updated to 3.7.3 (dumb idea apparently)
all my settings are showing, all my css is present, but nothing is displaying on the public facing website. i've learned my lesson. never updating again. but hoping someone can get me pointed in the right direction.... why can't these things just "work"???

did you do an automatic update? Sometimes your host can time out and it doesn't install the entire theme. You could delete the atahualpa folder from the themes folder and try th e automatic update again or do a manual install (see this thread)

thanks for the quick reply... sorry for my tone.

i'll check out that thread..

just making absolutely no sense at all.... i've removed the old theme folder and put a fresh one back in there. then imported the settings file and... nothing. it's like the page is not reading the CSS at all... I can put crazy changes in there and nothing form the ATA settings file is being read by the browser.

what is the url?

Just did a roll-back to an earlier backup.

Going to heed your advice and see if I can get duplicate themes installed (old and new) and get them both to work.

Is it safe to assume the "external" CSS file is going to be different for both "themes" that I install? It seemed that whenever I installed a "fresh" copy of ATA, the theme settings were already filled in even before I pasted them into the box??

The theme setting for Atahualpa are in the database, not in an external css file. The style.css file is used differently for Atahualpa. Therefore when you upload a new version of the theme the styles will all be there for however many versions you upload.

Thanks, Larry. (learn something new every day!) That's pretty cool!!

Headed back in to make my changes and try the update again.. (perhaps I'm a glutton for punishment?) Going to install the updated version on its own and heed Juggledad's advice (and thread).

thanks again for your continued assistance gentlemen!!!

I feel I have perhaps chosen the wrong line of work.
I just switched themes to see if the All-In-One SEO plugin would work on a different theme since it is not working w/ ATA.. no dice. so, when I switch back.... all my CSS is "corrupt" again. (awesome!)
Even the CSS for the ATA Options is gone. (everything is all stacked up on the left).
my menu is gone and the whole page looks like it's been inhaling helium (floating all over the place).

any chance you want to peek at this and tell me why I can't change themes (or update) with this setup... Is the theme really that unstable?? or can you simply not change anything once you get this theme installed???

baffled (again)

I also see that the default footer is back in there??? Does switching the themes write over all the changes made to the files previously???? i'm so confused!

jason.

http://wilsontireco.com/

If you PM login info to me I will take a look.

You do have to edit the code to remove the footer after an upgrade.

I took a look at who you are hosted with and it looks like a pretty expensive host with very little space and according to their documentation they have an old version of PHP. I would consider switching hosts. There are others with unlimited space for about $5 to $7 per month.

wordpress 3.3.1 is suppose to remember what widgets you had in a theme so if you switch from theme A to theme B and then back, the widgets will be put back in. earlier versions of WP did not 'remember' the widgets.

Just wanted to mention that following Juggledad and Larry's advice worked swimmingly. Backup Everything, load the theme according to JD's instructions (changing the defaults, etc.) and testing it out before you simply "update".
I've done 3 or 4 updates so far and enjoy the peace of mind as well as the functionality!