Display Widget does not save

To confirm you mean the Display Widgets Options (like the hide/show options) aren’t saving rather than widgets generally aren’t saving. If it’s widgets generally not saving (like adding some text to a text widget doesn’t work) it’s unlikely to be the Display Widgets plugin: there’s lots of things that can mess up the widgets area. For example a few months back I upgraded to a new server, everything seemed to be working fine other than on multisite WordPress installations I couldn’t open widget areas at all! Tracked it down to forgetting to increase the memory limit on the new server, WordPress was running out of memory on the multisite installations, so I couldn’t work with widgets at all (simple increase in memory fixed the problem).

Anyway, assuming it’s the Display Widgets options not saving…

Nothing obvious comes to mind.

I’m afraid it’s general advice to track down problems that could suggest a conflict with the theme or another plugin. WordPress users tend to update the WordPress version and themes/plugins at the same time, so could be an updated theme/plugin causing a conflict rather than the WordPress update per se.

Try one of the default themes – this rules out a theme conflict if you experience the same issue while using say the TwentySixteen it’s not a theme specific issue.

Disable plugins one by one – rules out a plugin conflict.

Try a different browser (Firefox, Chrome) – rules out a browser specific issue.

If you have access to your sites log files, try accessing the Widgets area then check your logs for errors that might suggest an issue to troubleshoot (how I found the memory issue mentioned above).

Good luck.

David

Hi, I updated yeasterday from Display widget to Display widget seo plus, and I’m having now EXACTLY the same issue as described in this thread. And I can tell that the issue is 100% caused by Display widget seo plus.

Out of curiosity, are you using WP HyperDB? If so, this could be the culprit (since it connects to the database, it could prevent any widget update from the admin side).

I deactivated Display widget seo plus, and the problem doesn’t go away. I would like to revert to Display widget but the plugin does not exist anymore. Great…

You should look into this ASAP, as this problem is very probably caused by Display widget seo plus.

Ok, I discovered that this bug was caused (widget doesn’t save) by an Hexadecimal HTML Entity. I use an emoji in some of my widgets (lock icon) to indicate locked content. Once the code of the Hexadecimal HTML Entity inserted in the widget, it changes into the icon, and renders the widget uneditable. To edit it, I simply had to delete the icon, modify the content of the widget, reinsert the Hexadecimal HTML code, and save. It worked.

@nikkoboy

Before I read your second post I would have responded with if the issue remains after deactivating Display Widgets SEO Plus I can’t see how the plugin would cause the not saving widgets issue and would have given the same advice I gave to @madhumurthy about troubleshooting other plugin/theme issues.

I’m not familiar with locked widgets, is that a plugin/theme feature? If it is a theme/plugin feature sounds like it’s working as it should, stops you changing** widgets you’ve marked as locked.

** The Display Widgets options are saved along with the other widget options, so if you are running a theme/plugin feature to stop widgets from being changed the display widgets options wouldn’t save: so if I’ve understood things correctly it isn’t a bug, it’s a feature working as expected.

Locking widgets sounds like a useful feature, will have to look into that.

David