Title: Theme Installation Problem
Last modified: August 19, 2016

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# Theme Installation Problem

 *  [swinsea](https://wordpress.org/support/users/swinsea/)
 * (@swinsea)
 * [17 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/theme-installation-problem/)
 * I have been trying to use various themes (about six), all of which I found on
   this site and received decent reviews. However, I can’t get any of them to work
   correctly on my site! I have double checked which version of WordPress they were
   made for an all of them should work with a simple upload to content/themes, but
   no such luck! The only one I got to work so far is ComicPress (I tried that because
   I’d used it successfully before), but no normal themes work.
 * Examples of my issues:
 * – No recognition of sidebars, everything jumbled in and mixed together into one
   column
    – Title shows up incorrectly – Backgrounds are incorrect (example: solid
   color instead of pattern) – Pretty much looks like a simple one-column document
   with links and varied colors/sizes in text
 * Has anyone else run into this problem? Anyone have a suggested solution? Thanks!

Viewing 7 replies - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)

 *  [@mercime](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mercime/)
 * (@mercime)
 * [17 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/theme-installation-problem/#post-839587)
 * Some themes require plugins to be installed and activated first, some themes 
   require you to add categories first, etc. Check if the themes you downloaded 
   have a readme file and follow instructions. You could also try re-uploading the
   theme files, you might have been able to upload style.css or some other required
   files.
    Good luck.
 *  Thread Starter [swinsea](https://wordpress.org/support/users/swinsea/)
 * (@swinsea)
 * [17 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/theme-installation-problem/#post-839728)
 * I appreciate the response.
 * To simplify things I’ve primarily been trying to use a theme I designed using
   the WordPress Theme Generator ([http://www.yvoschaap.com/wpthemegen/](http://www.yvoschaap.com/wpthemegen/))
   which, I would think, would be a pretty basic way to start attempting to install
   one. Even those ones don’t work. I double-checked the ones I uploaded and can’t
   find anything about plugins or special instructions for those, either – I was
   careful to choose seemingly simple ones. I’m still at a loss.
 * Any other ideas?
 *  [whooami](https://wordpress.org/support/users/whooami/)
 * (@whooami)
 * [17 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/theme-installation-problem/#post-839731)
 * are you actually uploading these themes correctly?
 * Review my tutorials and make sure:
 * [http://www.village-idiot.org/theme-howto](http://www.village-idiot.org/theme-howto)
 *  Thread Starter [swinsea](https://wordpress.org/support/users/swinsea/)
 * (@swinsea)
 * [17 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/theme-installation-problem/#post-839850)
 * Sorry it took me so long to respond –
 * I looked at your tutorials and I double-checked everything, but they’re all correct.(
   Very good step-throughs, by the way!)
 * Any other ideas?
 *  [ronchicago](https://wordpress.org/support/users/ronchicago/)
 * (@ronchicago)
 * [17 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/theme-installation-problem/#post-839851)
 * dumb question.
 * your default theme works, right?
 *  Thread Starter [swinsea](https://wordpress.org/support/users/swinsea/)
 * (@swinsea)
 * [17 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/theme-installation-problem/#post-839862)
 * Yes, it works fine. I can also get ComicPress to work, which is what I’m using
   now. But I can’t get any other theme to work.
 *  [ronchicago](https://wordpress.org/support/users/ronchicago/)
 * (@ronchicago)
 * [17 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/theme-installation-problem/#post-839865)
 * there are also certain “minimum specs” that hosting services need. the version
   of php, phpmyadmin, mod rewrite, etc. is your “host” up to speed in this area?

Viewing 7 replies - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)

The topic ‘Theme Installation Problem’ is closed to new replies.

## Tags

 * [Issues](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/issues/)
 * [problem](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/problem/)

 * In: [Fixing WordPress](https://wordpress.org/support/forum/how-to-and-troubleshooting/)
 * 7 replies
 * 4 participants
 * Last reply from: [ronchicago](https://wordpress.org/support/users/ronchicago/)
 * Last activity: [17 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/theme-installation-problem/#post-839865)
 * Status: not resolved

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