Can't get GoodReviews Shortcode to work

Hello, Intisar.

Several things could be the issue here.

1. When you paste the shortcode onto the page, make sure you’re doing so in HTML mode, not VISUAL mode. This goes for any shortcode that contains characters that might get escaped by the VISUAL editor. Make sure that the shortcode resembles the following:

[goodreviews isbn=”1234567890″]

where 1234567890 is the 10-digit or 13-digit ISBN of the book you want to access on Goodreads.

2. Make sure you’ve ticked the checkbox on the GoodReviews settings page in your WordPress SETTINGS that allows Goodreads to display links on your site. The checkbox is there to comply with www.ads-software.com plugin terms that require the Web site owner’s permission to display “powered by” style links to external sites. Such links are also required by the Goodreads.com Terms of Service. Therefore, if you don’t tick the checkbox, GoodReviews won’t display any information.

3. If you use a caching solution at thornthenovel.com, you might need to purge the cache for the page on which you include the shortcode. That includes purging your browser’s local file cache.

The fact that I’m not seeing anything GoodReviews related (including errors) in the source code of the page you cited makes me think either No. 2 or No. 3 is the most likely cause.

If all else fails, send me the exact shortcode you’re using and I’ll test it on my end. I should add that I tested the following shortcode on my own site and received data back for THORN.

[goodreviews isbn=”9781470181338″]

Hope this helps! Thanks and let me know if I can be of further assistance.

James

Hi James –

Thanks for these suggestions. I went through all of them, but still can’t get the goodreviews shortcode to work. I must be missing something simple, since you haven’t had any trouble! Specifically:

1. I repasted the code into the HTML editor for the page, including the isbn number (I even tried using the exact shortcode you put in above)

2. I had already checked off the appropriate checkbox to allow the “powered by” language that’s required. (I went back and double-checked it to be sure.)

3. I cleared my browser’s cache (I’m using Safari, so I went to “Reset Safari” and cleared everything, quit and relaunched). I also went to my website’s admin panel, but it doesn’t look like I have any auto-caching or cache files set up. According to their support forums (I’m using inmotion hosting, and the website’s admin panel is cPanel), I won’t have auto-caching set up unless I use a different admin panel. I went through cPanel and couldn’t find anything that looked remotely related to caching.

Is there a chance that the theme I’m using won’t allow it? It didn’t seem likely since this is a relatively new theme released by WP, but I thought I’d ask.

Any other suggestions on how to approach this would be greatly appreciated. Thanks much!

Intisar

Hi, Intisar.

Ok, based on the information above, my next suggestion would be to determine whether your particular hosting environment supports PHP’s cURL functionality or whether you need to use file_get_contents. Typically, you’ll see a PHP error on your if GoodReviews is operating in cURL mode and cURL is not supported by your provider. However, it’s also possible that your WordPress/PHP configuration suppresses PHP errors.

If you can’t determine whether your host supports cURL, you can try ticking the file_get_contents checkbox on the GoodReviews settings page and see if it suddenly begins working.

There shouldn’t be anything about your theme that would prevent GoodReviews from working. However, if the cURL/file_get_contents idea doesn’t fix things I will configure my test environment with the theme you’re using and see if I can reproduce the problem.

Thanks and let me know what happens.

James

P.S. Also, double-check your Goodreads.com API key on the settings page. I just checked your HTML source code again and saw the error: “GoodReviews is not properly configured.” This usually indicates a problem with the API key.

How many characters is the key and are there any extraneous spaces in the API key field?

My apologies for the multiple replies. I have one more update.

After I reviewed your page last night, I discovered a bug in GoodReviews that could prevent some Goodreads developer keys from working with the plugin. I have updated GoodReviews to fix that issue. The latest version as of this writing is 1.0.1.

So, before you try anything else in the above replies, try updating your copy of GoodReviews to the latest version. If that doesn’t work, double-check your API key.

Thanks, and let me know how it goes.

Updating the plug-in worked! Thanks so much, James. (I also feel relieved that for once it wasn’t my computer “skills” that caused the challenge. ?? )

Thanks again for putting so much time and energy into this. I really appreciate it!

Best,

Intisar

Hi, Instisar.

Happy to help! Thank you for helping me pinpoint the bug.

If you’re good to go, please mark this ticket as resolved.

Thanks for using GoodReviews!

James