Getting Ready for WordPrss 3.3 – Solve Fatal error: Call to undefined function is_rtl()

December 12, 2011 - Last Modified: December 12, 2011 by Hesham Zebida 7,194

After upgrading three different test blogs of mine with no issue at all, I decided to go a head and upgrade FamousBloggers.net to the latest version of WordPress 3.3 that was released today. but things didn’t went as expected. I got the Fatal error: Call to undefined function is_rtl() , that was really odd because I couldn’t login to my admin dashboard after the upgrade.

Anyways, I figure out what caused the error! However, not all people will get this error though, but apparently it’s cause by a plugin.

So, if you’ve decided to upgrade to WordPress 3.3 and enjoy the new awesome features that I won’t mention here, then take it easy!

Maybe you will get this error:

[box type=”red”]Fatal error: Call to undefined function is_rtl()[/box]

Alright, let’s get into business…

How to Solve the Fatal error: Call to undefined function is_rtl()

It’s pretty simple, let’s follow these steps and discover what cause the error:

The first thing to do is to disable all plugins on your WordPress installation. A simply way to disable all plugins is to access your server files via FTP and rename your “plugins” folder to something else (for example: “_plugins” or “old_plugins”), then create a new empty folder and call it “plugins”.
Now, try to login to your WordPress dashboard!
This time you will get a request from WordPress asking you to upgrade your database, go a head do the upgrade by clicking on the upgrade button, you should be fine after that.
Once you get inside your WordPress dashboard, go to your plugins page, you will find red messages telling you that plugins was deactivated, don’t worry about it!
Go to your FTP again, and remove the empty “plugins” folder you’ve created, then rename the original folder that has your plugins back to “plugins”.
Go to your WordPress plugins page and enable plugins one by one till you find the one that caused the issue.
Once you discover it, probably you won’t be able to login to your dashboard again, you will need to deactivate the plugin that caused the error. You will need to FTP again and rename its folder to something else to be able to disable it.

Now you are good to go, but without that particular plugin, I assume you can live without it.

However, you can contact the plugin support and let them know about the error, if this is a premium plugin, you should get a quick fix.

P.S. If you still have same issue, then rename your active theme folder, this should force WordPress to use the default theme (example: twentyeleven).

In my case, the issue was cause by the Popup Domination plugin, I had to disable it as both version are causing same issue (PD 2 and 3). So, if you would like to continue using the plugin on your blog, don’t upgrade to WordPress 3.3 now, just wait for some time and make sure this issue was fixed before you upgrade.

I appreciate if you share which plugins are breaking your blog!

Happy blogging, and yes I love WordPress 3.3 Sonny , it looks pretty awesome, I love the new media uploader and the admin menu, I also believe that I will make use of the is multi author function in a way or another.

Check the full feature update.

About Hesham Zebida

Follow @hishaman

I create websites with WordPress, and I develop Schema Plugins to help SEOs. I am a social network lover. I am also the night creature who works hard to keep this project up. Owner and founder of the Famous Blog.

{ 125 Responses }

Crystal says:

Thanks for your help, I tried this method but it didnt work for me, does it have anything to do with the fact that I got the error after adding to the functions.php file? I tried deleting the file through ftp and then installing a fresh one straight from the twenty eleven theme folder, but still get an error code Fatal error: Call to undefined function add_action() in /home/omsaustr/public_html/test/wp-includes/functions.php on line 50 I also tried renaming the plugins folder like you suggested, but still cannot access the backend. Please help, any suggestions would be very appreciated, as I am on a deadline to finish this site eeeekk!
- Hesham Zebida says:
  
  If you turn off plugins and install a fresh copy of twenty eleven, your blog should work! Sorry, I can't help with this issue!
Kevin alson says:

I was having this fatal error. So many times I tried to fix this trying other blogs and their instructions. I failed lots of time and I tried your steps and I solved it so easily. Hats on you man.
Jacs Henderson says:

thank you for this process Hesham - it helped me get back on track after trying to upgrade wordpress, and Pop-up Domination was also the culpritt in my case Jacs
Lester says:

PopUp Domination was the issue for me too
Tracy says:

