Problem on wordpress Digital Ocean Droplet One-Click

Hi there,

This “old message to setup WordPress” on the Droplet IP is usually the normal 1-Click placeholder page that stays in place until the 1-Click setup script has been completed from SSH, or until the web server is actually pointing at the WordPress vhost/site. DigitalOcean’s own 1-Click guide shows that the placeholder is expected “until you log in with SSH” and complete the prompts.

The fastest way to fix it is to re-run the 1-Click WordPress setup tool on the server and make sure your domain/subdomain DNS is actually pointing at the Droplet.

SSH in, then run the setup again:

ssh root@YOUR_DROPLET_IP

# try the built-in 1-click message/tool (one of these usually exists)
sudo /usr/local/bin/wordpress-setup 2>/dev/null || true
sudo /opt/digitalocean/bin/wordpress-setup 2>/dev/null || true

# if neither exists, just look for the 1-click helper:
ls -la /opt/digitalocean/bin/ 2>/dev/null

Then confirm WordPress is installed and the web server is serving it (pick the one you have):

# Apache:
sudo apache2ctl -S

# Nginx:
sudo nginx -T | sed -n '1,200p'

For the subdomain not working, the most common cause is simply DNS: your A record for the subdomain must point to the Droplet IP, and it can take time to propagate.

If you changed the site URL to the subdomain and it broke access, you can temporarily force WordPress to the correct URL in wp-config.php:

define('WP_HOME', 'https://dev.yoursite.com');
define('WP_SITEURL', 'https://dev.yoursite.com');

That’s a common recovery approach on DO WordPress installs.

If you paste the exact “old message” you’re seeing (or a screenshot), and tell me whether your 1-Click is the Apache-based or Nginx-based image, I can point you to the exact file/vhost that still serves the placeholder.

Hope that this helps!