Didn't renew payment for upgraded theme…lost everything?
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I forgot to update my credit card information when my theme was up for renewal and my website reverted to an older, free theme. If I repurchase the upgraded theme, will all of my information and work I did on that theme be restored or is it lost forever? Would I have to redo all of the work I did? I paid for the “Responsive” theme in January 2014. Help!
The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
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Hi there, all premium themes are a one-time payment, they don’t need to be renewed, ever!
Responsive is free theme:
https://theme.wordpress.com/themes/responsive/
Could you please provide a link for the site you’re having trouble with so I can take a look? Thanks!
I see the premium theme Linen on this site: http://ixiasalonatl.com/
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Hi – ixiasalonatl.com is the link. It was on the responsive theme but I’m wondering if it reverted back to the linen theme because we didn’t renew the premium package. I just don’t understand why it would all disappear. Is there a way to restore it? I appreciate any help you can provide.
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I think you have it backwards. :)
Linen is the premium theme: https://wordpress.com/themes/linen/
Responsive is a free theme: https://wordpress.com/themes/responsive/I just reviewed your history on http://ixiasalonatl.com/ and it looks like that site hasn’t been running Responsive anytime over the last two years.
Linen was purchased on 2012-01-08 and the site’s been running it ever since.
Whether you decide to renew WordPress.com Premium or not has has no effect on what theme you’re running, since theme purchases are a one-time charge, and are good for the lifetime of the site.
If you prefer to use Responsive (free) instead of Linen (premium) you can feel free to reselect Responsive anytime. Just go to the showcase page here – https://wordpress.com/themes/responsive/ – and click the Activate button at the top right. Just a few things to keep in mind when you switch themes:
Let me know if this helps.
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I have another theory. Is it possible you once were running the WordPress software on your own hosting account, perhaps at GoDaddy? I looked up your site’s name in Google and noticed some self-hosted-style URLs (which we don’t use on WordPress.com) that refer to pages that no longer exist, like these:
ixiasalonatl.com/?m=201302&paged=3
ixiasalonatl.com/?m=2013Is it possible that you accidentally changed your domain name servers to point to WordPress.com when you didn’t really intend to return to hosting your site here? If that’s what happened, then you’d need to log back into your GoDaddy registrar control panel and reset the DNS for your domain to point back to them. If you need help with that, GoDaddy staff should be able to help.
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I had the DNS pointing to wordpress from Godaddy. I wish I had screen shots to show you that from January 2013 – early January 2015, the site was on the responsive theme. Here is the email that was received and when the website reverted back to the linen theme:
“Custom Design on your blog Ixia Salon is about to expire. This upgrade lets you choose unique fonts for your site, a custom color scheme, and customize its appearance further with your own CSS.
Custom Design costs $30.00, and it is set to expire on January 12, 2015. If this upgrade expires, any customizations you made to your theme’s CSS, Custom Colors, and Custom Fonts will no longer be active on your site. Your site will revert to its appearance before you started using Custom Design.
Renew Custom Design
Your credit card has expired so the renewal didn’t go through. We’re getting in touch because you’ll need to manually renew this upgrade.Please reply to this email with any questions.”
I put in the three wordpress DNS in the DNS Manager on GoDaddy. Am I missing a step? Thank you!
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If you plan to keep your site here on WordPress.com, you can switch back to using Responsive anytime you like, as I explained earlier. Have you tried to do that?
If you prefer to use Responsive (free) instead of Linen (premium) you can feel free to reselect Responsive anytime. Just go to the showcase page here – https://wordpress.com/themes/responsive/ – and click the Activate button at the top right. Just a few things to keep in mind when you switch themes:
Custom Design is not related any particular theme – it’s an upgrade that lets you add custom CSS, colours, or fonts. You can use any theme with or without Custom Design, it’s entirely up to you. :)
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Hello – Yes, I understand I can switch back and that the custom design was an upgrade but what I don’t understand is how it switched back to the linen theme when it was on the responsive. That’s what I’m trying to figure out. In addition, is everything that was on the responsive theme lost. Is there an XML stored on your servers? I just don’t understand what happened. Is it because the credit card for the domain name ixiasalonatl.com wasn’t updated, therefore it referred to the free wordrpess domain name?
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how it switched back to the linen theme when it was on the responsive. That’s what I’m trying to figure out.
As I mentioned earlier, we keep track of theme changes throughout a site’s history here on WordPress.com.
The site ixiasalonatl.wordpress.com has been running Linen for the last three years. The last theme switch that took place was on January 8, 2012, when the site switched to using Linen. It has not used any other theme since that date:
For the last three years your site has run on WordPress.com, the only theme it has ever run is Linen. It has not run Responsive here on WordPress.com anytime in the last three years.
Is there an XML stored on your servers?
You can export an XML file of your theme’s content under Tools > Export. Switching themes does not cause a site to lose content, however.
The fact that you keep mentioning your site previously running Responsive – as well as lost content – leads me back to my earlier theory, that you once hosted your site somewhere other than here on WordPress.com.
Did you ever have your site hosted over at GoDaddy? If so, you would need to point your domain’s DNS back there to access your old site running Responsive.
Is it because the credit card for the domain name ixiasalonatl.com wasn’t updated, therefore it referred to the free wordrpess domain name?
I don’t think so – the domain name has nothing to do with which theme a site is running, so those are not connected.
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I just had an idea for a way to confirm my theory that your site had been hosted somewhere other than WordPress.com.
I visited the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine to have a peek at what your site looked like back in December.
Have a look at their copy of your site here:
http://web.archive.org/web/20141217135632/http://ixiasalonatl.com/
That version of the site was running Responsive, and looking at the source code, I can confirm that it was NOT hosted here on WordPress.com.
There isn’t a way for me to see on which specific host the site was hosted at that time, but I can definitely confirm that it was not running on WordPress.com.
For example, I can see that it was running the NextGen gallery plugin:
http://ixiasalonatl.com/wp-content/plugins/nextgen-gallery
On WordPress.com, we don’t offer NextGen. You also would never see a file path like that – the browser source would only show the wordpress.com file path, which for your site is http://ixiasalonatl.wordpress.com.
So just to sum up: the site you remember was not hosted here on WordPress.com. You’ll need to look back in your records to find out who your host was, and then go back into your domain manager at GoDaddy (where your domain is registered) to point the name servers for your domain ixiasalonatl.com to your web host, whoever it may be. Once you do that, as long as you did not cancel your other hosting at some point in the meantime, you should see the site you remember, running Responsive.
I hope this helps solve the mystery. :-)
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