Title: what does this syntax error message mean?
Last modified: August 19, 2016

---

# what does this syntax error message mean?

 *  [drawn-association](https://wordpress.org/support/users/drawn-association/)
 * (@drawn-association)
 * [16 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/what-does-this-syntax-error-message-mean/)
 * _I tried to copy and paste some code from a website – trying to add a favicon.
   **
   my site is not working now and my admin come out with the following message:**
 * Parse error: syntax error, unexpected ‘<‘ in /home/content/04/4807104/html/wp-
   content/themes/autofocus/functions.php on line 731
 * _**how can i fix this?**_

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

 *  [Andy Christian](https://wordpress.org/support/users/stdestiny/)
 * (@stdestiny)
 * [16 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/what-does-this-syntax-error-message-mean/#post-1183813)
 * there was probably an error in the code that you pasted into functions.php you
   may need to add a backslash (“\”) before the “<” to fix it, or try reinserting
   the code.
 *  Thread Starter [drawn-association](https://wordpress.org/support/users/drawn-association/)
 * (@drawn-association)
 * [16 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/what-does-this-syntax-error-message-mean/#post-1183820)
 * Thanks STDestiny –
    However – I can’t get into the Editor to change the code 
   now.
 * Can’t get into appearance/editor, or into XML-Sitemap…
 * Any ideas of How do I fix that if I can’t get into the code?
 *  [Andy Christian](https://wordpress.org/support/users/stdestiny/)
 * (@stdestiny)
 * [16 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/what-does-this-syntax-error-message-mean/#post-1183821)
 * do you have ftp access to your site? you can download that particular file from
   your server, edit it on your computer, then reupload it.
 *  Thread Starter [drawn-association](https://wordpress.org/support/users/drawn-association/)
 * (@drawn-association)
 * [16 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/what-does-this-syntax-error-message-mean/#post-1183824)
 * Yes, and YES! this fixed the problem! Huge thanks to you STDestiny!
 * 1/went to the FTP site
    2/chose from the directory the offending error file, 
   3/backdated it by one day [using _**History**_] and 4/saved with a ‘1’ at the
   end. 5/went back to _**current**_ files, renamed the error file with a ‘2’. 6/
   renamed the ‘1’ file by deleting the ‘1’.
 * 7/ error disappeared, and site is back up and running.
 * Bless You!

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

The topic ‘what does this syntax error message mean?’ is closed to new replies.

## Tags

 * [parse-error](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/parse-error/)
 * [syntax error](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/syntax-error/)

 * 4 replies
 * 2 participants
 * Last reply from: [drawn-association](https://wordpress.org/support/users/drawn-association/)
 * Last activity: [16 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/what-does-this-syntax-error-message-mean/#post-1183824)
 * Status: not resolved

## Topics

### Topics with no replies

### Non-support topics

### Resolved topics

### Unresolved topics

### All topics