Thanks so much for this. This really was a life saver! My offending plugin was also Popup Domination
joey says:

SWEET! I was a little worried when I got the error message but this fixed it right up. Thank you!
Rafael says:

Hello. Thanks for your help.!
Nia says:

Thanks! Popup Domination was also the issue for my blog. Luckily it was my test blog.
Elizabeth says:

thank you man, you saved my life. It was also popup domination in my case Thank UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!
- Hesham Zebida says:
  
  Glad I could help. Thanks.
Jennifer Fontaine says:

Thank you so much for this post. I too had trouble with the Popup Domination plugin. Thanks again!
GM says:

Actually, just go into the plugin folder, rename the popup domination folder to something else, and the dashboard comes back online.
Jenifer says:

Hesham, First, thank you so much for posting this. I'm still pretty new to WordPress, in school right now for a Webmaster Certification, and don't know how to access the theme file just yet. This post helped me figure out what I need to do. I can tell from this comment thread that the plug in that is causing my problem is Login Lock, but I have 2 questions: -Can I just remove that plugin file from the back end? (My host's tech support has done this for me before, so I can just call them and ask them rather than try to do it myself until I know HTML/CSS. I don't want to inadvertently mess up my Theme's code). -That Login Lock theme has helped me ward off a number of hacker attempts (I get emailed each time someone is locked out of my site). So what do I do now? I've been told this is a good plugin for security - what do you think of it? Have you heard of, or used it? http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/better-wp-security/ Thank you, Jenifer
- Hesham Zebida says:
  
  Hi Jenifer, - You can just rename the plugin folder on your server via FTP or file manager in your hosting account, this will deactivate it. (however, you can also remove it) - I never used a security plugin on my blogs, so I really can not tell. But here are what I think is better solution based on ProBlogger recommendation, try out these two plugins WP Security Scan and Secure WordPress, these plugins are updated, which is a good indication. I hope this helps.
Matthew says:

Thanks for the help on this one. Saved me a lot of time!
Dali says:

Thanks...worked for me...same plugin caused the problem...
Josh Adams says:

You saved me hours of trying to re-install wordpress manually. Had the same issue with PopUp Domination. Looks like the boys at PUD need to get to work. I like my email lists. Well played, senor.
Akinniyi Osho says:

I had the same problem with popup domination widget your instructions saved my blog . it was a scary experience getting the fatal error message Thank you
Bruce Bird says:

Popup Domination for me too. Thanks - you saved me lots of time and heartache. Bruce
Azad Shaikh says:

You should have mention that this problem is cause by Popup Domination in the start of this article. Thanks anyway.
- Hesham Zebida says:
  
  mmm is this a complain? This issue was caused by Popup domination on my blog, so I don't know what could cause it for other blogs, and it you read the comments below you will know that other plugins were giving issues as well!
  - Azad Shaikh says:
    
    Not a complain. But still disabling the popup domination did the trick at my blog too. And I think that is the only problem. Did you notify Micheal about this problem?
Marcus Santer says:

Hesham - you the man! I nearly lost the contents of my stomach upgrading to WP3.3 and saw the dreaded: Fatal error: Call to undefined function is_rtl() . Your site presented a clear and easy solution to the problem. I owe you. And yup, for me it was the Popup domination plugin that caused the problem. Thanks again mate, you rock! Marcus
- Hesham Zebida says:
  
  Hi Marcus, thanks for confirming the issure, and glad you've solved it.
Sherryl Perry says:

What a simple way to disable all plugins! Thanks so much for the tip. I'm always learning from you Hesham.
- Hesham Zebida says:
  
  Haha.. I can not hide the truth that it was my first time to actually know this technique, it was taking too much time before to disable all plugins :)
Kelechi says:

This post really helped me.. Thanks for putting this up here
- Hesham Zebida says:
  
  Glad to hear that, enjoy!
Marc Eglon says:

Awesome stuff. You helped me get right to the problem which (as for you) turned out to be popup domination. However, I saved a ton of time by just going into my ManageWP dashboard and disabling the plugin from there. Saved me messing around with FTP and renaming folders etc. Handled all of my sites in one go too.
- Hesham Zebida says:
  
