VC Not reading Newspaper Blocks at all

Having issues. Not my first rodeo with Newspaper. I did not upgrade from v4 of Newspaper to v6.1 – fresh database.

Uploaded Newspaper, Newspaper Child, activated Newspaper Child then VC and TD Social Counter – in that order. I’m getting the VC Menu link for its settings in the admin menu and when creating a page the builder does not show any Newspaper blocks at all. VC is showing me the demo homepage templates loaded into it by Newspaper, but when I use them, the blocks are not editable, only sortable.

Front-end of the site is loading fine. Even uses the blocks from the theme when I use a template to get it rolling, but I can’t edit the settings for it, obviously. Even tried installing and activating the API plugin to see if it would help, but no go.

This is for my main site. I’ve been testing for a few days on my development site, which is located at a subdomain of my main site, and everything has been working BEAUTIFULLY there with Newspaper 6. Really impressed with the improvements. Can’t figure out what’s making VC dumb at the moment.

What’s the malfunction?

I also tried switching to Newspaper parent theme and I tried overwriting all theme files via ftp (originally installed the theme via the admin since it was the first version of any tagDiv theme in the database).

I also deleted VC via ftp and re-installed. Didn’t help.

Last theme I was using used VC, too, v4.4.4. I switched from that theme to Newspaper on this site. Could the problem be settings from that old theme left behind? If so, how do I identify the issue and resolve it?

Thanks.

Also noticing that the Teaser meta box on the post editor isn’t showing up.

It’s very odd. It’s like I don’t have VC installed because it’s not really recognizing that Newspaper is installed and working like it should.

Hosting is fully compatible and I checked all active plugins on my dev site today before making the switch – no issues whatsoever. The dev site was running the same theme before I installed Newspaper 6 that the main site was, so I don’t think my last post was right; that the other theme also using VC is messing it up somehow, because it didn’t have any issues on the dev site. The dev site is running everything identical to the main site, only much more cluttered as it’s been used for quite some time to prepare themes for the live site and do some custom work.

Custom work I’ve done is only to styling and replacing the Pinterest share button with a reddit share button. I used the static sharing url for reddit so no extra JS is loading either. Again, all works fine and as expected on the dev site.

I’m out of ideas for what to check…

Found it.

Forgot that my dev site had an old version of VC on it from last tests with Newspaper v.4.6.1 and I left that running. So while the flawless dev site was running VC 4.3.5, the main site was running the version that came with v6, VC 4.5.3 and nothing worked.

Very odd. BTW – I ran the script from the v6 welcome page to update the database, just in case, and it says no Newspaper v4 tables found and aborts. Like I said fresh install.

What am I missing by running VC 4.3.5 instead of the latest version?

Correction: I was able to copy the shortcodes for my homepage from the dev site to the main site, but I still cannot get VC 4.3.5 or 4.5.3 to recognize the Newspaper block shortcodes.

Thank you, Marius. I’m very pleased with how it came out. Even more so because the theme is faster than ever. You guys did a great job with the v6 update. Bravo.

But I haven’t fixed it, just found a temporary fix that doesn’t seem as obviously broken while we work on it. Here are the problems:

1. Categories Filter
Category filtering in blocks on the home page I’ve built is set as default, to show all categories, but it’s only showing the first category, alphabetically, from the site (Cowboys Blog). I’ve tried updating it several times and checking the other categories but no luck. All categories work fine when I select them individually, but not when selecting “All Categories” from the filter. This occurs with and without unique articles enabled, and after all caches have been cleared. ** This was my bad. Didn’t correct the offset properly for the block after the ad while building the page.

2. Newspaper Block Shortcodes in VC
Visual Composer is really not reading the themes blocks. See the screenshot for what I see:

That has remained constant on InsideTheStar.com (Main Site) while it was not a problem on Dev.InsideTheStar.com (Development Site, also live). It remains constant whether I use v6.1 parent or child theme, and whether I use VC v4.3.5 or v.4.5.3. I’ve checked upload type (binary vs. ascii) and uploaded fresh copies from the theme directory of the whole theme multiple times. I’ve also removed VC via both methods and reinstalled but no fix, yet.

I was able to create the homepage I’m using now by taking the page on my dev site, reverting to the classic editor so it would show me the VC shortcodes, and copied those shortcodes into the classic editor on the homepage for the main site. I couldn’t use the blocks any other way. With VC v.4.5.3 (as distributed with Newspaper v6.1) I couldn’t even edit those blocks at all on the main site, just move them around (couldn’t edit, duplicate, or delete them from the VC editor).

3. VC Editor Styles
I’m also seeing this issue while using Newspaper v6.1 with VC v4.3.5 (the only version I can access this following screen from):

I can still use the box with that broken style for the tabs up top, but it hints at the main problem, I’d think.

I would have liked to get it figured out already, but all I was able to do was get the site limping well enough that most visitors won’t notice (it’s a production site).

Any ideas? The only thing worth noting from the system info tab of the theme is that I’m running at 40mb instead of 64mb. It’s not the problem, though. Both the main site and dev site are running on the same host with the same setups, and the dev site is not experiencing any troubles with VC v.4.3.5.

• This reply was modified 11 years by Bryson T. Reason: Removed item 1 from the list, as it was user error

Additional attempts to resolve the issue:

1. Noticed the dev site was running php 5.3.29 stable while the main site was running php 5.5.21, so I switched the main site down to 5.3.29, but no change.

2. I upped the max input vars and memory limits to minimums specified by the system status tab of the theme. No changes detected.

3. I disabled all non-theme plugins and that didn’t make a difference.

Alright, got it figured out.

For the first part, the database was storing old options from the last theme I used that also used VC. I wiped those out to remove any mentions of the old theme and inserted the values from my dev site. That wiped my theme settings out so I imported those again (thankfully I had them saved), and then I went to VC settings and selected all shortcodes for administrator and saved. Viola! I have all the Newspaper blocks available in VC now.

But for the second part, I’m still getting the screwed up styles in the page builder. It’s because I still have VC v.4.3.5 installed and not the latest version.

I’m hesitant to install the latest version just because of recent conversations on here regarding NewsMag (which I also have) and the Shim plugin because of how new versions of VC are slowing sites down to a crawl since NewsMag v1.7.

So, if I upgrade VC to v4.5.3 as distributed with Newspaper v6.1, will the site run slower than it does with VC v.4.3.5 as distributed with Newspaper v4.6.1?

Whatever option is faster is what I’ll stick with. Would really like to hear @NeoTrope weigh in on this as well.

In the database, under wp_options table, this row had the issue: wpb_js_groups_access_rules

Thinking back on it now, it’s possible that my whole problem could’ve been solved by adjusting the VC settings for which shortcodes to show. It didn’t occur to me to check that before everything else, so who knows.

Anyway, if anyone else has the same problem, start there.