Sidebar widget error
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Good afternoon, I changed theme a couple of days ago, then switched back to the original one. After I switched back, the sidebar widget is now displaying an error in the customizer. It says ‘The editor has encountered an unexpected error.’ Underneath there is a red button that says ‘Copy Error’. Please can you advise?
WP.com: Yes
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Hi there, I can see the error message as you do. Can you tell us a bit more about what widget(s) you had in the sidebar before your theme switch? The error message does not indicate this, but I think it will help us if you can clarify what you used to have here, thanks!
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Hi there, I believe the widgets were a follow blog button, tags, picture/html block (not 100% sure – just know I had set a photograph of mine on the side) posts archive list – months and number of posts, and social media button. Thank you.
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I had a quick look at your list of widgets in the non-Customizer view (here: https://wildrosecrochet.wordpress.com/wp-admin/widgets.php ) and the error isn’t showing for me, but neither are the widgets you mentioned, and I see other errors instead when trying to add a widget.
Would you remember if the image you had added was via an Image block (guide: https://en.support.wordpress.com/wordpress-editor/blocks/image-block/ ) or a custom HTML block, if you had simply inserted an image from your Media library?
I was testing the same theme (Button 2) on a site of my own but I couldn’t replicate the issue at all; I’m wondering if there could be some rogue HTML which broke your sidebar.
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Thank you for having a look and getting back to me. I added the image via media library. Could there have been an issue from switching to a newer theme (Hari) then returning to the original theme Buttons 2? As this is exactly when the issue error message occurred in the customizer.
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Thanks for the additional information! We’re going to have to have a developer take a closer look at this to see what’s happening here. We’ll post an update for you here once we have more information. It may take a day or two, so don’t worry if it goes a few days without any update.
Thanks for your patience!
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Hi again,
We’re still looking into this issue, but i had a question about this reply you gave earlier about the widgets on your site:
I believe the widgets were afollow blog button, tags, picture/html block (not 100% sure – just know I had set a photograph of mine on the side) posts archive list – months and number of posts, and social media button
I noticed that some of those sound like widgets I see in your footer now (if you scroll the the very bottom of the site) so to clarify, did you have the same or similar widgets used in both places? Or is it the case that the footer used to be empty, and the widgets that were once in the sidebar have ended up in the footer somehow in the theme change?
Could there have been an issue from switching to a newer theme (Hari) then returning to the original theme Buttons 2? As this is exactly when the issue error message occurred in the customizer.
To be sure I understood correctly, you saw a similar error when you switched themes on your site as well? Did you see this when switching from Button to Hari? Or when switching back to Button again? Both?
Thanks for the additional info!
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Hello, thank you for looking into this, it is most appreciated.
Before I switched the theme – Buttons 2 to Hari – there was both sidebar and footer widgets on the blog. In the footer, there was two widgets – an HTML block on the right hand side with writing and picture logo, on the left had a photo slideshow.
When I changed the theme back – Hari to Buttons 2 – this is when I noticed the sidebar error message. I also noticed the footer widgets had disappeared (but no error message here). So at this point, I tested out the footer widgets to see if they would work by adding widgets to replace what had disappeared from both the sidebar and footers. This is what you can see in the footers now.
I do not recall any error message with either the sidebar or footer widgets prior to changing from Buttons 2 to Hari. I was only aware of an issue once I had switched the theme back from Hari to Buttons 2.
Thank you so much for all your help.
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Thanks for this. We’re doing more testing on our side, and we’ll update you as soon as we can.
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Just as an update, we’ve got this duplicated on a test site, and a developer is tinkering with that to find a fix. We’ll let you know when we’ve got it.
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Hello, I was wondering if there is any update on this error. I am keen to change my theme this year and wondered if I need to hold off until this issue is resolved. Any information and/advice you can provide would be most appreciated. Thank you.
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Hi there, and thanks for being patient.
They found a fix and it should be out in the next couple of weeks – it needs to be implemented when we update the core WordPress software, so it’s waiting for that release to patch this bug.
Thanks again.
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I am keen to change my theme this year and wondered if I need to hold off until this issue is resolved.
My understanding is that the fix that is in the works to drop this week or next week (as mentioned above) will remove the error message you see on the sidebar when you try to add content there. Sadly it won’t recover the previous content — that would need to be re-added in any event — but at least it would allow you to proceed with this theme since the error message blocks you from adding any new content currently.
However, if you are ultimately considering switching themes you may not need to wait here, since we have no way to recover the previous sidebar contents I think you can switch themes anytime you like. Depending on the theme you switch to, it may do widgets differently than your current theme does.
Out of curiosity, what theme are you considering switching to? Happy to take a look and see if you can switch now without waiting. Thanks for the additional info!
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Hi again,
Our devs just updated us that this issue is fixed! As I mentioned there is no way to recover your previous widgets (they were lost in the theme switch) but the error message is gone, and you are able to add widgets to your sidebar under the “widgets” tab here: https://wordpress.com/customize/
No need to switch themes if you wish to stay with the one you have, you should be able to add widgets to it now without issue. Thanks for your patience!
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Hello,
Thank you so very much for all of your support, help and ultimately resolving this issue. I am very grateful for your time on fixing this.
No problem regarding the lost widgets. I think now the issue has been sorted I will not rush into changing the theme and stick with my current one at the moment. I look forward to adding widgets again.
Thank you again to you all and everyone involved in resolving this issue.
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