  Ah, that's a good practice, thanks for sharing Marc!
Ling-en Hsia says:

THANK YOU :D
- Hesham Zebida says:
  
  No problem!
Lauren says:

Thank you! Great article, you helped get my site back up live! For me, the problem was the Login Lock plugin too.
- Hesham Zebida says:
  
  Thanks for the info!
satrap says:

Thank you very much Hesahm. It happened to me too and it was wired that on my main blog, everything went smoothly, but when i tried to upgrade 2 of my smaller blogs, I got the error. But thankfully found your post and got through it. Thank you.
- Hesham Zebida says:
  
  No problem Satrap , and glad you've managed this issue!
Kent Mauresmo says:

Thanks for this article. Another plugin is the "Login Lock" plugin. Every time I tried to activate that plugin, I kept getting that error again. Login lock is the plugin that locks a user out for 60 minutes if they enter the wrong password more than 3 times.
- Hesham Zebida says:
  
  Hi Kent, yeah I notice that it was reported on another comment, thanks for sharing!
Geoff Knight says:

I am getting the same message but with admin at the end. I cant even get into my dashboard. I use filezilla for my FTP. Its not there. Anyone know the answer?
- Hesham Zebida says:
  
  Not sure what issue you are having! Maybe if you explain more!
Yolanda says:

Thanks for your post. I'm glad you came up first in the Google search function. My issue was with PopUp Domination. You just saved me a ton of time...and worry!
- Hesham Zebida says:
  
  Haha.. Good title for Google, straight to the point.. indeed! Enjoy!
Al Sefati says:

thanks by the way do you recommend any cool free directory themes for wordpress? Thanks Al
- Hesham Zebida says:
  
  mmm... Not really! I don't recommend free themes because I don't use them, but if you are looking for the best free theme, you will find it right in your WP installation, the TwentyEleven is the best!
Samuel says:

Thanks so much for making this post! I was in panic mode for a while..:) I've got pop up dom disabled for now, and most of my 59 plugins back on, so I'm guessing that plugin was the problem. You and your blog rock my friend!
- Hesham Zebida says:
  
  Thanks Samuel , appreciate your kind words :)
Davy Russell says:

Thanks so much for posting this! It was PopUp Domination causing the problem. I just renamed the plugin directory via FTP and was able to log into the admin panel after that with no problem.
- Hesham Zebida says:
  
  Nice!
Dan says:

Thanks for writing this post, you just saved me so much time and hassle!
- Hesham Zebida says:
  
  Hi Dan, I am wondering what version you was running on the blog!
  - Dan says:
    
    I was running Popup Domination version 2.0. Still trying to find out if they've fixed this yet so that it's compatible with Wordpress 3.3 but can't seem to find any info about it. I don't want to pay to upgrade to their newest version, I was happy with 2.0
    - Hesham Zebida says:
      
      Maybe you should contact them and ask for an upgrade!
drey says:

the popup domination plugin caused the same error for me, so i've disabled it. thanks so much for this great post!
- Hesham Zebida says:
  
  Good to know Drey, have you got any update for the Popup Domination?
Maria says:

Thank you very much for your post, dear )) I had this problem and decided it with success. Cause was pop up domination. Thank you
- Hesham Zebida says:
  
  Hi Maria, you are welcome! Glad you could fix the issue!
  - Maria says:
    
    Hi, Hesham, i am pleased of this. Good work ))))
Tyson says:

Hi Hesham, I had popup domination cause this problem with my blog as well. Thank you so much for the tutorial, you saved the day!
- Hesham Zebida says:
  
  No problem, glad to help! Thanks for stopping by.
- Bertino says:
  
  Popup domination issue in my case as well. do you know if they solved the problem with a patch or something ?! Thank you. I may be forced to switch to WPSubscribers if they do not fix it soon
  - Hesham Zebida says:
    
    They've send me an update for the version 3.0 ! Not sure about 2.0 though!
Luke Eischen says:

Hello, I am responding to the post that you did about the plugin errors with the new update. My plugins that were interfering with my blog was Pop-Up Domination and SEOPressor. Thank You. Luke
- Hesham Zebida says:
  
