Blog Appearance Problems

[jneillster]

We are running the newest version of Themeco’s X Theme 5.2.5. We are having problems with our blog. There are two.

• After updating to 5.2.5 the background image for the blog disappeared. The assigned image remains in the page setup, but the background on the blog page is all white instead of showing the image we have selected.

• We got a new theme to try out with our website and tested its appearance. We decided to wait on implementing it and reverted to the original X Theme template. The sidebar in the blog page has now disappeared and all attempts to restore it have failed. This means that all archival material is unavailable. Interestingly, the sidebar does appear when you go to postings found in the blog. We have Menu 2 setup so it appears as part of the listings in the sidebar which seems to automatically display “Recent Postings” and “Archives.” At least we don’t see a place where those can be controlled.

Basically, sidebar and blog behaviors are a bit of a mystery to us at this point. We have tried all the obvious possible setting changes we might make to could potentially make a difference short of modifications to underlying code which we are not equipped to do.

We would appreciate any suggestions you might have for correcting these problems.

URL: https://themenscouncil.org/blog/

Many thanks
BD Skinner

[christian]

Hey BD Skinner,

Please check for the following:

1. Ensure everything is up to date.

2. If you’re using a caching plugin, clear all caches including browser cache then deactivate your caching plugins and other optimization plugins.

3. If you’re using a CDN, please clear the CDN’s cache and disable optimization services.

4. Test for a plugin conflict. You can do this by deactivating all third party plugins, and seeing if the problem remains. If it’s fixed, you’ll know a plugin caused the problem, and you can narrow down which one by reactivating them one at a time.

5. If you have customizations, remove custom CSS, Javascript and templates.

6. Contact your host to increase your allocated memory or do it yourself by adding this code in your wp-config.php

define( 'WP_MEMORY_LIMIT', '256M' );
define( 'WP_MAX_MEMORY_LIMIT', '512M' );

Thanks.

[jneillster]

Thanks for the suggestion. Wordpress was just updated before the action that created the problem. Likewise, all plugins were updated. Please note that the following sequence that led to our problem with the blog.

First, we acquired a theme from Web Dorado and tried it out. The result changes to the website were going to require many hours of work to adapt to the new theme. We reverted to the X Theme that we had been using. The sidebar did not come up in the blog page though it appears in all the other pages in the website unless we choose the full page format rather than “content left, sidebar right.”

Then we had an update for X Theme which we installed thinking it might correct the problem. It did not, and in fact make the issue worse because the background image would no longer appear in the blog page.

The trial of the new website theme from Web Dorado obviously broke something when we returned to the X Theme. We just don’t seem to be able to correct the problem.

Thanks for further consideration of the problem.

BD Skinner

[jade]

Hey There,

Would you mind providing us with login credentials so we can take a closer look? Please provide following information:

Set it as Secure Note

• Link to your site
• WordPress Admin username / password
• FTP credentials

All the best!

[rad]

Hi there,

How did you set your background image? I did check it under Admin > X > Launch > Theme Options > Layout & Design and there is no background assigned. Plus, in the same section, the layout is set to full-width (hence no sidebar).

If you’re setting the background and page template directly on /blog/ page then it’s not gonna work. Once you set a page as a blog page, Wordpress will take over and will make it an index page. It only uses the URL slug /blog/, but it’s no longer the page the settings are applied.

Or do you wish to just apply sidebar on the blog page, and the rest are full-width? if yes, please add this code to your child theme’s functions.php

function x_get_content_layout() {

    $content_layout = x_get_option( 'x_layout_content' );

    if ( $content_layout != 'full-width' ) {
      if ( is_home() ) {
        $opt    = x_get_option( 'x_blog_layout' );
        $layout = ( $opt == 'sidebar' ) ? $content_layout : $opt;
      } elseif ( is_singular( 'post' ) ) {
        $meta   = get_post_meta( get_the_ID(), '_x_post_layout', true );
        $layout = ( $meta == 'on' ) ? 'full-width' : $content_layout;
      } elseif ( x_is_portfolio_item() ) {
        $layout = 'full-width';
      } elseif ( x_is_portfolio() ) {
        $meta   = get_post_meta( get_the_ID(), '_x_portfolio_layout', true );
        $layout = ( $meta == 'sidebar' ) ? $content_layout : $meta;
      } elseif ( is_page_template( 'template-layout-content-sidebar.php' ) ) {
        $layout = 'content-sidebar';
      } elseif ( is_page_template( 'template-layout-sidebar-content.php' ) ) {
        $layout = 'sidebar-content';
      } elseif ( is_page_template( 'template-layout-full-width.php' ) ) {
        $layout = 'full-width';
      } elseif ( is_archive() ) {
        if ( x_is_shop() || x_is_product_category() || x_is_product_tag() ) {
          $opt    = x_get_option( 'x_woocommerce_shop_layout_content' );
          $layout = ( $opt == 'sidebar' ) ? $content_layout : $opt;
        } else {
          $opt    = x_get_option( 'x_archive_layout' );
          $layout = ( $opt == 'sidebar' ) ? $content_layout : $opt;
        }
      } elseif ( x_is_product() ) {
        $layout = 'full-width';
      } elseif ( x_is_bbpress() ) {
        $opt    = x_get_option( 'x_bbpress_layout_content' );
        $layout = ( $opt == 'sidebar' ) ? $content_layout : $opt;
      } elseif ( x_is_buddypress() ) {
        $opt    = x_get_option( 'x_buddypress_layout_content' );
        $layout = ( $opt == 'sidebar' ) ? $content_layout : $opt;
      } elseif ( is_404() ) {
        $layout = 'full-width';
      } else {
        $layout = $content_layout;
      }
    } else {
      $layout = $content_layout;
    }

