I bought an older house last week. All four bulbs in the ceiling fan were working. I removed the globes to wash them and when I put them back in, two out of the four light sockets are not working.

Try switching bulbs to see if you accidentally jarred the bulbs too much and broke the filament.

Make sure your fan/light is off. A lot of times when you take a bulb out of a socket that has been in for a long time the center tab in the bottom of the socket will not spring back out to make contact with the bulb when you screw it back in. Take something like a screwdriver and carefully pull the tab up a little so that the end of the bulb will make contact with it when you screw it back in.

Check the bulbs, check the pullchain. Report back if those don't fix it.

The tab thing is also a good idea, but MAKE SURE the power is off.

Jerro:
Thanks for the informative response. Of course I had already tried changing bulbs, pulling chains, etc. before posting my problem. Your answer seems to be the best and I had heard somewhere else that the tab thing could be a problem. Fortunately my circuit breaker box is about 4 feet from the fixture, so I'll be able to flip the breaker before attempting the pull.
Thank You!
CindyRuu

Let us know if it works.

Evidently, I have a MUCH nicer ceiling fan than I have ever seen before. I turned off the electricity, and pulled out the tabs. They are a bit delicate and I was worried I'd break them but luckily it went well. I put the bulbs back in, turned on the electricity and voilà! The two bulbs were still not working.
So I pulled the chain in the center of the fan and those two bulbs went out and the other two came one. One more pull and they were all on! There are three settings to this fan - two on, two off; the other two on and the other two off; and all on. In the two on, two off setting they ons are diagonal from the offs.

Thanks for everyone's input.

That's why I asked about pulling the chains :)

Had I known this was a possibility... I must have pulled the center chain when I was cleaning it! :o