formatting of sidebar abruptly changed
 

Apologies for the lengthy post: My site (www.rishishukla.com/blog -- using WP 2.8.1 / Atahualpa 3.4.1 / hosted at 1and1.com) was loading slowly in IE8 this morning (first time this has happened to me...the site is still under construction so it isn't overly bulky). I tried to install the wp-cache plug-in (installed it and entered my API; did not see any options to "deactivate compression" under miscellaneous options, as described in the installation instructions) to speed things up and then clicked on a link in my dashboard to update the Akismet plugin from version 2.2.4 to version 2.2.5. When I returned to my dashboard, the "Plugin" feed and "Other WordPress News" feed were no longer working... I then previewed my site to find that any content placed in the upper right hand portion of my site gets underlined upon rollover (I tried moving / replacing the text widget, but anything that ends of in the top right gets underlined or reformatted). I tried to deactivate and then delete the wp-cache plug-in (this did not resolve the problem). I then deactivated and then deleted the Akismet plugin (this corrected the "Plugin" /"WordPress News" feed issue, but the formatting issue at the top of the right sidebar did not get fixed).

I tried the following potential fixes: (1) uploaded an .htaccess file in order to use PHP5 -- I had to do this in order to get "reinstall automatically" to work...once I uploaded .htaccess, I did an automatic re-install of WP 2.8.1. This did not resolve the sidebar formatting issue. (2) I uploaded Atahualpa 3.4.2 to themes. My site still had the formatting error, even with this version. I currently have version 3.4.1 up.

To recap, the site was working fine last night. This morning it was a little slow on initial load but faster on subsequent loads. I tried to install wp-cache and then clicked on the upgrade Akismet option in dashboard --> this caused the Plugin and WordPress NEws feeds to disappear and the formatting at the top of my right sidebar to become corrupt (any content that ends up at the top right inherits this formatting issue).

I could really use some help with this one! Thanks in advance.

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The strangest thing just happened...I accidentally deleted text widget containing the icons from the top right of my site. When I hit "preview" everything on the right moved up, but the formatting was corrected! I recreated the text widget and inserted it to test things out - eveything seems like it's back to normal at the moment. I am cautiously optimistic - is there anything else I should be looking out for? Does my site look overly bulky? If I try to install wp-cache again, is there anything particular I need to do? Thanks a lot!

Site doesn't look bulky, nice customization. It could be faster but is not extremely slow. You could remove this

<script type="text/javascript" src="<?php echo $bfa_ata['siteurl']; ?>/wp-includes/js/jquery/jquery.js?ver=1.2.6"></script>

from header.php since a plugin seems already to load a newer version of jquery. That should save ~50kb on first page view.

Wp Cache 2 is easier to install than WP Super Cache and usually good enough

Installing XCache or another PHP Cache does usually help a lot.

mod_deflate (for Apache 2) or Gzip (for Apache 1.3 or other web servers) is not installed on your hosting account. It reduces the size of HTML/CSS/Javascript to around 20-25% of the original file size. If 1&1 doesn't activate that for you I'd look for another web host mid/long term.

Thanks very much - appreciate all the help. I removed the script from header.php

I emailed 1and1.com regarding mod_deflate and Gzip. Here's their response:

"Gzip and mod_deflate are already enabled in our Linux Hosting accounts. Can please provide us the complete path of your wordpress blog where it needs Gzip and mod_deflate to be active so that we can check it here on our end. http://links.1and1faqs.com/check_info.php5"

Aside from a link to my blog, what else would you recommend sharing with them to make sure Gzip / mod_deflate is active?

Thanks again

You can check whether mod_deflate or gzip is enabled by right-clicking somewhere on a site of your page and choosing "View Page Info" (in Firefox) and looking for "Size: 14.7 KB (15,051 bytes). Then choose "View Page Source", copy the whole page source code and paste it into a text editor such as Notepad++ which shows the amount of characters = Bytes in the status bar at the bottom.

If the View Page Info value is around 20-30% of the actual size of the source code as measured in a text editor, then mod_deflate or GZip is enabled. If the size is more or less the same then it is not. Mod_deflate is usually enabled globally on the web server level so there should be no need to enable this for this or that directory or web site. It will cost the hosting provider a bit CPU time albeit not terribly much, and shrink your BW usage, and improve the download speed of all HTML, CSS, TXT & Javascript on your site, everything except images, videos, flash, all this without dealing with Gzip on an application level.

Wordpress used to have Gzip included in earlier versions but dropped it in favor of mod_deflate/gzip on web server level because they think that it makes more sense there, which is true but of course many budget hosts may not enable it.

They may have set up Apache or PHP in a way that allows you to add this on a per directory level with mod_rewrite, second best option because you'll have to deal with it but better than not getting it at all

Regarding 1&1's support of mod_deflate:
Like most budget/shared web hosts, 1&1 disable this compression due to CPU utilization.

Just spoke with technical support and discovered if you want to be able to use this incredible Apache module with 1&1, you'll need a dedicated server (starting at $49/mo.)

For other compression options for 1&1 customers, look here:
http://mrrena.blogspot.com/2009/01/h...ther-text.html
http://www.magentocommerce.com/board...46891/#t151459