A common issue that can occur with users new to installing WordPress themes is a "Broken theme and/or stylesheets missing� error message being displayed when trying to upload or activate the theme. This error message does not mean that the theme you have purchased is broken, it simply means it has been uploaded incorrectly. Luckily, there is a very easy fix. Please follow the steps below to rectify this issue or watch the screencast.
After you’ve downloaded the main theme archive from ThemeForest you’ll see the following items inside:
- salient.zip The actual files that you will need to upload into your WordPress setup
- salient-user-guide.pdf Documentation files
- salient-child-theme.zip An installable child theme. Learn more about this here
- Licensing (folder) Contains the general item license.
There are two main ways in which you can install Salient into your WordPress setup.
- 1. Through the WordPress admin dashboard
- 2. Uploading through FTP (file transfer protocol)
Method #1
Using The WordPress Dashboard
- Step 1. Head over to Appearance > Themes in your WordPress dashboard
- Step 2. Click Install Themes followed by the Upload button
- Step 3. Locate the salient.zip file you extracted from the ThemeForest download archive and click the Install Now button
- Step 4. Once you’ve installed the theme you will be greeted with a welcome page, as shown on the right. It will list all the available Salient plugins you can install, only two of which are required. The required plugins are the Salient WPBakery Page Builder and the Salient Core. If you already have another version of the WPBakery page builder active, deactivate it first. The other plugins Salient offers in the install plugins section are optional. You can read more about each one in the plugin installation section of the documentation.
- Step 5. You’re now ready to use Salient, begin importing demos if you wish or you start configuring the theme options and creating content!
Troubleshooting Possible Errors
If you encounter the message “Are you sure you want to do this? Please try again.” or “The link you followed has expired” when attempting to install, this is most likely occurring because your server has a low maximum file size upload/low maximum execution time set in the PHP settings. You must increase the following PHP settings to be greater than 29M (Any reputable hosting company will assist you with this quickly & hassle free):
- upload_max_filesize – greater than 29M
- post_max_size – greater than 29M
- max_execution_time – greater than 100
or you can upload the theme through FTP instead to bypass this all together.
Method #2
Uploading through FTP
- Step 1. Uncompress the salient.zip file from your ThemeForest download onto your computer
- Step 2. upload the extracted salient folder to /wp-content/themes/ on your server
- Follow steps 4 and 5 from the Using The WordPress Admin Dashboard from above