Widgets suddenly go inactive, all sidebars are cleared

We have a problem that I think has to do with our updates.

We followed the recommended method for the theme update: we deleted the theme and plugins, re-installed the theme and re-downloaded all of the plugins. Since doing this (twice now to correct an icon display problem) ALL of our sidebars widgets were st to inactive and the sidebars were cleared of all widgets.
We have a LOT of widgets, and several sidebars used with various layouts an/or audiences. This is a huge pain for us. Is there any way to save the widgets positions so we can re-enable them if we have to update again?

• This topic was modified 6 years by imkimc.

Thanks for the reply – This seems like important information to distribute when you’re upgrade procedure states that we should delete the theme and plugin files from the website and then install the new version. Just a note on the fact that you will loose all of your sidebars and widgets will be inactive.

Since it’s an issue with WP, it’s not your problem to solve, but it would have been appreciated.

Time to look for a way to export sidebars/widgets setup before a theme upgrade!

Best,
Kim

Yeah, this was frustrating to notice – four weeks after I updated to Newspaper X – that all the non-stock widgets went inactive from the 10+ widgets we use on waterdesk.org. I didn’t notice because *some* of the widgets remained. Is there a better UI method to restore the widgets than dragging them 18-24″ from the bottom of the screen to the top? I don’t see a dropdown inside the widget to assign it the way the stock widgets do. It’s like moving grains of sand with tweezers!