I lose post formatting and videos/galleries when changing themes

  • Hi ?? I have a rather large website (450+ posts), and I want a new theme. My problem is that when I change themes, I lose the post formatting, ie. the video formatted posts no longer show the videos, the galleries are gone, etc. Is there a way to change my theme and keep the formatting of the posts? There is no way I can go back to all of those posts and re-add the videos and galleries. Thanks so much in advance ??

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  • Post formats are just meta information that is used by themes to customize the presentation of a post, and themes are not obligued to support all post formats. Even if you find two themes that support the same post formats, it’s very possible that each theme makes its own implementation that is imcompatible with that of other themes.

    Take for example two themes that support the video post format. Theme A stores the url of the video in a meta field called “theme_a_video” and Theme B in a meta field called “theme_b_video_url”. If you change from Theme A to Theme B, Theme B doesn’t know that the video urls are stored in the “theme_a_video” meta field.

    I had this situation once and I solved it by studying how each theme implemented the post format internally and then creating a SQL query that updated all the past instances in the database to work with the new theme.

    • This reply was modified 5 years, 1 month ago by Sandra Sanz.
    • This reply was modified 5 years, 1 month ago by Sandra Sanz.
    Thread Starter Tennis Life Magazine

    (@jenjen65)

    Hi Sandra, thanks for your response ?? I guess I’ll need to do some research, or spend a week or two hunting down all of the videos and recreating galleries. The odd thing about it is that the new theme I want to change to was made by the same developer of the theme I use now. You’d think he would have some continuity there. Oh well…

    Thanks again for your help ??

    Have you tried contacting the theme author about it? As you said, it would make sense that both themes use a similar implementation, so it’s possible that they can help you with the transition.

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