you that information.

As a side note – Yahoo! hosting does not give users access to the .htaccess file, so you are not able to use the permalink structure given by WordPress. Though, I believe that Yahoo has its own plugin that works around this issue, please contact them for support if you are hosting your WordPress blog with their services.

Hope that helps!