      if ( is_home() ) {
        $layout = 'content-sidebar';
      }

    return $layout;

  }

Then please set your background image in Layout & design section.

Thanks!

[jneillster]

Okay. Adding a background image in the Layout & Design customization gets the image back on the blog page. However, the sidebar is still not showing up. All we get is a white bar at the top of the column on the right where the sidebar should be. This is with the settings in Theme Options > Layout & Design > Content Layout set to Content Left/Sidebar Right. I had set the width to full page to get rid of that white bar. I have left it there for you to see now:
https://themenscouncil.org/blog/

To demonstrate the presence of the sidebar, you can see it appears on our event registration page:
https://themenscouncil.org/registration-page-v2017/

We don’t need to limit the sidebar in general to the blog page. We can control the appearance of the sidebar in individual pages where we don’t want sidebars with individual settings. So if I don’t want the sidebar on the registration page, I can make it go away. However, we should have the sidebar on the blog page. I should point out that when we set up a portfolio page and use the global layout with sidebar activated, we get the same white bar at the top of the column on the right where the sidebar should be:
https://themenscouncil.org/poetry/

And BTW, if there is something we need to do with code, we need some guidance about where to go to enter such coding modifications as you suggest for the control of the sidebar.

Thank you for getting us part way to a solution for the blog problems. Perhaps you have one more trick up your sleeve. Something obvious we are missing that is not set right.

Blessings
Bron Skinner
bron.skinner@gmail.com

[nabeel]

Hey Bron,

I checked your setup and I see you were using custom sidebar on your blog page. When I disabled it via Appearance > Sidebars and the normal sidebar started to display again. To use the custom sidebar, add couple of widgets in the sidebar via Appearance > widgets I went ahead and added few items in there.

Please check your settings in Appearance > Sidebars to fix for other pages as well.

Cheers!

[jneillster]

Thank you so much for getting the blog page appearance back where it should be.

My remaining question has to do with a portfolio page we have for displaying poetry contributions.

https://themenscouncil.org/blog/poetry/

For some reason the fix for the blog page doesn’t appear to have corrected the problem with the portfolio page. Portfolio pages only have one option: Portfolio. I can’t find a way to either turn off the sidebar for that page, or to format the page for fullwidth and obviate the need for the sidebar.

What am I still missing here? The controls concerning sidebars and multiple menus really is not very transparent to the user, as they like to say.

And thank you for you continued patience. I am hoping this is the last step of resolving this issue.

Gratefully yours,
Bron Skinner
bron.skinner@gmail.com

[jneillster]

I have just discovered the magic of the portfolio feature in this theme. So I set the page to “fullwidth” on the page edit. Then there is a “Sort Portfolio” at the top that reveals the options in Menu 2. By adding the appropriate portfolio categories to the menu what appears on the page resorts to show that particular category. So that’s cool.

Perhaps the a sidebar just doesn’t work on a portfolio page in this theme, though if we set the page to “Use Global Content Layout” one would think it would. So if there is some way to get the sidebar to show up on the portfolio page that would be good. Otherwise, guess we’ll need to live with the fullwidth option. I have returned it to the “global” setting for your convenience.

Thanks again,
Bron Skinner

[christopher]

Hi there,

Unfortunately, you can not have sidebars in Portfolio pages in the X theme.

I tried to add by adding a child theme to your installation and using the sidebars but was not successful.

Kindly open up new threads for additional questions as it will help us to focus on each issue and give you a better support which you deserve. Having a long threads makes the maintaining job harder and also it will be harder for the other customers to find the correct information if they have similar issues. You are always welcomed to reply to this thread to follow up the same question.

Thank you.

[jneillster]

No need for new thread. All my questions have been answered. Call this thread done!

Thanks
Bron

[nabeel]

Glad all is sorted now.

Cheers!