Theme update after very long time – bad idea, now I need some help, please :)

Hi guys,

Background: I’ve got this website with your Newspaper theme installed which I have not been using or updating for at least two years, and the theme version was probably even older than that.

Since I was updating other websites yesterday (based on other theme) to new WordPress and theme version, I decided to update Newspaper theme (and the whole website) at the same time, cause it’s on the same server.

I had the feeling that making a backup copy before updating after such a long time would be a really good idea, but of course I thought to myself ‘Nah, what bad could happen that I would not be able to fix?’. Well… here we go:

So after uploading the newest Newspaper folder via ftp and replacing the old one, shit hits the fan.

First, I get a fatal error, website crashed.

I googled and this was a known issue with new WordPress version and old themes, I applied a quick fix (change one line code) in class-wp-textdomain-registry.php and hooray! the website ressurects. Happy days? Not really…

Second, the website does not look like before.

In fact, it does not look like a website at all (frontend), nothing works or displays correctly.
I googled and found that you made a major update some time ago and I need to install additional plugin to make old things work as they should (Standard Pack). So I did that and success again – pages and posts load as they should… with one very strange exception…

…the Contact page seems to constantly reload itself in an endless loop (it looks like it’s trying to send the form constantly without any fields filled in?), and the contact form is not visible in mobile version at all (mobile plugin installed), maybe it’s actually good because it’s not reloading endlessly like in the desktop version… This really drives me crazy… BUT! I change browser from Firefox to Chrome and the problem disappears! How come? Any idea what’s wrong? Also seems to be wrong only for logged in members (admins), that’s really strange.

But on mobile the Contact form is not there in any case.

I’d be grateful if you could tell me what is the best way to set everything straight, cause I like to have my websites and server files in good working order and clean, without any messed up code if it’s not necessary, so I’d prefer to reload WordPress and probably upload the newest Newspaper theme from the scratch – but how can I keep all my pages and posts and keep the structure and settings? If I make a normal backup copy with all site details included – will it not replicate the problem after importing it back onto the newly reinstalled WordPress and theme with old plugins, settings etc?

In the (not so) worst case scenario I may fancy rebuilding the website using one of the new templates you provided which look really nice, but I need my original content (e.g. pages, posts and media) to do that.

But if I didn’t want to redesign with new template – what’s the best solution to get everything back to clean and working state (now it’s working, but a bit messy and prone to problems in future, I guess…)?

Thanks.