Polylang makes my Widget Backend unmanageable

I don’t have such issue. So that’s most probably due to a conflict. Since you already identified that Polylang was one of the conflict source, I suggest to find the other one. De-activate all your plugins except Polylang and switch to a default theme such as twenty twelve. Then switch back to your theme and activate all your plugins one by one.

Thanks! OK, well, it’s a conflict between Polylang and Display Widgets. If Polylang is deactivated and Display Widgets is activated and vice versa, my widget page is manageable… ugh, I need both plugins though. Any further suggestions?

Hi!

I just tried the combination WP 3.9 + Polylang 1.4.5 + Display widgets 2.03 and did not reproduce your issue.

Could you update if it’s not already done?

Otherwise you can try this. In wp-config.php, replace:

define('WP_DEBUG', false);

by

define('WP_DEBUG', true);
define('SCRIPT_DEBUG', true);
define('WP_DEBUG_LOG', true);
define('WP_DEBUG_DISPLAY', false);

Then go on your widgets page.
Then go look in wp-content directory, there should be a file called debug.log with error messages in it. Please report these errors.

Thanks! Both plugins were/are updated and activated… I use the Fresh and Clean Theme, not sure if that has anything to do with it…

Very well explained, thank you for that and I did everything stated above – correctly, believe me, but I cannot find the debug.log file. I searched everywhere, but to no avail… I have a debug.js, easyXDM.debug.js and debug.class.php, but no debug.log… It didn’t spit it out, sigh…

Thanks for sticking this out with me and sorry for late responses, I’m on a different time zone…

debug.log should be directly in your “wp-content” directory. Is it writeable? I don’t know about the other files you mentionned.

If you still do not succeed to get this debug.log file, just try with:

define('WP_DEBUG', true);

The errors should be displayed on the screens (except for ajax calls).

hhmm, tried that, still no file…

I’m not sure what this means: ‘The errors should be displayed on the screens (except for ajax calls).” There are no error msgs. on my widgets page if that’s what you mean…

Is debug.log hidden somewhere in the wp-content directory or should it be a single file directly in the wp-content folder?

Before I downloaded every file and searched locally because I can’t (or don’t know how to) search in filezilla, but I don’t want to have to do that every single time I make a small change…

Thanks again…

I’m not sure what this means: ‘The errors should be displayed on the screens (except for ajax calls).” There are no error msgs. on my widgets page if that’s what you mean…

That was exactly what I meant.

debug.log is a single file directly in the wp-content folder.
It is created if you use the 4 lines above. It avoids displaying the errors on the screen which is rather ugly.

Where did you put those 4 lines ? In wp-config.php in replacement for

define('WP_DEBUG', false);

which should be *above* the comment

/* That's all, stop editing! Happy blogging. */

Did you check the read/write permissions of your wp-content directory?

Yup, I replaced the ‘false’ command with the 4 lines, then just the one ‘true’ command right above /* That’s all, stop editing! Happy blogging. */

I don’t know how to check for permissions, but I’ve been editing files from that directory since day one (my theme is in there), so there shouldn’t be a problem with that issue… How can I double check permissions?

With a right click on the folder name in filezilla.

well that couldn’t have been easier, but as suspected, I can do anything and everything in that folder…

Are we stuck now?

I guess I can improvise and when I need to work on my widgets, I’ll just deactivate polylang, work on the widgets page and activate the plugin again afterwards…

Maybe at some point one of the plugin updates will alleviate the problem… If not, I can always look for another language plugin, I just don’t want to at this point…

Thanks for all your help. If you think of anything else, please let me know. I’ll leave this topic as ‘not resolved’…

It’s true that I don’t understand why the debug mode does not work for your site. That’s the first time I see that.

Maybe you should try to setup a local copy of your install. If for some reasons I ignore, your host provider does not allow the debug mode, then you should be able to enable it on a local install.

I did get this error msg. on all my posts: Notice: Undefined variable: category, so it did spit out something, just not where I needed it too. I guess this means that my host provider does allow the debug mode, right?

Sure. You are right. If you see notices on your screen, it means that debug mode is ok. Unfortunately, in your case, it does not help.

I intentionnally created an error in a widget. And the error message is never displayed on screen when setting WP_DEBUG to true. It is visible only on debug.log file when adding the 4 lines in wp-config.php.

I have no idea why you do not succeed to get this debug.log file in wp-content directory. That’s why I suggested to setup a local install.

Maybe the php errors are logged in another file. Maybe your host can help you to know that.