Switching themes in Drupal without the web interface - php

Question

I'm in the process of learning php and creating themes.
Unfortunately, while I was editing a theme that i was currently using in drupal, I made a mistake in the theme such that nothing shows up anymore, even if i were to hit drupal/index.php. I want to change my broken drupal theme to a working one but i'm unable to do so because I can't even view the administration section.

Answer 1

The How To reset your theme via the database page on Drupal.org has instructions for changing your theme directly from the SQL prompt.
It's not immediately clear whether this will work in the most recent version of Drupal, so back up your database before attempting this.

Answer 2

The easiest way to change your frontend theme is to set it in your sites/default/settings.php:
$conf['theme_default'] = 'minelli';

Answer 3

In terms of sorting your current problem, here's a simple way to do it that should work... Let's say your current theme is called "custom_theme".
Go to your theme directory ("sites/default/themes" probably)
Backup your development theme (i.e. move it elsewhere, if you're using Linux command line do something like "mv custom_theme custom_theme.bak")
Copy the garland theme to here and name it the same as your broken theme (if using LInux command line, something like this should work "cp -a ../../../themes/garland ./custom_theme"
Try viewing your site now. It should now use garland instead of your broken theme.
As others have said before, it's also highly recommended that you use a different theme for admins as you do for normal users (in case you break stuff). Select a safe admin theme (like garland) and then you can nearly always get to the admin interface if you're playing with theming.

Answer 4

Or if you are using Drupal 6, removing/moving the broken theme folder will make Drupal change the theme to the default theme (Garland).

Answer 5

Maybe using two themes in parallel will help.
Set one for the "user frontend" - the one you are developing at /admin/build/themes, another one standard, like garland, which you are NOT going to change, as a "administration backend": /admin/settings/admin.
If you happen to break the theme you're developing, you just go to the admin area (/admin), it will switch back to garland.

Answer 6

you can also insert a new login form in your theme by including this code:
`<?php
if(!user_is_logged_in() ){
print drupal_render(drupal_get_form('user_login'));
}else{
print "You are already logged in!";
}?>`
anywhere in the page.tpl.php file of your broken theme, then register with your admin credentials ;)

Answer 7

Please also see the following stack over flow issue.
it is related to them
Changing Drupal's theme and keeping Garland as the admin theme?
Changing the Admin Theme in Drupal 6 Directly in Database
Now here is solution :
Remove the files of the bad theme and clear the cache. After clearing the cache you will be able to login again.
The main difficulty is that you have to clear the cache without being logged in.
Try one of the methods for clearing the cache described in
Clearing Drupal's cache
IF Not then Try this one :
If you have drush, the command to type would be
drush vset theme_default garland
Either on the commandline, or via an administration interface (eg PHPMyAdmin) enter the following query
UPDATE system SET status=1 WHERE name = 'garland';
Then either:
UPDATE variable SET value='s:7:"garland"' WHERE name = 'theme_default';
TRUNCATE cache;
TRUNCATE cache_bootstrap;
TRUNCATE cache_block;
Note that 's:7' refers to the length of the following string. Modify as needed. This is database surgery, tricky stuff.
OR
If you are using per-user themes, and you've just messed it up for yourself as admin, try
UPDATE users SET theme='garland' WHERE uid = '1';
Be careful, as getting either of those lines wrong can mess things up just as badly.
Cheers!
Mudassar Ali

Answer 8

As far as I know, theme settings are stored in the database, as well for each individual user. The quickest way to get rid of a theme is probably removing it from the theme path.
Just move it onto your desktop and Drupal should be able to detect that your requested theme is missing and point you to the default instead.
Update: Tried this on my Drupal 5 installation, it turned out 'clean'. I suggest copying a working Drupal theme into your theme directory (make a copy first).

Answer 9

It's worth mentioning that if you're using the "Sections" module to apply different themes to different parts of the site, the instructions given on the Drupal site won't necessarily work — you may find that moving the problem theme directory out of the way is the only method of seeing the admin interface properly.