[Resolved] Custom Page Headers Gone After Update

[Pat]

Hi. First off, I LOVE GeneratePress! I have custom page headers in place on a few sites. I ran a few updates today and one site in particular no longer has any page-specific custom page headers. When I go to a specific page, I see the drop-down allowing me to choose from a list of global custom headers…but I haven’t created any global custom headers – so the custom headers I created are gone. I understand the logic of making this change (from page-specific to global headers), but breaking existing headers isn’t cool.

I understand there is a function I can add to my child theme’s functions.php file to restore the legacy in-page editor, but that doesn’t address the missing headers problem.

What is also confusing to me is the fact that on this site, while I no longer have access to in-page custom headers, on another site that uses custom headers the in-page option is still in place. The site where in-page custom headers are still accessible uses featured images for each page, so I am wondering if that’s why the in-page editor is still there. This is concerning to me because I don’t understand why the in-page header editor is still accessible on one site, but not another. If someone can explain why this might be the case, I would appreciate it! (FYI: both sites in question are using the latest versions of GeneratePress, WordPress, and GP Premium.)

[Tom]

By default, your existing Page Header metaboxes shouldn’t be touched in the update to 1.4. We take backwards compatibility very seriously, and went through a month of beta testing for 1.4 to avoid any issues.

1.4 was released in August, and we haven’t had any reports of this kind of issue. If it’s only on one of your websites, it might be worth just adding the legacy code.

What were the contents of the Page Headers that disappeared?

[Pat]

Hi Tom,
Thanks for your quick response. The answer may lie in the fact that this (probably) isn’t a typical application of custom headers.

Short answer: the custom header content on all pages other than Home was a transparent PNG image, uploaded to the media library via the custom header logo utility.

Long answer: on the Home page, the client wanted the header to accommodate a very large (tall) image, and all other pages feature a cropped (less tall) version of that image. When you look at the URL I provided in my initial post, the image I’m referring to is the green pond/lily image.

I used the theme customizer to add the tall image as the “logo” (Customizer > Site Identity > Logo). The branding (the name & title) are added via the Site Title & Tagline in the Customizer settings. In the page header settings on each non-Home page, I set the custom logo to a transparent PNG image (the size matches the associated background – keep reading to see what I mean). And I used Customizer > Additional CSS to set the background for the header on each of those non-Home pages, like so:
body.page-id-5 .site-header,
body.page-id-7 .site-header,
body.page-id-9 .site-header,
etc {
background: url(‘xxxxxxx/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/header-short.jpg’);
background-repeat: no-repeat;
background-position: 50% 0;
-moz-background-size: cover;
-webkit-background-size: cover;
-o-background-size: cover;
background-size: cover;
min-height: 160px;
}

I was able to fix the problem by creating a new global custom header and selecting it in the new drop-down feature in the Page Header section on each page.

I’m not sure why the settings for each page were dropped when I ran the update. And I’m also puzzled as to why the in-page Custom Header settings are still visible and accessible on the other site (which uses featured images).

Thanks Tom!

[Tom]

That’s very strange. As long as the page header had an image or content, the existing metabox shouldn’t have gone anywhere.

That being said, using the global settings like you have now is the better way to handle it 🙂

[Author]

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