Cornerstone generating malformed inline CSS from inactive document

[NineZero]

This looks to be related to a ticket I raised a few weeks ago regarding a corrupted old footer continuing to render after it had been deleted. That issue appeared to have resolved itself and was closed, but I think the issue has now reappeared.

I’ve since been investigating a typography problem and discovered that the generated cs-inline-css contains malformed CSS which appears to be coming from an old Cornerstone document.

The generated CSS contains blocks like:

position:relative;
overflow:hidden;
min-height:600px;
.e24-e3 { ... }

position:relative;
overflow:hidden;
min-height:600px;
.e24-e28 { ... }

position:relative;
overflow:hidden;
min-height:600px;
:root { ... }

Because those declarations appear before the selectors, the browser treats the following selectors as invalid. In my case, that prevents my :root CSS variables from being parsed correctly.

I’ve spent quite a bit of time trying to isolate it and have confirmed the following:

• The invalid Element CSS has been removed from every footer/document I can find.
• Pro’s style cache has been cleared.
• Other site caches have been cleared.
• Documents have been resaved.
• The element IDs e24-e3 and e24-e28 no longer exist anywhere in the rendered page HTML. They only appear inside the generated cs-inline-css .
• The footer I believe these IDs originally belonged to is no longer assigned to the site. (document ID 24)

Given the previous issue where an inactive footer continued to be rendered, I’m wondering if Pro is still compiling CSS from an old or orphaned document and it is killing my header styling etc, but only for the woocommerce category pages.

I’ll provide login & URL in a secure note.

[prakash_s]

Hello @NineZero,

Thanks for writing to us.

I recommend clearing all caches, including your caching plugin, server cache, and any CDN or Cloudflare cache if you’re using one. After clearing the caches, please temporarily deactivate your caching plugin and test the site again.

Thanks

[NineZero]

Hi @prakash_s , I cleared all cache and checked server side and there is nothing to purge there, deactivated litespeed and it hasn’t made any difference.

If you look at the footer on these 2 URLs they are different

https://eolabs1.ninezerosites.com/
https://eolabs1.ninezerosites.com/product-category/virology-reagents-kits/

The one that is displayed on shop categories and product pages should not be assigned to any live pages yet it always shows, even when deleted and caches are purged.

[ruenel]

Hello Matthew,

Even if a footer or header has been deleted, when one of the pages is still assigned to it, like the “A3 - Industries We Serve” page, that footer or header will still show up.

• See the secure note below

I highly recommend that before deleting any custom footer or header, you make sure that it is no longer assigned to any page, post, or layout.

To get this fixed:

• Kindly check each page you have built with Cornerstone and double-check the footer assignments.
• Set a priority number to the default custom footer. The lower the number, the higher the priority.

Kindly let us know how it goes.

[NineZero]

I’ve done some more investigation and I think I’ve narrowed the issue down.

I discovered that any standard page with the Footer Layout Assignment set to “Default” was/is displaying the old footer. If I explicitly change the page’s Footer Layout Assignment from Default to the correct one , it displays the correct footer with what looks to be no issues.

For clarity, I have never manually assigned footers on individual pages before. I’ve always relied on the footer document’s own Assignment Conditions (Entire Site, Products, etc.).

The remaining issue is with the WooCommerce templates. The Single Product and Product Category Archive layouts do not expose a Footer Layout Assignment option because they are Layouts/Templates rather than standard pages. Therefore I have no way to change them from Default to the correct footer.

This leads me to believe the issue is related to whatever Cornerstone resolves as the Default footer.

Where is the Default footer actually defined? I can’t find any setting where the Default footer is assigned, and I think this is the root of the problem.

[ruenel]

Hey Matthew,

Set the priority of “Global Footer July 2026” to 0.

And delete the unused Footers in Cornerstone > Footers.

• See the link in the secure note below.

Hope this helps.

[NineZero]

I have done this, but it still seems to have the problem.

I manually assigned Global Footer July 2026 on all pages, as well has having enitre site conditions with priority set to “0”

I deleted all other footers in cornerstone so I only have 1 listed in the cornerstone footer element “Global Footer July 2026”.

if I then open the woocommerce archive template of “A1 Category Template RW” and on the builder click to edit the footer, the footer editor opens up the footer called “Global Footer Broken”. This footer is not listed in my footers so Cornerstone must be storing this somewhere in an assignment that I haven’t selected. It seems like Cornerstone is storing this footer elsewhere.

[prakash_s]

Hello Matthew,

I checked your site, and it seems that aggressive caching might be preventing the new footer from being assigned, so the old footer is still rendering. I also confirmed that the old footer is still present and has not been removed or deleted, which is why you are able to edit it. You can see it in WordPress by going to Dashboard → Cornerstone → Footers, where all existing footers are listed. Please have a look at the screenshot below in the secure note.

Thanks