Title: database error in formatting.php after upgrade
Last modified: August 18, 2016

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# database error in formatting.php after upgrade

 *  Resolved [comotizedcom](https://wordpress.org/support/users/comotizedcom/)
 * (@comotizedcom)
 * [18 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/database-error-in-formattingphp-after-upgrade/)
 * I get the following errors on the index page of my site after upgrading to 2.3.
 *     ```
       Warning: preg_replace() [function.preg-replace]: No ending delimiter ':' found in /home/postmunk/public_html/comotized/wp-includes/formatting.php on line 668
   
       Warning: preg_replace() [function.preg-replace]: Delimiter must not be alphanumeric or backslash in /home/postmunk/public_html/comotized/wp-includes/formatting.php on line 668
       ```
   
 * I’ve searched the file and tried various ways to fix it to no avail, any ideas?

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)

 *  [MichaelH](https://wordpress.org/support/users/michaelh/)
 * (@michaelh)
 * [18 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/database-error-in-formattingphp-after-upgrade/#post-635084)
 * How about this thread:
    [http://wordpress.org/support/topic/136231?replies=7](http://wordpress.org/support/topic/136231?replies=7)
 *  Thread Starter [comotizedcom](https://wordpress.org/support/users/comotizedcom/)
 * (@comotizedcom)
 * [18 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/database-error-in-formattingphp-after-upgrade/#post-635138)
 * nope, it didn’t help. If you pull up the formatting.php file in a validator you’ll
   notice something isn’t quite right on line 667 which carries over to line 668,
   an end tag seems to be missing somewhere but I can’t figure out where 🙁
 *  [MichaelH](https://wordpress.org/support/users/michaelh/)
 * (@michaelh)
 * [18 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/database-error-in-formattingphp-after-upgrade/#post-635142)
 * If you disable all Plugins and use the Default Theme, does the problem go away?
 * If so it could be a theme/plugin compatibility issue.
 *  Thread Starter [comotizedcom](https://wordpress.org/support/users/comotizedcom/)
 * (@comotizedcom)
 * [18 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/database-error-in-formattingphp-after-upgrade/#post-635150)
 * i finally figured it out, it was neither the theme nor a plugin but the old vars
   file I forgot to replace
 * how to do you add smilies back into the new vars file though?
 * all seems well now though, thanks for helping me I appreciate it ^_^

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)

The topic ‘database error in formatting.php after upgrade’ is closed to new replies.

## Tags

 * [database errors](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/database-errors/)
 * [formatting.php](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/formatting-php/)
 * [upgrade](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/upgrade/)

 * In: [Fixing WordPress](https://wordpress.org/support/forum/how-to-and-troubleshooting/)
 * 4 replies
 * 2 participants
 * Last reply from: [comotizedcom](https://wordpress.org/support/users/comotizedcom/)
 * Last activity: [18 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/database-error-in-formattingphp-after-upgrade/#post-635150)
 * Status: resolved

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