  Hi Luke, thanks for the heads up about SEOPressor. Glad you've managed it!
  - Samuel says:
    
    Hi Hesham, I have SEO PressorV4 and it is not causing me any problems. Thanks again for the great post. Samuel
    - Hesham Zebida says:
      
      Thanks for the feedback Samuel , I hope someone will read this!
Caleb says:

After going trough a bit of drama on earlier version upgrades I now tend to wait a while until upgrading, but most users here are not seeing too many problems so maybe I'll do the deed. Interestingly though, I was just reading a post a few minutes ago where a blogger is giving ten dollar discounts for the new version of PopupDomination and I was somewhat considering it and now wonder if things will go well...I'm thinking it would be fine if I install it after upgrading to WP 3.3, what do you think :?:
- Hesham Zebida says:
  
  Hi Celeb, Both version of Popup Domination don't work for WP 3.3 and give same error, so it just won't work even if you install it after the upgrade, I've tried it myself! More interesting that just that, it seems that haven't stop their promotion and wait to fix the issue, I've got a promotion email today! P.S. I have a free copy to giveaway on the blog, but since this issue presents, I just can not launch it, I better wait or then I will be in a big trouble!
Ricardus says:

Loved the drag and drop feature for the media part. Makes your life easier
Justin Germino says:

It is ironic that I stopped using Popup Dom a few weeks ago or I would have run into the same issue. Disabling all plugins by manually moving them is a good thing to do by default when troubleshooting upgrades.
- Hesham Zebida says:
  
  Ah lucky! P.S. I see the Kindle Fire Giveaway is going pretty well, great work Justin.
  - Justin Germino says:
    
    Yeah, should break 3,000 entries by tomorrow.
    - Hesham Zebida says:
      
      That's pretty awesome, it was really good idea!
- Caleb says:
  
  Hey Justin, what made you stop using it :?:
  - Justin Germino says:
    
    Truthfully, it is because I have no marketing strategy for my mailing list and no direction. I am a tech/entertainment site, the people who subscribe do it for all different reasons. I could never affiliate sell a product because too few of the subscribers would be for the niche. Instead I do monthly newsletters with tech tips, general tips, contest updates and just newsletter type stuff. I also had enough complaints about the popup still showing for people who were already subscribed and popping a little too often. I could have went to PopDom 3, but when you buy a plugin I don't expect to pay to upgrade it to the latest version, it is like paying for a patch in my opinion so I wasn't willing to shell out the upgrade money. Instead I found I get more subscribers with MailChimp using it's social media feature, where you can broadcast the newsletter/mailing on social media which takes to a special page they can directly sign up from. I found I get more subscribers in bursts doing it this way instead. Again, my mailing list isn't really something I am using for a revenue source and have no real good way to figure out how to leverage it for income at this time so I am kind of leaving it by the wayside except for newsletter updates.
    - Hesham Zebida says:
      
      I personally won't pay a single dollar for upgrade! It doesn't look good! Nice thoughts though!
    - Caleb says:
      
      Well if the newsletter is working for you then that IS the revenue source and if you haven't done so already mention a product or two from Amazon or NewwEgg inside the newsletter ... just keep testing and do what works. As for this upgrade thing, you mean to tell me that you have to pay for upgrades to PopupDomination...that is not cool :eek: That bombs you & Hesham just dropped may just be what ends up sinking PopDom!
      - Justin Germino says:
        
        Yeah, they tried to charge people who bought popup dom 2.0 with 1/2 price discount to buy popup dom 3.0 sorry but I ain't paying for upgrades. New product maybe, but not upgrade to same software.
Faissal Alhaithami says:

Thanks a lot hesham, and great that you mentioned popup domination, as the only thing i have had to do is changing the folder name of the plugin and everything worked great :D
- Hesham Zebida says:
  
  Great, I was expecting a lot of work, especially in ThesisAwesome.com support forum, but it looks like my post did good and saved me a lot of time :)
Mark says:

What a bummer Hesham. I love popups. I upgraded this morning and I use popups. Fortunately, mine were not affected. Good job and quick thinking ;) Mark
- Hesham Zebida says:
  
  Good to know Mark, good for you!
KN says:

