Theme Editor Not Showing In WordPress: Quick Fix

Theme editors are useful tools in WordPress that allow you to edit PHP files. In this tutorial, you will learn how to resolve the issue of the theme editor not showing in WordPress.

The most common cause of this theme editor not showing or being displayed issue is the presence of a conflicting plugin. To quickly resolve the issue, disable all installed plugins and check whether or not the theme editor is visible.

Let’s take a closer look at why the theme editor isn’t showing up and how you can re-enable it in WordPress.

How To Fix Theme Editor Not Showing In WordPress Issue?

There could be a number of reasons why your WordPress theme editor has been disabled. To fix or re-enable the theme editor, follow the troubleshooting guide below.

1. Disable Conflicting Plugin

The first and foremost thing you should do is go to the plugins menu from the left pane of your WordPress admin dashboard and then select installed plugins.

Disable all plugins temporarily on the installed plugins page. Once all plugins have been disabled, check to see if the Theme editor option is visible on the appearance tab on the left pane, as shown in the image below.

Theme Editor Not Showing In WordPress

Once you’ve confirmed that the theme editor is visible, it’s clear that one of your plugins is interfering with it and thus disabling it. So, to determine which plugin is which, you can begin enabling plugins one by one.

Theme Editor Not Showing In WordPress

After enabling each plugin, check to see if the theme editor is visible or not. If you see that the theme editor is disabled, it is because the last plugin you enabled was incompatible with the theme editor.

To resolve the theme editor issue Disable the conflicting plugin and uninstall it, or contact the plugin developer’s support team and ask them to resolve the issue.

2. Clear Cache Of Your WordPress Website

Browser caching is a complex topic. Perhaps you’ve even figured out how to use it, or at the very least, you understand its significance.

However, you may not know that it is the first step in solving many of the issues that website owners face. The first step is to clear your browser’s history, then move on to more complex solutions.

Clear Cache Of Your WordPress Website

To Clear the Cache of your website, open the website on your Chrome Browser and then press CTRL+F5. This will clear any cache related to your website and it will automatically refresh the tab.

After clearing the cache, check to see if the Theme editor options are activated. Attempt the next step of troubleshooting if it is still not working.

3. Change File Settings In WP-Config.PHP

If the first two solutions did not work for you, you now have a third option. This one is also simple, as you only need to change one setting in wp-config.php.

However, before proceeding, make a backup of your WordPress site, as making changes to PHP files should only be done after taking a backup so that you can restore the website to normal if something goes wrong.

First, install a plugin WP File Manager, Once you have installed and activated this plugin. You can now edit any PHP file you want.

image 19

Right-click the wp-config.php file once you’ve accessed the manager. Select Code Editor from the menu and look for the following line: define (‘DISALLOW FILE EDIT’, true). All you have to do is change the word true to false so that it looks like this: define (‘DISALLOW FILE EDIT’, false).

Clear the cache after clicking Save & Close to see if the situation has improved. In most cases, modifying the wp-config.php file or deactivating the plugin should resolve the issue of a missing WordPress editor. But if it doesn’t, you have one more option.

4. Install External Theme Editor Plugin

If you are still not able to fix the issues using the above method then all you can do is just install another external theme editor.

I was also able to resolve my theme editor issue by installing a different theme and editing the files associated with my theme. You may consider installing plugins like Theme Editor, and WPide.

Alternatively, if you have followed the third method discussed above, you can leave the WP File Manager plugin installed.

Wrap Up

I hope the above troubleshooting method helped you resolve the Theme editor not showing in the WordPress issue. I’ve listed four solutions that you can use to solve this problem.

Though this issue is usually caused by a conflicting plugin, the first method should usually resolve the problem.

Let me know in the comment section if you are still facing this issue I will be happy to help you.

Further Read:

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  4. How To Completely Remove Elementor From WordPress