In the last week, a rash of expired certificates has struck the Thesis-using/Thesis-promoting community. Find out why, how to fix it, and how to continue promoting Thesis without these error messages.

I noticed the first one 5 days ago. As I was visiting a friend’s site, this error message jumped out at me:

Because it’s not the best screen grab, I transcribed it. It reads:

diythemes.com:443 uses an invalid security certificate

The certificate expired on 1/15/2010 3:55 PM.

(Error code: sec_error_expired_certificate)

This could be a problem with the server’s configuration or it could be someone trying to impersonate the server.

If you you have connected to this server successfully in the past the error may be temporary and you can try again later.

I was surprised, but I recognized DIY Themes as being the Thesis theme site he was running and knew it was safe to keep browsing his site. Further investigation and discussions brought to light the fact that he was running the DIY Themes Thesis affiliate program.

Brian Clark had recently announced on Copyblogger that the Thesis affiliate program was moving to ShareASale. DIY Themes promised that the old links would still work for another 60 days, after which you had to be on the new affiliate program. Yet somehow, the people running DIY Themes had let their security certificate expire and it was throwing errors on every site using DIY Themes affiliate code!

How to Fix the DIY Themes Expired Certificate Error

Step 1. Take down all Thesis ads on your site. Text links (unless you’re using redirects you’ve created), banner ads, everything. Check individual posts too.

Why take it all down first? Because this error is the kind of thing that scares away readers. And it’s not good advertising for the product when your readers are getting warnings about it.

Step 2. Go to ShareASale and sign up. Then sign up for the Thesis affiliate program.

Step 3. Replace the banners and links using the code from ShareASale. If you’re feeling nervous, consider uploading all banner ads to your site and linking to them on your site. You can use a plugin like GoCodes to create a simple redirect for links. Of course, the ShareASale code isn’t throwing errors, but these tools give you more control over the ads on your site.

I’m very surprised that as of the time I’m writing this, January 25th, the certificate has been expired for 10 days and has been throwing these errors for at least 5 (when I first noticed) and the DIY Themes crew hasn’t renewed it yet. I hope it’ll be fixed soon, but since the program is ending you might as well sign up with the new place.

Edited to add: Brian Clark noted below that the problem had been addressed over the weekend. I still saw it on at least one site this morning, but perhaps the change is taking effect. If you’re seeing it on your site still, consider contacting DIY themes…or just follow the instructions, since you’ll need to do that anyway.

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There’s no question that the Thesis theme for Wordpress is very powerful. It’s got a lot of good code and a number of customization options which help you make it more your own. But it’s got flaws as well and it’s not the best match for a lot of people. One thing that comes to mind is the inability to easily insert a header image, at least not without adding a plugin.

I don’t believe Thesis should be marketed as great for beginners with no coding experience unless those beginners are either willing to hire a blog consultant or to deal with a fairly generic-looking theme.

So what do you do if you bought Thesis, gave it your best shot, and need a refund? DIY Themes promises a refund within 30 days if you’re not satisfied with your purchase of Thesis.

Instructions for Requesting a Refund from DIY Themes

To request a refund, send an email to diythemes@baagagmail.com, with the subject “Refund Request”. Please include the following information with your request:

• Your name
• The email address associated with your PayPal account
• The date of purchase
• Your DIYthemes member name

If You Still Want to Give Thesis a Shot

One of the best things created by the Thesis user community is Rick Beckman’s Thesis Open Hooks plugin. It gave you back-end CSS/PHP editing abilities before Thesis finally integrated them and, most importantly, it has blocks where you can input code for various Thesis hooks instead of setting them up with PHP.

If you’re not quite ready to give up on Thesis, try checking it out (also available from the Wordpress Codex for installation from within your site’s back-end).

There’s a lot of great stuff you can do with Thesis. But if it’s not the theme for you, don’t be shy in asking for a refund.

Obviously, from my lukewarm review of Thesis for beginners (unless they want to pay more for customization, in which case get in touch ), I’m not a representative of DIY Themes. The refund information comes from the DIY Themes forum, but is not easy to find. Maybe it’s not well-publicized because there’s no affiliate program for refunds. My thought is if you’re going to pay that much, it should be something you’re using and if you can’t use, return.

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