Shortcodes Button = 404 Error

[jennmattern]

Whenever I’m in a page or post and I click the shortcodes button in the toolbar, the pop-up displays a 404 page instead of the shortcode options.

This is happening after a reasonably fresh install the other day to resolve a different problem. And I’ve already tried deactivating all plugins to see if there were conflicts. There were none.

The only file I’ve edited that I can think of is the header.php file where I removed your call for the meta title (I have a plugin handling this and that caused conflicts), and I changed the width of the sections in the nav bar.

Any ideas on how to fix this would be appreciated.

[jennmattern]

This reply has been marked as private.

[Cosmin – SUPPORT]

Hi Jenn,

On that particular install, have you tried the theme without any customizations to our code? If that works, maybe you’re removing some important lines around the meta.

Regards,

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Cosmin
Support Assistant

[jennmattern]

The only file I recall editing directly was header.php and I already tried restoring your default version. It didn’t resolve the problem, so I put my edited version back in.

The only other thing I could think of was that maybe Woothemes shortcodes were causing conflicts. But I still had the problem with that (and all other plugins) de-activated.

I just can’t afford to keep reinstalling from scratch and re-doing all of my customizations every time a problem comes up. I can’t find anything done manually that would have screwed up shortcodes. Is there a specific file where they’re called that I can check and compare with the default in the download?

[Cosmin – SUPPORT]

If it works on a clean install with no edits and without that shortcode plugin (which has a high chance of conflicting with our theme), it’s definitely related to either your edits or the shortcodes plugin, or both combined.

As you can see on a clean install, the theme works fine; maybe that shortcodes plugin save some data into the database, making that conflict/error persistent. I would advise trying with the original theme files and without the plugin – if that still happens, I would use a clean install as something might have screwed up the database.

Regards,

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Cosmin
Support Assistant

[jennmattern]

But like I asked before, which file is actually calling the shortcodes? Like I also said, I cannot keep re-installing this theme and re-doing customizations. Every time I customize something, something else that’s completely unrelated seems to break. That’s not normal.

And frankly, support seems to be going downhill since switching to a forum model. Support used to be fast and helpful in actually resolving issues. Now it’s just the same suggestions of disabling plugins (which I already know to do) and ultimately having to re-install the theme. I love the theme. But it’s getting absurd. If I can just compare the appropriate files, that makes far more sense than re-doing everything (yet again). I’ve already disabled all plugins. Still persists. I’ve already put your default files in for anything edited or even opened by me (header.php and style.css). Still persists. So clearly the problem is elsewhere. Maybe something got messed up in the installation this time around. But without knowing what specific file to check, I can’t troubleshoot.

[jennmattern]

Thanks, but nevermind. I can’t afford to lose yet another weekend of work time to troubleshooting, so I’m just going to hire a third party developer I know to fix it this time.

[jennmattern]

I had my WP guy look into it, and he confirmed that the problem is, in fact, with the theme. He disabled all plugins and reinstalled the theme. The problem still existed.

The version where the button worked for me on a clean install was from my 1.3 download. So he replaced that with 1.4 as well. And then the shortcode button was broken there too.

On the non-public test site, the pop-up screen loads the site homepage. On the other, it loaded a 404 page. But in both cases it’s trying to load the front-end site instead of the shortcodes.

[Cosmin – SUPPORT]

Jenn, for theme customizations, please look into creating a child theme off of our theme. Making changes directly to theme code is not the way to do it; you will always lose customizations when updating.

As for the shortcode button, I doubt it’s the theme, since you’re the first to experience the issue and we have tested it + passed ThemeForest review. A broken shortcode button wouldn’t have passed review.

If things break when you customize the code, it can only be that what you add/remove is breaking our code.

You can find all the page builder elements (which are shortcodes) in pinpoint\includes\page-builder\composer\lib\shortcodes

Regards,
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Cosmin
Support Assistant

[jennmattern]

I’ve said this numerous times already, but let’s try once more…

– The only changes made directly to the theme files were to header.php. On no planet would those changes have affected the shortcodes (removing the meta title and changing the number of columns taken up by each section of the navigation bar — that’s it).

– I have already replaced that header.php file with your default. The problem still existed.

– My WP guy re-installed your entire theme again with ALL default files. The problem still existed.

– We not only deactivated, but DELETED, all WP plugins for testing. Even with every one of them removed, the problem existed.

– When our separate test site was running 1.3, the problem did not exist. When my WP guy updated it to 1.4, that site ALSO had this problem where the shortcode button tried to load something on the front-end of the site rather than loading the shortcodes.

So no, it’s not something we manually customized that caused the problem. Like I’ve said, the only file edited was replaced. All CSS changes were done in the custom CSS field provided in the theme settings. And we’ve tried with every single plugin de-activated and deleted.

[jennmattern]

And just to show that I’m not crazy, I did the following just now (after posting my last response).

– I downloaded a completely fresh copy of the theme from ThemeForest.

– I installed it on a separate site that has a completely fresh WP installation and database.

– I made sure there were absolutely no plugins on that site.

– I tried to use the shortcodes button on the add post screen and I had exactly the same error. The pop-up window does not display shortcodes. It’s trying to load something on the front-end of the site instead. In this case it’s loading the default homepage.

[jennmattern]

This reply has been marked as private.

[Swift Ideas – Ed]

Hi Jenn.

You’re getting an “Internal Server (500) error” on the shortcode generator page –

Failed to load resource: the server responded with a status of 500 (Internal Server Error) http://elearn101.com/wp-content/themes/pinpoint/includes/sf_shortcodes/interface.php/?ver=358-23224

This is likely a permissions issue with the php file, so either it’s not readable, or there is something in a htaccess file/server config preventing viewing this. Might be best to ask your host if you’re unsure.

– Ed

[jennmattern]

Thanks a million Ed. You rock.

I left all permissions as the defaults on installation as that worked with v1.3. So I didn’t think to change those.

Changed it from 666 to 644, and all is right with the world. 🙂

Thanks again!

[Swift Ideas – Ed]

You’re welcome. Errors like that are annoying, and unless you know from experience what causes them it’s not always easy to identify the issue.

Glad it’s sorted 🙂

– Ed