[Resolved] Generate Page Header makes WooCommerce Products disappear

[Jennifer]

Howdy! I’ve been loving your theme so much that it’s the first I’ve ever paid money to upgrade 🙂 Unfortunately, after updating to WordPress 4.2, the Generate Page Header plugin I purchased created the following issues:

• It removed all but one of my WooCommerce variable products from both the front and back end (simple products were fine). All my variable products are in the “Fine Art Prints” category: http://mydragonatemyhomework.com/product-category/fine-art-prints/
• Variations on the one remaining product no longer worked. I could select variations, but it wouldn’t generate the price.
• The one variable product displayed on the front end (Fine-Art Print – Inspiration) was different than the only variable product displayed on the back end (Fine-Art Print – Mother and Son).
• All category meta information still said there were 8 products
• WordPress admin toolbar also disappeared from the top of the affected pages

Disabling Generate Page Header caused everything to reappear and work properly. So, my site is functional again, but I really love that page header and want it back as soon as possible. Please advise.

[Tom]

Hi there,

That’s very odd – did you have the Page Header active on the WooCommerce page? Or did having it activated cause this happen, even though it wasn’t used on that page?

I can’t think of anything in the add-on that would cause anything in the back-end to disappear – the add-on is quite simple, no crazy code going on.

Can you try turning on WP DEBUG and activating Page Header to see if you get any errors?: https://codex.wordpress.org/WP_DEBUG

So if you deactivate Page Header, the WooCommerce products appear? When you activate, they disappear?

Let me know 🙂

[Jennifer]

I’m only using the page header on my homepage. I turned on the WP debug and activated Page Header, but didn’t see any error messages. Where would those messages appear? Maybe I’m not looking in the right place.

I’ve played around with it a little more, and it just keeps getting weirder, so rather than try to write everything, I did a quick screen capture running through the different behaviors. The video is unlisted, but you can access it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKwtCcc-Fuk

All the best,
–Jenny

[Tom]

Thanks for the video – super helpful.

When things like the admin bar disappear, it usually means there’s a hidden PHP error somewhere – I’m not sure why WP DEBUG isn’t displaying it.

Is there a WP_DEBUG_DISPLAY definition in your wp-config.php file? If so, is it set to false?

Can you check your error log by logging into your site via FTP – there should be a file in the root of your site named error_log – you can view it using notepad.

Lastly, do you know what version of PHP your server is running? When things work on one site and not the other, it’s usually a server thing.

It could also be another plugin conflicting – have you tried deactivating all plugins but WooCommerce and Page Header?

We’ll figure it out! 🙂

[Jennifer]

Thanks 🙂 Hmmm. My config file didn’t have any debug display defined, so I added it and set it to true. On a lark, I also added “define(‘WP_DEBUG_LOG’, true);” and “define(‘SCRIPT_DEBUG’, true);” but got no results. The debug log only shows errors for Jetpack, and disabling Jetpack has no effect on the problem. (Side note: I find it a little amusing that the only thing generating errors in the WordPress debugger is the plugin made by WordPress)

I found my site’s error log, as well, but the most recent error listed was from June of last year.

My server is running PHP version 5.4.40. Is that the most up-to-date?

Lastly, I tried deactivating all the plugins, and just adding back Woocommerce and Generate Page Header. The same problems occurred.

Still weird, but we’re getting closer. I can feel it!

All the best,
–Jenny

[Jennifer Garstang]

HAPPY DANCE! I think I found the problem!!! It has nothing to do with variable products… it’s image sizes! The Generate Page Header plugin has a problem with any images over a certain size. Those images stopped appearing in my media library whenever the plugin was activated, and any products that had a featured image that was too large would break. Any portion of a given page that loaded after the broken product (front end or back end) simply wouldn’t load… including the wp-admin bar when logged in, which renders after all the rest of the page has loaded!!!

So, I will simply deactivate the plugin, delete my stupidly-large images and replace them with reasonably-sized images, and I think all will be well on my end 🙂

All the best, and thanks for your help in diagnosing the issue!

[Tom]

So weird.. Let me know if doing that fixes the issue or not 🙂

Thanks!

[Jennifer Garstang]

Worked like a charm! I’m guessing it has something to do with the way that Generate Page Headers accesses the media library. My original files were so big (around 5 MB each) that whenever the plugin was active, the system would time out while attempting to generate display versions of the images. That would then cause the site to give up and say “I’m done!” This happened no matter where my stupid-large images were used on the site – front end, back end, thumbnails, full-size, etc.

The individual product page would sometimes work and sometimes not dependent on which related products it randomly attempted to display (down below the fold). If the related product was one with a stupid-large featured image, then the page would break. If it had a reasonably-sized image, then everything would load properly.

So, long story short, my site is working again, and I am a happy customer who is now using reasonably-sized images like I knew I should from the beginning 😛

Thanks again for all your help, and your awesome theme/plugin!

[Tom]

I’ll have to look into that, as it shouldn’t happen ( even if you shouldn’t upload 5MB images 😉 )

Either way, I’m glad it’s working now and that you’re happy with GP! 🙂

[Author]

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