not sure without more info…  what is different between the two environments?

you can run a quick check and bypass the ‘pretty’ checkboxes…  in your wp config file, or your sp theme functions file, try doing

define(‘SP_USE_PRETTY_CBOX;, false);

which turns them off… and see if that helps…

something else you can look at is forum – toolbox- housekeeping and clear the combined js cache… or even on forum – options – global settings, disable the combined js cache…

I can’t get to Toolbox -> Housekeeping because the menus don’t work. 

I checked Options -> Global Setting and the CSS and JS caches aren’t enabled.

I don’t really know what the difference between the two environments is – I’ve never had a problem like this before – it’s my hosting account, and I don’t know how to even begin comparing the setting between what I’m running on my local with MAMP and what my host has configured on my server.

I tried adding that line to my spFunctions.php in my forum theme, but I still get the same error.

I was hoping this might sound familiar and there’d be a known fix. Can I get a clue about where I should check next?

The first difference that Steve was asking about above simply means WordPress theme and plugin differences. In other words, are the environments in that respect identical?

Yes, in that respect, the environments are 100% identical.

I thought maybe something had just gotten out of sync on the server, like a missed file or something. So I completely erased the site and db on the server and uploaded a new copy of the files and moved the database. So they’re exactly the same.

Only the forums don’t work on the server and they do on my local.

sorry, I missed that you said in the admin… can you try opening your sp-config.php file in your simple press plugins folder and change the admin checkbox stuff there to false?

what other plugins?  there is an issue with gd tools (I think thats it) that uses the same namespace as SP…

Thank you, Mr. Papa. Changing that setting in the sp-config.php file did the trick. 

I could give you a list of all the plugins I’m using, but as I said, I experienced this issue even when I disabled all other plugins and reverted to the TwentyTwelve theme and the default SP theme.

I don’t really know why that one little thing was so much trouble on one server only, but I’m sure glad to have a solution.

It’s real puzzling isn’t it?

We often hear comments like ‘ It’s a WordPress site – everything is just supposed to work’! Many people just do not realise how fragile things can be and how very wrong that assumption is.