Can't open Cornerstone anymore

Hi. I’ve just logged into my client’s site to change a photo. Yet I can’t do anything on the site because whenever I try to edit a page it shows the Cornerstone loading screen which doesn’t go anywhere. So now I’m stuck since I can’t seem to edit the page in any other way either since Cornerstone is installed.

I can only assume that some Wordpress update has is causing the problem with the installed Cornerstone and Pro theme version, which is 5.1.5. I cannot update the theme because the developer I hired back in the day failed to follow my instructions to install a child theme.

So what can I do now to fix this without losing all the customizations? I’ve already asked you before if it’s possible to update the theme without losing the customizations and your answer was no. I assume nothing has changed about that? If so, what other options do I have now? I really only need to switch out a photo. Any bigger changes would probably require remaking the same again by the looks of it.

Hello @spektukal,

Please check out this old thread instead:

Check out the WordPress 6.2 and Pro theme 5.x version.

Thanks.

Hi ruenel,

I’ve just checked the file mentioned in that thread and that does not seem to be the issue as “return;” was already added to that line. I might have already done it myself in the past as I remember there being some kind of similar issue.

Hi @spektukal,

The issue has already been fixed in the latest version, so you don’t need to change the file. You just need to update the Theme through WordPress admin dashboard or FTP.

Hope it helps.
Thanks

As I already mentioned in my original post, I can’t update the theme because the coder I hired back when we created the site failed to install a child theme. I have asked you before if it was possible to update it without losing the customizations and your answer was no. So now I need to look for a different solution.

As I said though, the solution provided in the linked thread seems to be something I’ve already done before to fix another problem. And Cornerstone worked again afterwards but it has stopped working now. So if you could help me fix this new issue that would be appreciated.

Hi @spektukal,

If you have made the customization in the child theme, then you can update the parent theme. If the modification is made inside the parent theme, you can copy the files that are modified, and after you update the theme you can add the modification back into the updated files.
Or else, you can hire a developer who can help you move the customization to the child theme. But as we don’t provide support for the issues related to the customization, I would suggest you avail of our newly launched service called One TOTAL CARE, where we offer small customizations.

Thanks

I’m not really looking to hire someone to do any work on the site right now. As I mentioned, all I need to do right now is to change a picture on the site and I can’t do that because Cornerstone won’t finish loading.

Would what you’ve suggested really work though without creating further issues? I mean copying the files from the old version of the theme over to an updated version. Sounds to me like it would only lead to more problems.

And when you said “hire a developer to move the customizations over to the child theme”, would that mean that he’d basically have to do all the work again on the child theme? Or is there actually a way to just copy it all over? I would have thought that’s possible but your response so far has always been that it’s not.

Hey @spektukal

We need to check your backend settings to check if there’s something we can do on our end. That being said, please give us the following information in a Secure Note.

  • WordPress Login URL
  • Admin level username and password

You can find the Secure Note button at the bottom of your posts.

Thank you.

I’ve added the login details to the original post.

Hello @spektukal,

I am seeing this error in the console:

Uncaught (in promise) TypeError: Cannot read properties of undefined (reading '0')
    at app.e711182.js:22:65511
    at Ap (app.e711182.js:22:59907)
    at Bue (app.e711182.js:22:65440)
    at app.e711182.js:22:66425
    at app.e711182.js:1:651
    at app.e711182.js:130:7505
    at async jhe (app.e711182.js:130:7471)

This could be a bug or conflict with WordPress 6.4.3 and Pro theme 5.1.5. We will inform our developers about this.

We highly recommend that you create a staging site and then this time, you can install a child theme. You may need to copy any theme modifications into the child theme so that in the following updates, you do not have to worry about it.

Best Regards.

That does not help me right now. As I said all I was looking to do was to change a picture, which shouldn’t have taken more than a minute or two. I am not looking to do any extensive work on the site right now.

So am I to understand that you don’t see any solution for this? Aside from recreating the whole site again from scratch?

I wonder though, why is it that your theme seems to constantly face new issues caused by Wordpress updates? The theme has never been updated since we’ve set up the site and yet it stops working frequently because of some issue caused by other updates. I don’t think that’s a common occurence with any generic themes that don’t get frequent updates for years.

