WordPress Theme Not Changing: Problems and Solutions

So, you just installed WordPress on cPanel and you want to change the theme. After making some changes, you refresh your web page and you don't see any changes. You go back to the web appearance settings and make more changes but nothing changes on your web page. What really happened?

Quick Solution: Deactivate PopularFX Plugin

This is one of the common problems that new WordPress users often encounter. They change the theme or make changes to the template but they don't see any changes. They then look for answers and solutions on the internet such as on Stackoverflow, YouTube, or on WritingnBlogging. And, as you might expect, they found a solution.

Problem

Before we get into the solution, it's a good idea to know why it happened. If you're having this problem, let me guess, you installed WordPress via Softcalous, right? If this guess is correct, then that's the cause. I don't mean that Softcalous contains bugs. It is not my intention. What I want to say is that when you use a WordPress installer, there are several built-in plugins installed on your website. Some of these plugins will maintain the state of your website (cache) which you cannot delete through the browser settings.

When you use Softacalous to install WordPress, the default theme that is installed is PopularFX. This theme has several plugins pre-installed with it. There are at least two plugins whose names I forgot but they contain the word PopularFX.

Solution

The solution, go to your WordPress Dashboard, go to the Settings menu and select Plugins. In the Installed Plugins section, look for a plugin that contains the word PopularFX then deactivate the plugin. After that, clear browser cache and cookies, log out of your website, log back in, and your problem is solved. You can now use any template you want.