Fix for error: Cannot modify header information – headers already sent by…

More precisely error messages look like the ones mentioned below.

Warning: Cannot modify header information – headers already sent by (output started at /home1/makeaweb/public_html/wp-content/plugins/license.txt:12) in /home1/makeaweb/public_html/wp-content/plugins/wp-popup-scheduler/wp-popup-scheduler.php on line 470
Warning: Cannot modify header information – headers already sent by (output started at /home1/makeaweb/public_html/wp-content/plugins/license.txt:12) in /home1/makeaweb/public_html/wp-login.php on line 255
Warning: Cannot modify header information – headers already sent by (output started at /home1/makeaweb/public_html/wp-content/plugins/license.txt:12) in /home1/makeaweb/public_html/wp-includes/pluggable.php on line 649 

If you have encountered the above mentioned error message during the course of the installation or post installation of a WordPress plugin then you can follow the steps outlined in this post to fix the corrupt plugin file and retrieve your blog.

Most likely, you will not be able to login to the WordPress dasboard panel. Therefore you would have to enter the program using the FTP route.

1) Login to the control panel and using file manager to enter the public_html directory.

2) Goto ‘wp-content’ folder. There you will notice a folder called ‘plugins’ (let’s called it folder A for convenience). This is the original plugins folder which contains all your plugin files. You don’t have to do anything with this folder for now.

3)  Our plan should be to delete or deactivate the corrupt plugin however it may not be safe to delete files and therefore we will take a much safer detour to render the current plugins useless without deleting them.

4) Create a new folder ‘plugins.hold’ under ‘wp-content’ and drag folder A (with all its plugins) under it. Folder A is now a sub folder.

5) Create another new empty folder in ‘wp-content’ and call it ‘plugins’ (I know the name is the same as the original but just do it, make sure there are no spelling mistakes. Let’s call the new one folder B). So now you have two folders by the name plugins. Don’t get confused as their locations are different. Hold on to this one for now.

6)  Login to WordPress from the admin screen as you usually do and hopefully you should be able to go through this time around. If yes, then half the battle has been won. Now, let’s take care of the other half.

7) Don’t be shocked to notice that there are no plugins visible in your WordPress Dashboard. This is because the program is calling it’s plugins from the master plugin folder (in this case folder B) under wp-content which is now empty.

8 ) Please do not log off from the control panel or WordPress dashboard interface.

9) Next step would be to determine the culprit plugin (if you don’t know already) and weed that out of your program. How is that going to done? Assuming that you don’t know which plugin triggered the errors, you would need start moving all the plugins one by one from the folder A (/public_html/wp-content/plugins.hold/plugins) to folder B (/public_html/wp-content/plugins). As you move a plugin to folder B, you would notice that plugins start to populate the Dasboard section as well.

10)  Keep on activating the plugins in the Dashboard and watch out for any errors. Once you have zeroed down to the corrupt plugin, go ahead and delete it from your program using the FTP or the Dasboard section. You are now good to go.

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Execution, step 1.5: Features of WordPress 2.7.1

I am using WordPress 2.7.1 and love the features that it offers. 

·         Control: You have complete control over your blog. Nobody can delete your work. You can upload your own themes, host your advertisements and modify codes.

·         WordPress Dashboard: You can manage your blog from this one screen. Here, you can see the latest updates, recent comments, incoming links [somebody linking to your blog], update about new plugins, Stats and a host of other features.

·         plugins: What are plugins? plugins are modifications to the program that provides for new features or expanding existing features. WordPress as a program has limited features and you have add on programs available (free most of the time) which you can upload to your WordPress blog and add the feature which you wish to incorporate. Incidentally, WordPress.org maintains a directory of plugins. You can visit the website and search for plugins and upload them to your blog. It takes not more than 5-7 minutes to upload and the process is supereasy.  I will be speaking about ‘most desireable’ plugins through another post, soon. On similar lines,  you can also upload free themes, free widgets, free codes, etc.

·         Spam protection:  There are programs that can post spam comments to your blog. These comments are usually accompanied with links and can be a huge problem. To address this issue, WordPress now comes along with a pre-installed plugin called ‘Akismet’. It checks comments posted on your blog posts against the Akismet web service to see if they look like spam or not. Just go ahead and activate the ‘Askimet’ plugin however to make it work, you would need to enter your WordPress.com API key as well.

 

 

 

 

·         Password protected posts: You now have the option to protect your post via a password. This helps you in making your post private and limit access only to select audience.

 

      ·  Sticky Posts: You can now make your post ‘sticky’ so that it stays as the top post on your front page no matter how many posts you publish after it.

 

·         Post by email: WordPress now gives you the option to post via email. You just need to create a new email account (keep it confidential). Any mail received at this address will be posted.

 

 

 

 

 

·         Postdated posts: Just like a post dated cheque, you can now write your posts and schedule it to go live (publish) on a later date. 

Still not quite there….

Issues with WordPress that impacts basic blogging:

1) The WYSIWYG editor in WordPress does not include a format painter. It also does not give you the option to change the font type or font size. You will have to switch to HTML and make changes to the code to be able to accomplish it.

