Content on my site continues to disappear sporadically, leaving me this message.
Can I please get an explanation or some sort of assistance?
The page I am including had 4 Call to Action boxes below the intro paragraph which now resolve in the error above. This is extremely frustrating.
Hi Kristin
Sorry to hear about the hassle. Have you gone to Plugins > SiteOrigin Widgets and checked that the Call to Action widget is enabled?
It is available and if you view the page I included the URL for you will see I have now re-created the four CTA widgets. However, I no longer have the descriptive text that was previously in each. I am very concerned as to what to expect moving forward if content is to keep disappearing.
The error tells me to 'install the missing plugin' but not only is it installed, the CTA widget is definitely enabled. This issue also led to the disappearance of a CTA box on an event page we're currently selling tickets for which is highly problematic.
Thanks for the feedback. Please, try these troubleshooting steps:
1. Go to Dashboard > Updates. Run any updates that may be pending for the WordPress core and or plugins.
2. Temporarily de-activate all plugins except for Page Builder and the Widgets Bundle.
3. Re-test.
I have two plugins that didn't come with the Vantage Theme:
– Contact Form 7
– Custom CSS
I have used these on numerous sites without conflict and am not at a stage in our fundraiser where I can disable these. Are you saying this issue hasn't presented in the past?
Not in this form, no.
Please, can we login and take a look.
Hi Kristin
Would it be possible for you to create a temporary admin account for us so we can log in and take a look? You can create the account with the following email address:
[email protected]
Just navigate to Users > Add New in your WordPress admin. Enter siteorigin for the username and [email protected] for the email address. Make sure you’ve selected Administrator for the role and enabled the “Send Password” field so we receive the details.
Once we’re finished taking a look, you can delete this account. We’ll let you know when to do that.
I can create a temporary account for you only if you promise to make no changes. This site is for a non profit I volunteer for and we can't afford further issues.
I'm not sure if there will be any benefit since I have recreated all the
CTA widgets that previously displayed the error in the visual page builder.
Please let me know what you'd plan to do in there.
Thanks for your feedback. If you’ve settled on a solution for now then I’d recommend leaving it. If an issue occurs again in the future we can try diagnose further.
OK thank you for your time. If another issue represents I will make you a user account so you can see yourself. Have a great day
For sure. Cheers :)
I literally have the same issue as Kristin. I ran an update on couple of widgets and now my CTA widget displays this msg.
“The widget SiteOrigin_Widget_Cta_Widget is not available. Please try locate and install the missing plugin.”
But the widget is active and it is installed.
If you can open a fresh thread for us I’ll grab it in the next few mins. We can update this thread with results once complete :)
This is a sad situation. I also had the plugins installed and had made no changes to them or the pages where the widgets stopped working. Andrew
Misplon was very eager to help and hopefully he can check your site and find a cause and solution. Please keep me in the loop!
No worries everyone :) WordPress can be a complex beast. We solve most bugs. Sure we can get to the bottom of this.
Thread: Cta Widget missing after update. link for the new thread.
Thanks :)
Thank you!
Andrew,
I opened the site today and the widgets are again gone. Please help. This is an emergency for us.
[image: Screen Shot 2015-10-07 at 8.08.18 AM.png]
I have the same problem: Thread: Recent Update removed All CtA Widgets on my site!
Andrew,
I think I may know the problem. I realized this morning that somehow the site files are being reverted back to how they were originally packaged in the theme even after I modify them. I am unsure if this is considered a
'feature' but it's definitely unwanted. For example, I modified Footer.php and it displayed as desired for days but this morning it's back to how it was originally. I do not want my site code being affected by outside sources. Can you please explain where the code that is doing this is in place?
I believe this could potentially be the cause for my widgets disappearing as well.
Hi Kristin
Sorry to hear about the continued hassles. We’ll do our best to resolve quickly.
Theme Files
Theme updates are the only time files will be changed in your theme. This isn’t happening from our side at any other time. All WordPress.org themes completely overwrite their theme folder during theme updates. If you need to modify a theme file it should be done within a child theme. Let me know if you need guidance.
CTA
The CTA issue should now be resolved. 1.5 regrettably was released with an error causing all CTA widgets to show as missing. We resolved the problem in 1.5.1. If you’ve updated your Widgets Bundle to 1.5.1 the problem should be fixed.
Any CTA widgets created during the 48hrs that 1.5 was out will need to be rebuilt in 1.5.1. If there are many, let me know and we can assist.
Why are updates being forced into what i have installed?
Not quite sure I’m following but I’ll take a guess:
If you edit Vantage theme files via Appearance > Editor and run a theme update those changes will be lost. The way themes and plugins update is they overwrite their folder. They replace themselves with the newer version. The only time this will happen is if you run an update from Dashboard > Updates.
If you need to edit theme files a child theme should be used, here is the WordPress Codex to explain a bit further:
https://codex.wordpress.org/Child_Themes
Why use a Child Theme?
There are a few reasons why you would want to use a child theme:
If you modify a theme directly and it is updated, then your modifications may be lost. By using a child theme you will ensure that your modifications are preserved.
Using a child theme can speed up development time.
Using a child theme is a great way to learn about WordPress theme development.
I'm very familiar with child themes and plan to create one moving forward.
This site was created in two days in an effort to get it up ahead of an important event and the time wasn't there to create the child theme so we had to hold off. Even with a child theme, updates to the parent theme will have an affect.
I have never used a theme that pushes updates without notice or approval.
This is a surprise to me and feels unnecessarily invasive and restrictive.
Is there a way to turn this off?
Very sorry to hear about the negative impact but to be clear, we’ve never enforced an update, I’m not even sure how that would work or if it’s possible. Our updates are provided via the core WordPress update system. When we publish an update it’s offered via the Dashboard > Updates menu. Users need to manually run the update. There is nothing in our system that runs the update, we don’t have server level control.
Some hosts automatically update WordPress, just the WordPress core. I’ve never seen this done with plugins and themes but it might be possible. That could be one route to investigate this further.
Thank you for the response and I hope I am not coming across as offensive.
I just have never seen a themes files revert back to original after updating unless I install a theme update. I myself do a lot of WordPress development and am just baffled by this. I will look into other potential causes later today and very much appreciate your patience.
If it's not coming from code within your theme then all is good on your end.
Thank you!
No problem at all. It’s really painful to lose work, we’re really sorry you’ve just gone through that. If there is anything else we can do to help, please, let me know.