It was always pretty large, but yes more was added.
I can restore a back-up, but I’m concerned that I will lose any posts that were added by our patrons between the update and now.
Well yes – if you restore a backup anything added since that backup will be lost –
If you prefer – as I said above – you can download version 5.4.0 but you may also need to backtrack some SP plugins which might prove difficult. And I am unsure about any WordPress changes between our 5.4.0 and 5.4.1 releases… So this may be tricky.
I still think you should look at the server side php error log. If nothing else it will tell you where it is located in your php.ini file although quite often you can get to it via a control panel (like cPanel for example)…
The path for error log is “dev/null/”. I’m not sure what that means and the error log in cPanel is completely empty…
Nor me!
What is the actual php memory allocation on this site? Is it enough?
I’m not quite sure what that is or how to find it but in my .htaccess file…
define(‘WP_MEMORY_LIMIT’, ‘256M’);
Is that what you mean?
well that is what WP it trying to allocate. Whether it gets away with it or not might depend upon server settings and whether the host allows it to be changed from php code.
I am simply trying to think of any obvious reasons why perhaps the order forum would never return and memory would be a favourite concern.
It might help if we had other reports of a problem with this new panel but so far this is the only one and I still favour a resource issue, perhaps asking you host if they have any ideas might be something to investigate.
In terms of installing the previous version, am I just FTPing into the plugins folder? Also, what do you mean by “manually change values in the ‘sfoptions’ table that should allow it to function”?
Replace all of the plugin files – yes.
The SP table ‘sfoptions’ holds two values named ‘sfversion’ and ‘sfbuild’ and if they are left as they now are then you will just get a message saying that you can not run SP as the database is, in effect, newer then the software version.
For version 5.4.0 these two values should read ‘5.4’ and ‘10914’ respectively.
As I said above I am unsure about SP plugins continuing to function going back a version like this and I am unsure of the effect that the newer WordPress version might have. I can not guarantee it will work as expected and do not recommend doing it.
I appreciate your patience. I’m primarily a front-end designer with little programming experience. So I’m learning a lot in the fly…which is why sometimes I ask for more detail.
I assume that if I install the previous version and things go haywire, I can install the current version and things will go back to it’s current state provided that I change the necessary ‘sfoptions’ values, yes?
I decided not to downgrade since it seemed I would lose data and my client does not want that. So back at square one…
You mentioned that the number of active forums could be acting as a resource hog. Would disabling the forums create less stress on the server or would they need to be removed / deleted?
I was able to change the memory allocation in the php.ini file to 512M…and then to 1024M with no success. Is there another option I can talk to my host about?
You only lose data if you restore to an older database.
Steve: Any ideas here? I didn’t actually count the number of forums but it is a very, very large number… !
Although still not really understanding the lack of errors anywhere – especially in the server php error log.
Ok…so when I go to downgrade, I am not allowed even though I change the two values in the ‘sfoptions’ table using phpMyAdmin. Is there a specific process? Do I need to force an upgrade and / or change the version number in the Admin?
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Eureka! I think I found errors 
(Why am I happy about this fact)
PHP Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 536870912 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 508037121 bytes) in /problem-with-post-edit-buttonome/insacr5/public_html/wp-content/plugins/simple-press/admin/panel-forums/forms/spa-forums-ordering-form.php on line 81
PHP Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 262144 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 32768 bytes) in Unknown on line 0
I’m also getting this Warning repeatedly:
PHP Warning: PHP Startup: Unable to load dynamic library ‘/problem-with-post-edit-buttontscanner.so’ – /problem-with-post-edit-buttontscanner.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory in Unknown on line 0
no clue what htscanner.so is… not something we or wp use… something unique to your server setup…
so what have you made the memory allocation for php? Btw, it works fine for me in 32MB, so it does not require a lot… but of course, it does matter what else you are doing in wp and on the server as far as consuming memory…
I allocated 512MB.
There are over 150 forums / sub-forums on the website. Could that really be an issue? Not doing any out of the ordinary with WP at all.
What about the process to downgrading?