[Support request] Page loading issues "other error" in googles mobile test

[Maria]

I changed the theme on two sites to generatepress premium and built a third test site. All of these have the same issue despite being fairly small – a lot of resources are not loading in google’s mobile friendly test. The number of resources and which ones vary from one test run to the next. The two sites I changed never had this problem before. I also moved a clone of one of the sites to another hosting company just to make sure it wasn’t the hosting. The same problem remained. It really seems that the problem is generatepress. Is there any way to fix this? Since all resources aren’t loaded pages are randomly tagged as not mobile friendly when certain resources fail to load which is not great considering how important it is for google that sites are mobile friendly. I really like generatepress otherwise so I would prefer not to switch to something else, however I can’t leave it like it is now.

[Tom]

Hi there,

The theme itself loads resources using 100% core WordPress functionality.

It’s likely that you’re using a plugin which alters how those resources are loaded (like a caching plugin).

If you deactivate any caching/minifying plugins, does the issue go away?

[Maria]

Unfortunately not. I have tried both with and without caching plugins (WPFC) and its the same problem regardless. I have also tried deactivating wordfence security. The problem started right after I changed the theme. https://happilyprinted.se/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Screen-Shot-2018-08-01-at-14.57.09.png

[Maria]

I have now created a new installation checking after each step with googles mobile friendly test

Install wp on domain – everything ok
Install and activate GP – everything ok
turn GP into a child theme – everything ok
install and activate plugin woo commerce – everything ok
install and activate GP premium (no configuration yet) – PAGE LOADING ISSUES

So it seems there is a problem with GP premium
Unfortunately, deactivating GP premium again doesn’t make the issue go away

[Maria]

And then I redid it again. Now I got page loading issues after installing and activating Woo Commerce *sigh*

I dont think it is woo commerce though as I have the page loading issues on a GP premium site without woo commerce as well

[David]

Hi there,

the mobile friendly test is really hit and miss, The reports are rarely consistent as you can see here:

I checked the page out for the errors you received:

Clickable elements too close – generally this would be menu items / link lists that have a low line-height. Woocommerce shop pages occasionally spit this out as the Buy button sits immediately below the product card which is clickable.

The content too wide, couldn’t find anything that is breaking or sitting outside of the page. No horizontal scroll bars. This is most likely google picking up on absolutely positioned elements such as the navigation search field.

Of course this seems to vary from one test to another where each time a different set of resources are missed off.

[Maria]

yeah, I really don’t think this is an issue in real life as everything seems to be working fine on mobile phones (and better than the previous theme). However, since google now marks random pages as being not mobile friendly I am worried that it will affect placement in search. I have not had this problem before as you can see in the image linked above

[Tom]

The test is coming back as mobile friendly for me.

However, it is saying that it’s having trouble loading two resources. One CSS file in the GPP WooCommerce module, and a CSS file for Flexslider. That being said, if you manually enter the two URLs, the files load just fine.

Do you have anything inside your robots.txt file?

Anything in GP Hooks?

[Maria]

Yes but with page loading issues. The number of resources that fail to load vary all the time. Sometimes when “unlucky” a resource important for displaying on mobile fail to load and google says the site is not mobile friendly. This results in random pages being marked as “not mobile friendly” in the index from time to time. I get these page loading issues on all sites I make with GP, I think it may be a GP problem. Nothing is blocking. The same problem reappears on small, newly installed test websites with GP

[Maria]

Ok I take it all back. It is not generate press. I have been able to replicate the issue on a site without GP as well :/

[Tom]

GeneratePress (or any theme) can’t really cause issues like this unless they add a lot of resources to your site.

I did some research into this, and the loading issues are typically caused by pages loading too many resources: https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/webmasters/JwBSfBlZYas

You could try using a plugin like Autoptomize to reduce the number of resources on the page: https://en-ca.wordpress.org/plugins/autoptimize/

[Author]

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