2) You will not be able to assign or move a post to a different page. To clarify this further, I will take this blog as an example. WordPress would not allow me to move this post to the “Toolbar” page and instead automatically places all posts under the ‘Home’ page.

Top 24 ‘Must Have’ WordPress Plugins

Below is a list of 24 most desirable WordPress plugins that I have cherry-picked for you. These are my personal favorites as well, tried and tested, each a leader in their own domain. You can see all of them in action on this blog.

Don’t be shocked if I tell you that this post about plugins has been generated by a plugin itself. This post has been generated using a plugin called WP-PluginsUsed 1.40.

  AddToThis 1.0
» Sajith (url)
Helps to add your links in bookmarking sites

  AdSense Integrator 1.6.1
» My Wordpress Plugin (url)
AdSense Integrator plugin represents a complete, simple and powerful solution to add and manage AdSense and other ads into your blog

  Akismet 2.3.0
» Automattic (url)
Akismet checks your comments against the Akismet web service to see if they look like spam or not. You need an API key to use it. You can review the spam it catches under “Comments.” To show off your Akismet stats just put <?php akismet_counter(); ?> in your template. See also: WP Stats plugin.

  All in One SEO Pack 1.6.12.1
» Michael Torbert (url)
Out-of-the-box SEO for your Wordpress blog. Options configuration panel | Upgrade to Pro Version | Donate | Support | Amazon Wishlist

  Anarchy Media Player 2.5
» An-archos (url)
AMP plays mp3, flv, mov, mp4, m4v, m4a, m4b, 3gp, avi, asf and wmv hypertext links directly on your webpage. Adds buttons to the post editor for embedding swf movies including Google Video etc. Edit all player options in Settings > AMP

  AStickyPostOrderER 0.3.1
» AndreSC (url)
AStickyPostOrderER lets you customize the order in which posts are displayed per category, per tag, or over-all, in WordPress 2.3+ blog. Useful when using WordPress as a Content Management System. Now with the ability to override itself.

  Comment Approved Notifier 2.2
» Yakup Gövler (url)
Send an e-mail to your commenters when you approve their comments.

  Contact Form 7 2.3
» Takayuki Miyoshi (url)
Just another contact form plugin. Simple but flexible.

  DealDotCom 0.9
» BlueFur.com (url)
A simple Plugin to add a DealDotCom Widget to your Blog. Configure.

  DealDotCom Sidebar Widget 0.1
» BlueFur.com (url)
Adds a sidebar widget for the DealDotCom Widget Plugin.

  Different Posts Per Page 1.7.6
» MaxBlogPress (url)
Show different number of posts in home, category, search or archive page. Adjust your settings here.

  Google XML Sitemaps 3.2.4
» Arne Brachhold (url)
This plugin will generate a special XML sitemap which will help search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing and Ask.com to better index your blog.

  jQuery-Pagebar 0.3.3
» ocean90 (url)
A pagebar for WordPress build with jQuery and jQuery UI.

  Keyword Link Plugin 0.7.1
» Martijn Dijksterhuis (url)
A SEO plugin that helps you to automatically link keywords to articles.

  MaxBlogPress Favicon 2.0.9
» MaxBlogPress (url)
Easily add favicon to your blog without editing any wordpress files. Adjust your settings here.

  MaxBlogPress Stripe Ad 1.8.1
» MaxBlogPress (url)
A new non-obtrusive way of displaying a single line of advertising message, a special note or other information right at the top of your blog. Adjust your settings here.

  Pretty Link 1.4.49
» Blair Williams (url)
Shrink, track and share any URL on the Internet from your WordPress website!

  Ultimate Google Analytics 1.6.0
» Wilfred van der Deijl (url)
Enable Google Analytics on your blog. Has options to also track external links, mailto links and links to downloads on your own site. Check http://www.oratransplant.nl/uga/#versions for version updates

  What Would Seth Godin Do 1.7.1
» Richard K Miller (url)
Displays a custom welcome message to new visitors and another to return visitors.

  WordPress.com Stats 1.7.2
» Andy Skelton (url)
Tracks views, post/page views, referrers, and clicks. Requires a WordPress.com API key.

  Wordpress Popup Scheduler 1.3.0
» Damien Oh (url)
Wp Popup Scheduler allows you to add a popup box to your blog. You can customize the popup to suit your blog theme and schedule it to popup as and when you like it.

  WP-PluginsUsed 1.50
» Lester ‘GaMerZ’ Chan (url)
Display WordPress plugins that you currently have (both active and inactive) onto a post/page.

  WP Simple Paypal Donation v1.2
» Ruhul Amin (url)
Wordpress plugin to receive donation in one click. Can be used in the sidebar, posts and pages.

  WP To Top 0.1
» Asvin Balloo (url)
Add a “back to top” link to your posts

  Yet Another Related Posts Plugin 3.1.9
» mitcho (Michael Yoshitaka Erlewine) (url)
Returns a list of related entries based on a unique algorithm for display on your blog and RSS feeds. A templating feature allows customization of the display.