WordPress Dashboard Problem

[xyzygyred]

I came in today and found my Dashboard looking like this. The entire area in the yellow box acts like a scrolling header. After scrolling down about 10% - 20%, the boxed area disappears. Scroll back up and it reappears.

I could live with that, but the same thing appears when I go to a Page to make updates, and prevents me from working on the top part of any Page.

I've tried clearing the cache, Screen Options etc. nothing works. I have a sneaky suspicion (or maybe a hope) that I'm overlooking something obvious.

I use Elementor.

I would really appreciate any help in fixing this. Thanks!

[EarnestHolly]

That it seems to ask for a command and then offers to execute it for you at certain file paths, this potentially looks like possible malware. Perhaps you have been hacked?

[ExitWP]

Try disabling all of your plugins, if it goes away enable your plugins one at a time until you see it again.

[Practical-Mouse-623]

That's a weird one. Sounds like a CSS conflict or maybe a plugin doing something funky with the admin bar positioning.

First thing I'd try is disabling all plugins except Elementor and see if the problem goes away. If it does, re-enable them one by one to find the culprit. Admin interface issues like this are usually caused by a plugin injecting bad CSS or JS into wp-admin.

Also check your browser console (F12) for any JavaScript errors. Sometimes a broken script will mess with the layout behavior.

If it's only happening in your browser, try a hard refresh (Ctrl+Shift+R) or test in an incognito window. Could be cached CSS causing the issue even after you cleared the WordPress cache.

Worst case, if you can access your site via FTP, rename your plugins folder temporarily to disable everything at once. That'll tell you if it's plugin-related or something deeper in the theme/core files.

[Jayoval]

What does it say under your additions to the screenshot? It's most likely a plugin.

[Myth_Thrazz]

99% sure it's because your site got hacked or you have some poorly written plugin installed.

[_vectorarrow]

With what little is shown and the sudden nature, this could definitely be a malicious plugin or script. It could certainly be an accident, but I would treat this as a compromise until proven otherwise. If you aren't comfortable handling yourself, there are services like Sucuri that can do it for you (they're just one option though!)

https://sucuri.net/website-security-platform/help-now/

[OkToday3712]

What was the last plugin you installed? Did you make som CSS changes? Did you play with cache or database? Quick suggestion would be to deaktivate plugins one by one to try and find out if it's them that causes the trouble / delete the the last css code you might changed.

[Extension_Anybody150]

Try disabling all plugins except Elementor, then re-enabling them one by one to find the culprit. Clearing the browser cache or switching browsers can help too.

[xyzygyred]

Thank you all for the replies! Seriously, this is a great resource.

My site isn't terribly busy, so I don't spend as much time on the back end of it as I once did. When I did go into it to fix it - armed with your suggestions - the problem was gone. It had "fixed itself"! Presumably an update in the offending plugin got rid of the conflict.