Yes, this worked like a charm! Thanks Hesham.
- Hesham Zebida says:
  
  No problem, enjoy your blog.
Peter says:

I just ran into that popup domination problem, so thanks for writing about it! I deactivated the plugin and all was well again!
- Hesham Zebida says:
  
  Hi Peter, glad my post helped you fixing this issue! I knew it will happen!
kristal Jhonna says:

Hi my friend! I want to say that this article is amazing, great written and come with almost all vital infos. I would like to see extra posts like this .
- Hesham Zebida says:
  
  Thanks!
John A White says:

You are awesome Hesham! thankyou for writing this article... i also had the problem with popupdomination Lol ... they should have been ready for this, but i think they will definitely get right on the issue because their inbox will be flooded with thousands of emails haha. cya later :)
- Hesham Zebida says:
  
  Good to know John, I wonder when PD people will wake up!
Ileane says:

Hesham, I heard that Pop-up Domination was causing problems with the update. Those guys had months to prepare their customers so what gives? Well I'm a happy campy for two reasons - #1. all went well with the update on my blog (I remembered to make a complete backup with BackupBuddy beforehand) #2. maybe this will be the end of Pop-up Domination - ya think? LOL Just kidding :) But I can dream can't I?
- Pacotes Cancun says:
  
  Thanks dude, you save-me. Pop Up Domination was causing this troube. Thanks again.
  - Hesham Zebida says:
    
    Glad to help!
- Hesham Zebida says:
  
  LOL! "The end of Pop-up Domination", I like that, good name for a movie, if it comes to theater, for sure I will be the first in the raw :)
DiTesco says:

Hi Hesham. Upgraded one of my sites and everything worked fine. May probably upgrade my main blog today.. One thing I noticed on other sites is that WP seems to load faster.. perhaps it has to do with all the JS UI being integrated in WP's core? Thanks and since I don't use Popup Domination, I hope I don't run into major problems.
- Hesham Zebida says:
  
  Yeah, I have this feeling, but haven't got a chance to test speed yet, but yeah... I like it, better user experience is always good!
Dev says:

Hey Hesham, Thanks for the heads up. I already upgraded all my sites and every thing is working perfectly. I love the new admin bar & media uploader.
Linda says:

Hi Hesham. I followed your "rename and add new plugin" instructions and still cannot get to my dashboard. I too have popup domination. When I tried to access my dashboard after plugin rename and creating a new plugin folder with nothing in it, I got this new error (I changed real login name to loginName on this forum, to protect my privacy); W3 Total Cache Error: some files appear to be missing or out of place. Please re-install plugin or remove /home/loginName/public_html/wp-content/advanced-cache.php. Any suggestions would be most appreciated. It seems there are a whole lot of people having problems with this 3.3 upgrade. Thanks for your thoughtfulness in posting this. Linda
- Hesham Zebida says:
  
  Hi Linda, If you read below, one of the comments is talking about same issue, it says: I just got it working by deleting the w3 php files and it allow me to log in to my dashboard, and I follow the rest of your steps, and finally re-upload back the w3 php files and now it works fine! Give it a try and remove the W3 Total Cache plugin, then install it again after you gain access to your dashboard. Good luck!
  - Linda says:
    
    Thanks so much for the great advice. My site is working again.
- Bilal Ahmad says:
  
  Linda@ You don't need to remove the files, you can just rename the files. Just add the word "s" or any thing else before the file (for example sadvance-cache.php) and then try to refresh your Dashboard. You will need add extra characters with the following files. advance-cache.php db.php object-cache.php
Dave Lucas says:

Hesham! What's that old saying about the "best laid plans" --- and then of course we have "Murphy's Law" coming into play! It would be nice if when others run into problems they share their solutions as well! Luckily, I've been way too lazy to schlep my blog over to WordPress (save for my freestuff blog, which I don't think I need to bother upgrading!) Blog On!
- Hesham Zebida says:
  
  WP 3.0 is quite good, I started to enjoy the drag and drop media uploader while posting this post :) However, safe side is always good!
Assaf says:

Just upgraded to version 3.3. Had no issue but am glad I read your excellent post since it gives me the right process to follow when issues will come... and I know they will come :-)
Nile Flores says:

