Apparently I’m not the only one having problems with the categories after a WordPress 2.6 upgrade.

So, time to give something back to the WordPress community, some screenshots on how I fixed it.

First of all, I upgraded from 2.2.3 to 2.6, it’s possible this solution will work for you, but I don’t make any promises.

I started by going to phpMyAdmin and having a look at the wp_term_taxonomy table, and noticed all the descriptions where missing.

When I took a look at the backup file I made, more specifically, the wp_categories piece, I noticed the counts and ids matched up.

I then manually edited each record, just hit the pencil icon, and filled in all my descriptions again. If you know some SQL you could do this faster, but anyway, everyone can do it manually

After I’ve done this, I visited my admin section and noticed the Descriptions were filled in again. But there was no Name, and all my posts still had empty categories linked to them.

To fix this, visit http://your-site/wp-admin/categories.php?action=edit&cat_ID=1 where 1 is the category id to edit. Fill in a Name and a Slug, the url name for your category, and save it.

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If you are new to WordPress and looking for reasons to use WordPress as a CMS (content management system) in your new website, let me give you some.

Open Source Software

WordPress is an Open Source software which allows it to be used free of cost. You can use it on any kind of personal or commercial website without have to pay a single dime for it. It is built on PHP/MySQL (which is again Open Source) and licensed under GPL.

User Friendly

You don’t really have to be experienced to use WordPress on your website. Nowadays most of the hosting companies provide the ability to install WordPress on your site at a single click of the mouse. The administration section is easy to navigate and its even easy to add articles/content to your website.

Themes Support

You will never run short of templates when using WordPress. If you don’t like the themes that come with the default installation of WordPress, you can hunt on the Internet and you will find thousands of free themes that you can download and use for your website. There are themes which can even make your website look like a regular site instead of a blog.

Plugins Extend Functionality

WordPress plugins allow you to do just about anything that you want and can be installed in a jiffy. For example, you want to paginate your blog posts, just look on Google and you can easily find the relevant plugin that will easily do the job for you.

Standards Compliant

WordPress is one software that follows all the Web Standards and keeps your blog or website compliant to all the rules that have to be followed when running a website.

SEO Friendly

Search Engines have to be definitely kept in mind when building a website. WordPress uses different functions which allow it to be search engine friendly. For example sending pings to other sites, making categories, tagging your posts, use of h1/h2 tags etc.

Large community Support

As per recent statistics, WordPress is used on more than 1% of the websites on the Internet in the world. There is a large user community backing the development of this software. So, whenever you face any problems, you can go through all the available WordPress forums and communities and find answers for all your questions.

So, you see the benefits of using WordPress now? And, you can add to this list by providing your feedback in the comments.