Wordpress Weirdness

July 16, 2023 3:28 PM

I have a website using WordPress. On every page, the home page content is duplicated at the bottom of the page. It's not showing up in the back end. I can't for the life of me figure out what's going on or how to make it stop. (The blog posts are all normal - no content duplication there.) Help?
posted by The Almighty Mommy Goddess to Computers & Internet (8 answers total)

Best answer: Link?

I can imagine a few ways that tinkering with the back end could make this happen. Without poking around in the back end, it will be impossible to say decisively what is happening, but there are a couple of diagnostic tests you can perform:

1. Turn off any plugins that modify the blog's output (stuff like spam blocking should not affect this).
2. Switch to a different theme.

After each step, reload the page and see what changes you get.

If you're using a completely vanilla install of Wordpress with a "factory equipped" theme and no plugins, and you haven't been tinkering at the back end, then I'm at a loss.
posted by adamrice at 4:44 PM on July 16, 2023 [1 favorite]

There might be something in your footer file (I think it might be footer.php? Not sure, tho -- it's been a few years since I've poked around in the innards of my WP installation) that's causing this.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 9:10 PM on July 16, 2023

It's most likely something in your footer.php - some code that is replicating the body page. You should be able to check/manage this using Widgets from the sidebar. There is an option there to include any page in the footer and, without any links or screenshots, that's about the best guess I can make.
posted by dg at 10:04 PM on July 16, 2023 [2 favorites]

And quick reminder to clear the cache, both in your browser, and more often these days on your server too, before trying to preview the changes you just made.

Wordpress over the last few years has been getting increasingly weird in the way things display and how you can (and can't) easily change things.

I wish you luck!
posted by many-things at 4:12 AM on July 17, 2023

Look at Appearance -> Widgets -> and see if there's anything showing posts/etc in the Footer widgets.
posted by wearyaswater at 7:57 AM on July 17, 2023

Response by poster: Sorry for not leaving the URL... it's https://krissjudd.com
posted by The Almighty Mommy Goddess at 2:42 PM on July 17, 2023

Best answer: I can see that it's definitely not a footer (in fact, there's nothing visible defined as a footer in your page template), but the repeating text is a group block. You've got a reusable content block and are including that block where it doesn't belong.

Wordpress started letting you edit the theme using the block editor, and you're using the 2022 theme, which supports this. I'm guessing that's what you've done. But without looking at the admin side, it's hard to be more definitive.

I think that switching to a different theme would fix this. There's probably a way to reset the 2022 theme to its default state—this support thread seems to have the answer.
posted by adamrice at 3:08 PM on July 17, 2023 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Looks like installing a new theme did the trick! Thank you all so much for your help!
posted by The Almighty Mommy Goddess at 3:48 PM on July 17, 2023