Installing Preference Child – error message

[Gina]

I was able to install Preference Pro with no issues but this is the message I get trying to install Preference Child:The package could not be installed. PCLZIP_ERR_BAD_FORMAT (-10) : Unable to find End of Central Dir Record signature

Thank you for creating with WordPress.

Version 3.5.1

QUESTION: I understand that if you “update” Preference Pro you lose any changes made. Then why don’t you lose changes made when you update the child version. Can you update the child version? I’ve read articles but I’m still not very clear on this parent/child thing.

[Sushil Adhikari]

That error from what I can tell might refer to server space (as one part). But doing a Google search, a lot of people experience this. I did a search in Google with this:

wordpress PCLZIP_ERR_BAD_FORMAT (-10) : Unable to find End of Central Dir Record signature 

But this WordPress thread you may want to check out: http://wordpress.org/support/topic/incompatible-archive-pclzip_err_bad_format-10

I can agree that the parent/child thing can be confusing… basically these are two separate themes, but how it works that the child theme connects to the styles and functions of the parent theme and duplicates the parent theme. Because these are separate themes, when you update the parent theme, the child theme will adopt the new changes, but whatever was changed with the child theme, these won’t get overwritten because again, it’s a separate theme (separate files). Still a bit confusing but it’s why WordPress recommends any core changes to the theme is best done with the child one.

[Gina]

OMG! this is the BEST explanation for parent/child theme. Now I understand it. Please update your theme tutorial with this additional wording in the first paragraph. If all the articles I’ve read had explained it this well and simply it would have saved me a lot of time and hopefully for others as well.

I’ll check out the link you sent to me about the error message from WP. I’ve noticed that sometimes “things won’t work today but will work tomorrow” with WP.

I’m looking forward to working with Preference Pro vs. lite to see what interesting things I can do.
Thanks for the great theme and support.
Gina

[Sushil Adhikari]

Consider it done… which I just did that to each of the theme group tutorials, but thanks for the suggestion because it’s one I immediately added.

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