Happenstance Child Theme

WordPress considers the child theme to be a different theme, so when you switch to the child theme, you’ll have to reassign the custom background image, menus, and widgets, just like you did when you originally began using the parent theme.

Thank you very much for your reply. What exactly do you mean by reassign? For example, if I go to the menu, everything looks like it is set up properly. If I save it, nothing changes. I believe the custom menu is a feature of Happenstance. How do I reassign it?

Is the menu assigned to the proper location in the Manage Locations tab (Dashboard > Appearance > Menus > Manage Locations)?

Thank you so very much. I had overlooked that. Menus are now working. And, I can re-install the background image. However, the widgets are hopelessly mangled. The wrong widgets are scattered among the different areas. I do have Jetpack Widget Visibility installed and I’m using it in the right sidebar. Is that an issue?

If you temporarily switch back to the parent theme, do the widgets appear correctly? Can you verify that the visibility settings for widgets in the child theme are set correctly?

You may also wish to post this question at the Jetpack support forum: https://www.ads-software.com/support/plugin/jetpack

I want to thank you again. Yes, if I switch back to the parent theme, the widgets are all correct. Um, no, I can’t verify the visibility setting in the child theme because the widgets are completely scrambled. A couple of the widgets from the the sidebar (which has some missing) are repeated in the footer widget sections over and over again. None of them have visibility settings applied. It is obvious that the data is not being pulled correctly from the database.

I have disabled Jetpack Visibility prior to activating the child theme, but this also had no effect.

If you go to Dashboard > Appearance > Widgets, do the widgets appear under the appropriate panels (Right Sidebar, Footer left widget area, etc.)? Are you able to drag widgets to and from those panels?

No, the widgets do not appear under the appropriate panels. That is the problem. Yes, I am able to drag widgets to and from the panels. I could probably delete all the widgets from the panels and start over again rebuilding them from scratch. But, that would be a rather large undertaking since there are about a dozen or so different widgets set up. Most of them are in the footer (all of which are lost) and appear on every page.

Ah, I misunderstood a previous post. Unfortunately, yes you do have to reassign widgets to their proper locations because WordPress considers the child theme to be a different theme.

Okay. Thank you very much for all your assistance. Seems strange to me that the child theme can’t be loaded with the proper widgets taken from the parent theme. But, what seems really hokey is that it misloads them and breaks the website. Seems it would be much better to just leave the panels empty.

In any event, I guess once a website is developed, it’s really too late to add a child theme. I guess the proper way is to create the child theme as soon as one loads the parent theme, and then develop the website in the child. Is that correct?

I can’t reproduce your primary issue, unfortunately; when I created a Happenstance child theme, there were no misloaded widgets on my local WP install.

In general, the longer you wait to create a child theme, the more work you’ll usually have to do. It’s best to create a child theme as early as possible if you know you’ll need one.

I can’t reproduce your primary issue, unfortunately; when I created a Happenstance child theme, there were no misloaded widgets on my local WP install.

In general, the longer you wait to create a child theme, the more work you’ll usually have to do. It’s best to create a child theme as early as possible if you know you’ll need one.

I can’t reproduce your primary issue, unfortunately; when I created a Happenstance child theme, there were no misloaded widgets on my local WP install.

In general, the longer you wait to create a child theme, the more work you’ll usually have to do. It’s best to create a child theme as early as possible if you know you’ll need one.

Well, I guess it might be (probably is) some other plugin breaking it. Thanks again. I really do appreciate all your help.

Thanks again. I really do appreciate all of your help.