I remember talking about the conflicts on plugins with WordPress, especially deprecated values and conflicting functions. Is Popup domination aware of this error?
- Hesham Zebida says:
  
  Yes, I sent them an email!
- Benjamin Straw says:
  
  I sent them this email about 2 hours ago "I know you guys have updated to version 3.0 but for those of use who are on still on version 2.0 and have a problem between your plugin and the last Wordpress update (3.3), are you guys going to fix this for your users or are we forced to upgrade and pay another 49.99 for a bug fix?"
  - Hesham Zebida says:
    
    That's a good point Benjamin , they must update the old version at no charge at all!
    - Benjamin Straw says:
      
      Yeah but here's the kicker, Back in March (2011) I emailed the Popup Donation guys about multi sites Me "I was wanting to know if I can use your product (popup domination) on multiple websites that I own or do I need to purchase a multi site pack." And I got this back from James "We're going to be launching an update soon which will require new customers to purchase an additional multi-site license, so for now you are good to use it on as many websites as you wish." So if all of use who have the version 2.0 and they send us 3.0.? it wont work on other sites we own.
      - Hesham Zebida says:
        
        I see! I actually got the PD 3.0 update, and wondering if they will do update version 2.0!
Gemz says:

Thanks dude, after reading your post and disabling "pop up domination my site works again, I haven't tried to rename the folder plugin, I just rename the Pop Up domination and it works again.... Now we'll wait for the new released of pop up domination then...
- Hesham Zebida says:
  
  Haha.. cool, I had to disable them all because I had no idea which one!
Salah Messaoud says:

successfully upgraded and I had no problem the new dashboard looks cool. I think the new version load faster too.
- Hesham Zebida says:
  
  Glad to hear that Salah, The media media uploader is fantastic, and it's really fast! I feel the site load faster than before, but maybe it's just a feeling, not really sure about it! Anyways, it's all good!
Rojish says:

Thanks for the timely post Hesham. I was wondering what is wrong with this WordPress update. I saw you post at right time, used FTP, removed PopUp domination and my admin panel is back :) Now waiting for the popup domination team to fix the bug.
- Hesham Zebida says:
  
  Glad to hear that, let's see when Popup Domination will send it's update to our dashboards!
Wong Chendong aka The Bad Blogger says:

I follow your steps but got another error while logging in: W3 Total Cache Error: some files appear to be missing or out of place. Please re-install plugin or remove /home/shinya21/public_html/wp-content/advanced-cache.php. I just send an email to you, about this problem...
- Wong Chendong aka The Bad Blogger says:
  
  Updates: I just got it working by deleting the w3 php files and it allow me to log in to my dashboard, and I follow the rest of your steps, and finally re-upload back the w3 php files and now it works fine, thanks for the instruction of your post... and I think you can ignore my email I had send. :)
- Hesham Zebida says:
  
  Ah, good to know you've managed the issue, I just saw your email and was about to send you a reply, now.. we are good! Thanks for sharing though!
Jane says:

Heham, Thanks for the headsup. I just upgraded this morning with no issues at all. But when I go to the post editor window I see "Missing argument 4 for _media_button(), called in /home/jane25/public_html/probloggingsuccess.com/wp-admin/includes/media.php on..... " and the rest of the message is hidden behind post editor buttons! Everything else works fine, but can't find a way to get rid of this message. Any ideas? Jane.
- Hesham Zebida says:
  
  Sorry Jane, I have no idea! But you can follow same steps, disable all your plugins, then activate them one by one.and check your editor page till you find it.
Paul says:

Awesome...thanks for this! You saved my butt.
- Hesham Zebida says:
  
  Haha.. that's good to know Paul.
Stefan Suarez says:

Wow. This is bizarre. For the first time I found a help file that had EXACTLY the problem I had. Ironically when I got to the bottom of it, I found that in your case it was also Popup Domination! Thanks so much... for this I will now subscribe to your blog! -Stefan
- Hesham Zebida says:
  
  Hi Stefan, I wrote this post because I was sure many people will have this issue, so I wanted to save them some time and pain! Glad you found my post.

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