robertbeth

To be honest, I’m starting to think that it is perhaps theme related.

Could the (false) 404 errors, the 505 and 500 errors which usually happen when trying to update a page/post be a result of corrupt code?

I tried again to deactivate all plugins and reactivate one by one to see if they were the cause of the problem..

..Now, the site has gone completely crazy. The sidebar is missing, the footer is distorted and the nav menu isn’t functioning properly.

Thanks for the feedback, Cata.

You’re right in that because the loading times range so widely, it’s really difficult to nail things down and get an understanding of what the problem is. I’ve received advice from so many people and one general consensus is as you suggest: resources. Either someone on the server is hogging resources or the site, for whatever reason, started being resource heavy.

At this point, I am feeling more and more convinced that it is a server related problem as opposed to a wordpress one. I could be wrong, but all signs seem to suggest that the inconsistent load times coupled with random 505, 503 and 404 errors are server related (especially considering that these errors seem to occur when the site is at its most slow). The strange thing about these errors is that they’re not permanent. Moreover, if I refresh the page they go away which I find really strange.

The other thing I had thought of however is that it could be the result of some sort of incompatibility between plugins and my custom theme or something along those lines. Perhaps I will have one last look at this before I decide to try an upgrade to VPS.

That said, I have zero server admin skills. Do you think this is something I can learn as I go along? Also, would 300mb ram be sufficient?

Thanks kindly

Ah, brilliant.

As I mentioned in my previous post, a line of code referring to a security plugin came up once or twice when the site failed to load. Using FTP, I deleted that plug-in and now the site seems to be back!!

Thanks so much WPyogi

I will close this thread in a few moments, pending no further errors

Esmi-

I’ve gone through both the markup errors and the css errors, and I’ve fixed as much as I can. There are still many errors remaining, but I’m unsure as to how I should go about them. Many of the markup errors for example, when I go to fix them the entire page destructs and I’m left with basically nothing. With regards to the css errors, most of them come from the parent theme stylesheet, and the code is behind my basic understanding.

I’ve been henceforth going through all of the validation errors, and its seems like none of the remaining errors concern my most fundamental problem, namely that my tables aren’t rendering properly in Internet Explorer – specifically on two pages: the author listing page and the one book page that I posted above.

Considering that most of the validation errors aren’t due to our code, but to that which is embedded in our theme, etc. I think we’ll have to pay someone to eventually go through all of it and clean the site for us.

In the meantime – do you, or anyone else, know how I might fix my tables so that they at least appear somewhat properly in IE?

Here is my html code, now posted in pastebin (oops)

http://pastebin.com/2tL25c87

I tried adding

table { table-layout: fixed }

to my CSS stylesheet but it didn’t make any difference. Does anybody have any suggestions please? I have defined fixed dimensions for my tables in the HTML, but it seems they are being overidden.

Thanks!

Thank you alchymyth, it worked a treat. much appreciate your help.