Having trouble getting FTP to work with Wordpress

what program are you using to ftp in?

I am using Filezilla.

Okay, typically the root of you domain will be the public_html folder, is that the folder you're in on Filezilla?

When I connect to the remote site using my FTP information, I do not find a "public_html" folder.

Do you have one called httpdocs?

I don't think so.

Can you screenshot or list out what you're seeing on the server side of your filezilla file explorer?

Here is a list of what I see:

The root of my project is at "/" then inside of that: project-info/ upgrade/, uploads/, wp-admin/, wp-content/, wp-includes/, .htaccess file, index.php file, several wp-*.php files, etc. Here is a list of what I see: there are subfolders/files within the folders the most notable being in the wp-content/ folder. There is a plugins/ folder, a themes/ folder, an uploads/ folder, and another wp-content/ folder.

Kevin Korte do you have any other thoughts after seeing my file/folder list?

Who is your host? It sounds like you're not ftp'ed into your servers root, but rather you're ftp'ed into the root of the wordpress project

I believe my host is bluehost. The project that I am working on is a website redesign. The person who originally developed the site set up a remote development server for me to work on. How would I find out whether I'm FTP'ed into my server's root?

I don't think there is anyway to tell on Filezilla, but bluehost should be much like the others, and typically your server root is public_html. FTP accounts can be given or limited to certain folders, so it may be possible that this ftp account does not have permission to be in the root.

It does however look like you're in the root of the wordpress project, and that might be a-ok for what you need. The directory you described would be the root of the wordpress website.

Thanks for your help so far! I am trying to delete my custom Wordpress theme as I am unable to get into my site because of an error and believe that my custom theme is my issue. How would I remove the theme via FTP?

If you double click into the wp-content folder, and than double click into the themes folder, you should see your theme folder in there, and than you can select it and delete it - and then try refreshing the page.

I believe I already deleted by custom theme. The twentyfifteen theme is the only theme in "/wp-content/themes". If this helps at all, the error I am getting when I attempt to log into my Wordpress site is a 500 internal server error.

Does the rest of the site work besides logging in?

No

Have you tried replacing all of the wordpress files with a fresh download? You're in the wp root it sounds like, so you should be able to do so. The only thing you'll have to do is copy all of the database connection settings from the wp-config.php file otherwise you'll get an "error establishing database connection" error when you refreshed.

So you would recommend a fresh install of Wordpress? I was kind of thinking of doing that myself. Would I just copy the contents from my current wp-config.php file and paste it into the new wp-config.php file from the new install? Once I do that, would I just completely wipe all my files/folders from the remote directory and then upload the entire new install?

Basically, in filezilla on the server side, you see a file called wp-config.php, right? I would delete EVERYTHING BUT that one file.

When you download wordpress, it won't have that file, it will have a wp-config-example.php file, or something like this. Once everything on the server is gone but that config file, start uploading the new freshly downloaded wordpress package. Once filezilla chews through all of that, try refreshing the page and see if it works.

How long should I wait to let Filezilla process the new Wordpress install?