I was updating one of my wordpress sites the other day and logged into the admin panel to check things. Something was immediately wrong when I logged in, the entire left sidebar of the admin screen was gone. It had completely disappeared and made it extremely difficult to navigate the admin page since the left sidebar contains all the navigation links for the entire site such as posts, plugins, appearance, settings, etc.

Upon an extensive investigation, including going back to a backup of the site,  I discovered that the problem existed in the plugins. One of the installed plugins was causing the issue. So, follow these steps to deactivate the plugins and then reactivate them one at a time to narrow the problem plugin.

Be sure to substitute yourdomain.com for the actual domain name

1) Log into the admin screen at

http://www.yourdomain.com/wp-admin

2) In the address bar change the URL to

http://www.yourdomain.com/wp-admin/plugins.php

3) Select all the installed plugins and deactivate them

4) The left sidebar should now reappear and allow navigation of your administration screen.

5) Now, one by one, reactivate the installed plugins and test the admin screen.

6) Once you’ve narrowed the plugin list down to the problem plugin, contact the plugin author to see if there is a new version available. Be sure to let the author know about the problem with the left sidebar disappearing in the admin screen.

Currently, I have personally seen 3 plugins that have caused this behavior on different blogs.

I hope this information helps you regain control of your wordpress admin screen and narrow down the problem.

 

 

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