Hey @spektukal,

As my colleague said, you have the latest version of the WordPress core files and in order for our theme to adopt with the WordPress changes, we also need to update our theme. Just want to let you know that there is no issue with the latest version of the Pro theme together with the latest version of WordPress.

It would be best to follow the recommendation of my colleague to create a staging area then try to update the theme to the latest version and copy the customization in the child theme.

Thank you for understanding.

And as I have already asked: How exactly would I go about “copying” the customizations over? If there is a simple way to do it then that’s exactly what I’m looking for. But my guess is that it rather involves hiring a freelancer and telling him to recreate the site from scratch, based on the current layout. Or is there a simple way after all?

Hey @spektukal,

We have consulted our developers regarding your issue. Pro 5.1.5 supports up to WordPress 6.1 only. You can either downgrade your WordPress version or update the Pro theme. Since there are some modifications that has been done to the parent theme, which is not supposed to be done in the first place, you will have to decide what’s the next step to take from here. If you would ask me, cloning the live site to a staging site would be my first step. I will then use a child theme and compare the features from the live site and the staging site. I do not think there is a need to rebuild the site from scratch. On my initial inspection, I do not see any template file overrides or custom PHP codes on the parent theme.

Best Regards.

So could you explain how exactly you can clone the site, set up a child theme and move the customizations over to it? Do you just copy all the code in it? That would seem too simple and especially since the current theme is way out of date, I kinda doubt that it would work without any issues. Actually I’m pretty sure that updating the theme will create new problems again, as that’s what your theme always seems to do.

To try and speed this up a bit: I’ve just googled for it and found this post: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/56271439/how-to-move-all-modifications-made-in-a-parent-theme-to-a-child-theme

Containing this link: https://developer.wordpress.org/themes/advanced-topics/child-themes/#how-to-create-a-child-theme

The post makes it seem super simple while the link to the Wordpress guide contains a lot more things you need to do. But if I were to follow it, would this allow me to copy the modifications over?

Of course I assume there’s no guarantee that things will work flawlessly. Especially after updating the theme. But I guess as long as the parent theme remains at the current version it shouldn’t break everything. Right?

Also if you have any simpler guides for how to do this it would be appreciated, as the link I’ve mentioned does seem to be more in depth and I still don’t have too much knowledge about all that stuff. But I’d like to be able to do this myself if possible. And as long as I know exactly what to do copying or modifying some files shouldn’t be a problem.

Hey @spektukal,

To copy your website from live to a staging area, you may check our online documentation.

Once the staging area is up, you need to install the child theme, you can find it here:

Then you need to check your current Pro 5.1.5 files and Pro 5.1.5 that have not been customized yet ( see secure note to download it) and compare them. If you find any customization, you need to copy that file in your child theme.

Hope that helps.

That sounds like it would require some effort and would be easy to mess up. But I’ve also seen online that there’s plugins that can do this for you. Do you have any experience with those? One specific plugin that is being mentioned is this one: https://wordpress.org/plugins/customizer-export-import/

Do you know if that would work with your theme? Or if there are any others that would? It does mention the “Customizer”, which seems to be Wordpress’ default option for editing sites. Since you have your own builder that replaces it I’m not sure if that plugin would work with it.

I’ve also just found this post here: How to copy over my X theme blog design from one blog to another

It mentions the export options in the “Theme Options Manager” in the X Theme. Could that work as well?

Hello @spektukal,

The most trusted way of migrating an X theme or Pro theme-powered site is by using the All in One WP Migration plugin. We haven’t tested the “Customizer Export Import” plugin by the way.

To fully clone the site, you can simply use the All in One WP Migration plugin.

Best Regards.

You know that I’m asking specificially about moving the customizations from a parent to a child theme, not just moving the site to another server, right? So could the plugin you mentioned do that as well?

One thing that came to mind though is that if I wanted to use the plugin I mentioned before to copy the customizations, assuming that it works of course, wouldn’t I need to install a child theme with the same version that the parent theme has now? Otherwise wouldn’t it cause the same issues as updating the parent theme does now?

And you didn’t say anything about that the export option in the Theme Options Manage in your themes. I am curious what that is for and if it could be used to copy customizations over to a child theme as well.