Admin Bar Missing on front end Divi Sites

I created a new WordPress site, added just Divi and LiteSpeed Cache, enabled ESI and all was working OK.

However, I then went into Divi Theme Builder and added a Global Header – this now causes the admin bar to vanish. Removing the Global header restores the admin bar. The same happens if I add a global footer. It looks like the problem is some incompatibility between LScache and Divi Theme Builder.

Tracing through the code in src/esi.cls.php I can see that the output from the function sub_esi_block (line 468) is an ESI include of the form:

<!-- lscwp adminbar --><esi:include src='/nls/?lsesi=admin-bar&esi=eyJyZWYiOiJcL25sc1wvIn0%3D&_hash=52cd15984d7d16149e13d8ddd780de51' cache-control='private,no-vary' /><!-- lscwp adminbar esi end -->

If I go to the source URL I can see the information for the admin bar, but none of this appears on the rendered page if we are using Divi Theme Builder – it appears that the tags are being removed.

All my WordPress / Divi sites that do not use the Theme Builder are running fine.

Ok, so I figured out the issue and have set up a staging site to replicate the problem. It only happens on Divi sites with a Theme Builder Global Header. Here’s how to reproduce the problem:

• Install LiteSpeed and enable ESI
• Install Divi theme and use the Theme Builder to create a Global Header with anything in it.

After doing the above, visit the frontend of the website and the top admin bar will disappear after refreshing the page.

The issue appears to somehow be related to the way that Divi executes and outputs the “wp_body_open” action in relation to the Theme Builder, perhaps to keep “wp_body_open” output from messing up a Global Header template. So when LiteSpeed Cache added the following line of code, it caused the admin bar ESI block to generate early but then it never gets added to the page:

add_action('wp_body_open', array($this, 'sub_admin_bar_block'), 0);

On all Divi pages with a Theme Builder, the admin bar code seems to output in the footer of the page using “wp_footer”. However, with ESI enabled, the admin bar code is now not placed there because $this->admin_rendered becomes true when the “wp_body_open” action is run.

@robertstaddon thank for your time and effort on this.

Isnt it sad when we have to do the debug and testing for the plugin developers!

Can confirm using a global header / footer in the Divi Theme Builder on a test site causes the admin bar to dissapear on the front end.

@litetim no there are no plugins installed that maniuplate the admin bar causing the issue it is the LS Cache plugin update that is causing the problem with the admin bar missing for sites that have headers and footers built in the Divi theme builder.

Now that we have ascertained the steps to re-create the problem will LS Cache actually do something to fix it?

@thyran there were 2 attempts from LSC team to debug and reproduce the error: me and @qtwrk
We did not dismissed your problem, we just not were able to get the problem appear.
And remember the plugin is free ?? everyone is free on helping us doing it better.

Thank you for helping us identify the problem.
I was able to reproduce the error, as you suggestion, and I will work on finding a fix

@litetim pointing to other plugins as the problem or other areas instead of investigating what could be causing the issue in the LS Cache plugin makes us feel like the problem is being dismissed.

The endless issues we have with the plugin and the Divi theme and the countless hours we have wasted adding exclusions and tweaking settings to prevent the plugin causing conflicts is no longer worthwhile using the free plugin.

Only reason we use it is because it is free and gets deployed WordPress installations on litespeed servers. If it werent for the database optimisation tool I would be using other free plugins for site caching.

The fact that ESI needs to be enabled for the Divi contact forms to work and the copious amount of hours I spend with LS Support to identify this issue while our clients lost valuable enquiries can never be recovered.

It seems the developers are more focused at providing compatibilty with the Elmentor theme at the expense creating incompatibilities with the Divi theme.

I guess you get what you pay for and its time to look for alternate paid for solutions so we dont have to waste our time fixing continous problem with this free version.

It is a pity but I guess all good things must come to an end.

we apologize for the inconvenience

it’s not like we take one plugin’s compatibility over another , it’s more like when it was reported and for this particular case, it turns out a compatibility fix for one plugin that unexpectedly breaks the compatibility for another plugin ??

we have tried to reproduce the issue with basic set up, admittedly , in certain cases, we don’t have much knowledge about other plugin involved more than actual users do , I mean , a plugin could have dozens different options or features, and unfortunately it would be bit of unrealistic that we can get to check learn and test every feature, every option that other plugin offers

Thank you, @thyran, for helping report this issue and @litetim and @qtwrk for trying to help replicate it. And @stefanr wins the prize for being the first to really pinpoint it in a replicatable way.

So my question is what would be the best next step. Should I email LiteSpeed support with login credentials to my dev site? Or hop on the developer Slack channel? Or submit an issue on the LiteSpeed GitHub?

as we have a method to reproduce (big thanks for everyone), our dev is already working on fix

That’s great to hear @qtwrk ! Thank you!

please try this PR , on my test with global header/footer , the admin bar still works properly

Thanks for the report. The issue should have been fixed in latest dev branch. It will be in v6.5 release. Please have a check and let us know. Thx

Thank you @hailite ! I just installed the dev branch and it worked beautifully. Looking forward to the v6.5 release!

Hi @hailite @qtwrk

Any idea when 6.5 will be released officially? Need to give our Divi site clients some indication as to when they can expect to see the admin bar on the front end again.

Will take a considerable amount of time to disable all the feautres of LS Cache to get it back only to re-enable it once the new version is released and wandering if I need to do this in the interim

Thank you

I don’t have exact or definitive timeline for this , but we expect it to be next week

Hi @qtwrk , we don’t use Divi or Elementor and the patch in version 6.5 didn’t help us. Users (except the administrator) still do not see the bars. ??