Header intermittently missing stylesheets and style tags

  • Hi,

    We are experiencing a problem where some essential stackable header code isn’t always added to the header of the homepage. We haven’t observed this problem on other pages. This is the code:

    <link rel='stylesheet' id='ugb-style-css-css'  media='all'/>
            <style id='ugb-style-css-inline-css'>
                :root {
                    --stk-block-width-default-detected: 1290px;
               }
            </style>
            <link rel='stylesheet' id='ugb-style-css-responsive-css'  media='all'/>

    The site is hosted on WPEngine. Every 10 minutes or so when we refresh the homepage the layout is broken and this code is missing from the header. When we clear the WPEngine caches this code is added and the page layout is correct. 10 minutes later the layout is broken again and the code isn’t in the header. We have had a couple of support conversations with WPEngine who say that there isn’t anything wrong with their caching layer and there is something else going on.
    This is a Blocksy based site with WPML.
    Temporarily we have manually added the missing code to the header to solve the problem. This isn’t a good solution though and we are concerned this problem is going to start happening on other pages.
    Thank you for any help you can give us with this.

    The page I need help with: [log in to see the link]

Viewing 12 replies - 1 through 12 (of 12 total)
  • Plugin Support Bernice Chua

    (@bernicechua)

    Hey @hazlitt,

    We appreciate the detailed report!

    Could you please check if you have a bot protection or security plugin that can cause the stylesheet to stop loading?

    Could you also ask WPEngine if, on their end, they have bot protection or security features that can cause this?

    We are asking you to check this because we recently got a report and it was a bot protection solution that was causing the stylesheet to disappear.

    Thank you, we look forward to hearing an update from you!

    Thread Starter Hazlitt

    (@hazlitt)

    Hi @bernicechua,

    Thanks for replying.

    I have been on a support chat with WPEngine about this and they say “We do not have bot protection or security features that can cause this issue.”

    Plugin Support Bernice Chua

    (@bernicechua)

    Hi @hazlitt,

    Thank you for the update.

    Would you be able to send us temporary login details and ftp access to [email protected] so we can further investigate the issue.

    Thank you, we look forward to your email.

    Thread Starter Hazlitt

    (@hazlitt)

    Hi @bernicechua,

    Thank you for requesting login and SFTP details. At the moment we have a technical support ticket open with WPEngine. They are investigating whether there may be an issue with caching on their platform. I will get back in touch if the problem still exists after their investigation is concluded.

    Thanks again for offering to help us with this problem.

    Thread Starter Hazlitt

    (@hazlitt)

    Hi @bernicechua,

    WPEngine concluded their investigation and asked us to get back in touch with you.

    “Hi again,
    Thanks for your patience.
    It appears the issue is definitely with that specific plugin?(Stackable – Gutenberg Blocks). ?When I manually turn it off, it reproduces the same error and currently there is no fatal error in the log that indicates any sort of configuration conflict on the server end.
    Since that plugin seem to be constantly reproducing the error, please reach out to the plugin developer for assistance”

    As requested I have emailed you admin and sftp access to the site.
    Thanks again for helping us.

    Thread Starter Hazlitt

    (@hazlitt)

    Hi @bernicechua,

    Thank you for your email which says:

    “We encountered a similar issue recently which may have something to do with an optimization plugin/settings.

    From what we had seen in a previous issue reported, the stylesheets seemed to be combining into one. If you have that setting turned on, you may want to turn it off since it has a tendency of producing these kinds of errors. You can check also if you’re combining JavaScript files into one also. We see from your list of plugins that you don’t have any performance or optimization plugins installed. Could you please have these optimization settings checked with WP Engine?”

    There aren’t any setting for this in the WPEngine dashboard so I updated our support ticket with them about this and asked them if their platform combines stylesheets and Javascript. They replied as follows:

    “WP Engine itself does not have any settings server side that would combine stylesheets from specific plugins; we also do not combine Javascript however we do see some custom code from the Code Snippets plugin?here, as well as some custom footer/header items that might ‘ignore’ or change how the javascript files are being seen by the Stackable plugin since a portion of its content is the footer area.
    It would be worth re-checking with the plugin developer on this, and potentially disabling the Code Snippets plugin and test to see if that can be ruled out.”

    Before contacting you or WPEngine we tested disabling the Code Snippets plugin and it didn’t make any difference. The intermittent layout bug still occurred.

    Plugin Support Bernice Chua

    (@bernicechua)

    Hi @hazlitt ,?

    Thank you for your update.

    We added something to the plugin in one of our updates that can force the css to always load on the frontend. This is available in version 3.13.2.

    For now, you can add this code to your functions.php:

    add_filter( ‘stackable_force_css_load’, ‘__return_true’ );

    This will force the css to always load on the frontend. We conditionally load the css. If there are no Stackable blocks on the page, the styles will not load. We are not sure if the issue has something to do with this, but if this is the issue, adding this filter might help.

    Thread Starter Hazlitt

    (@hazlitt)

    Hi @bernicechua

    Many thanks for replying. I checked and the website is now using version 3.13.3 of Stackable. I installed it 24 hours ago. We will keep an eye on the site and see if the plugin update has solve the problem.

    Thanks again,

    Thread Starter Hazlitt

    (@hazlitt)

    Hi @bernicechua
    We checked our monitoring and can confirm that installing version 3.13.3 of the plugin did not solve this problem. We are now testing using the ‘add_filter’ code you suggested above.

    Hi there,

    I have exactly the same problem with a site hosted on SpinUp WordPress VPS

    It seem related to cache (Nginx page cache).

    Everything’s fine then xxx hours later, the new cache version don’t output the samestyles.

    I will try the filter, but it’s annoying

    FYI, this bug appeared at least since 13 days / 18 of july

    • This reply was modified 3 months, 3 weeks ago by Reuhno.
    Thread Starter Hazlitt

    (@hazlitt)

    Hi @bernicechua
    I can confirm that adding the filter hook you suggested has solved the intermittent layout but we have been experiencing. Thank you for your help.

    Please can you let us know when this is fixed and released so that we can remove the filter hook code.

    +1

Viewing 12 replies - 1 through 12 (of 12 total)
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