Most content lost after activating theme 2025

  • Unknown's avatar
    chaosman5813 · Member ·

    This is my first time using WordPress. I created a page and then started to add blocks. Mostly headings, paragraphs and images. I been working on it for a few months and have been learning and experimenting along the way.

    Yesterday, I decided to try a theme (I’m very new to this and didn’t know if I was even using a theme). I followed the instructions in a video and activated the 2025 theme. When I went to edit the site, all that was visible was the text and images at the top of the page. A little bit of panic and I started googling for solutions.

    I had been clicking Save after finishing a paragraph or two, so there should have. been many revisions. I tried to go back to a previous revision. However all I saw was a single revision from 6 days ago (I’ve worked on it several times since then). I would have settled for that, but the button to use that revision was grayed out!

    I read that my browser may have a cached version. However, going to the site yielded the up to date page with the missing content. Now a lot more panic.

    Is all hope lost? I’m using the free plan, editing with the web based block editor on my iPad.

    Thanks for any help and advice

    The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)

  • Unknown's avatar
    elcristofue · Member ·

    Hello there @chaosman5813! I completely understand how frustrating that must have been, but we’re here to help you with this. 🙂

    The good news is that changing your theme doesn’t delete any of your content. It might just look different or be arranged in a new layout, which can make it seem like things are missing.

    If you like, you can switch back to your previous theme, Creatio, anytime by following this guide:

    https://wordpress.com/support/themes/changing-themes/

    I also checked and saw that your media files are still there, which is great. It does seem like some pages may have been deleted, though. If that wasn’t intentional, you can try restoring them from the trash using this guide:

    https://wordpress.com/support/trash/#restore-from-trash

    Please let us know if you have any questions or need a hand with anything else. We’ll be here and happy to help!

  • Unknown's avatar
    chaosman5813 · Member ·

    Thanks for the reply @elcristofue. Yes, Im very glad that the images are still there and I wont have to reupload them. I have started to rebuild using a new page and using 2025 from the start.

    Since I admittedly don’t understand why switching the theme caused the loss of the page content, and why i didn’t have a revision to revert to, I’m hesitant to try again, and risk losing what I have already re-built. I’m chalking it up the a painful learning experience.

    I’m also investigating backup strategies. I have been making duplicates of the page after finishing sections. Not a perfect strategy because something could go globally wrong again by changing a site wide parameter. I’m an old software engineer and would like to download all the source material and save it separate from WordPress. Thus enabling a rebuild after losing everything. When I get a chance I’ll search the forums for recommended backup strategies for a simple hobbies web page.

  • Unknown's avatar
    elcristofue · Member ·

    You’re very welcome, @chaosman5813! 😊 

    When switching themes, the content itself isn’t deleted, but how it’s displayed can change significantly. Some themes use custom templates or blocks that may not carry over to a new theme, which can make it seem like content has vanished when it’s just no longer being shown the same way. Rest assured, the content remains on your site unless it was manually removed.

    I see you’re interested in creating a backup for your site. If you want to back up your site content outside of WordPress.com, you can export your content using this guide:

    https://wordpress.com/support/export/

    Also, I wanted to mention that by upgrading to the Business plan, you gain access to a handy feature that allows you to restore your site from a backup. You can find more details about this here:

    https://wordpress.com/support/plan-features/business-plan/#backups

    I hope this helps. If you have any other questions, we’re here to help.

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