Single Post not calling sidebar or footer suddenly — why?

Have you check validation? Its saying that you’re missing the closing div for page, content and wrapper. It also says that you’re 23 warnings busy.

Let me admit my ignorance. How do I check validation? And what does “23 warnings busy” mean?

I’m sure you’ve pinpointed a problem. Maybe THE problem. But I need a primer on how to validate and what it all means. Can you point me to one?

Thanks,
kwc

Hi Ken –

https://validator.w3.org/ – that’s where to start. And here’s a great “helper” site: https://www.samdevol.com/wordpress-troubleshooting-i-have-to-validate-oh-my/

OK. That’s got me started. 97 errors in 130-some posts…. Phewwww.

And it looks like for some reason that every time I use the “More” function to continue a post on another page, that some code isn’t getting closed right…

It is going to take a lot of time to find all of these and fix them.

Thanks for the tips.

kwc

Tell you what, get most of it sorted, then post back and let us know where you’re at with it.

Lots of times, fixing one thing will clear a bunch of other errors, so don’t hyperventilate!

You’re so right, vkarly.

I’ve only focused on the single-post page errors. And disabling one plug-in corrected 21 of 28 errors. Nice.

Now, I’m still puzzling over the closing divs for page, content and wrapper, as KatGirl pointed out, (Cool screename, by the way.) It also says I’m missing the closing div for body. It points in each case to the last of two closing divs on the page.

What do I need to do? Add four more lines of </div>? Or does each div’s closing div somehow need to be identified as to what it is closing?

Appreciate the instruction because I’m div ignorant.

An example of one of the actual errors cited is:

Error Line 63, column 6: end tag for “div” omitted, but OMITTAG NO was specified .
</div>
You may have neglected to close an element, or perhaps you meant to “self-close” an element, that is, ending it with "/>" instead of ">".

?

Info Line 34, column 0: start tag was here .
<div id="content">

—
Now… what is on line 63 is this: </div>

Is that somehow the wrong form? Or is it just telling me that I need to add a few more of those?

Thanks,
kwc

p.s. UPDATE: I tried both adding four </div>s down at the bottom and when that failed to validate, adding in the order the errors are cited:
</div id="content">
</div id="wrapper">
</div id="page">
</div id="body">

beginning at line 63. That also did not validate. So I’m not at all sure what is needed.

I guess no one is following this any more. I will start a new thread about closing divs and take the current puzzle there.

Thanks,
kwc

The validator still shows 91 errors on your main page… You either have a faulty copy of that theme – or the theme has never been valid (I doubt). Maybe you’ve edited the template files and something got messed up?

Thanks, Moshu. I haven’t started trying to fix the main page yet. I’m still trying to figure out the div closing problem on the single page php.

Something about html that I don’t understand there. How to properly close those four divs.

The main page, interestingly, IS calling the sidebars like the single page should be and used to.

I’m going to tackle the main page errors soon as I get the single page to validate.

What do I need to do to close those four divs?

Thanks,
kwc

Forget the 4 divs and,please, try to answer the questions ??
Does it works properly with the default or classic theme?
Would it work with a copy of your theme that was NOT edited at all by you?

p.s. I wish I could remember editing the template files in the last two weeks. Because I’d go right there an undo whatever I did. But I let this thing sit for most of that time. Was feeling guilty about that, but was swamped with other projects.

Then when I went in to make a post, discovered that the single pages were no longer calling the sidebar. And, per KatGirl’s suggestions, when I started checking validation, discovered an s’load of problems. Trying to tackle ’em one at a time.

I DID do quite a few minor edits in templates months ago, but the site was coming up fine in IE and Firefox with those. Am certain that I could have made some html errors since I’m still 80% in the 1995 dark ages as far as understanding html goes. (It all changed on me when I wasn’t looking sometime around the beginning of the 2000s? And I’m just now beginning to catch up. It’s slower going than I’d like.)

kwc

I haven’t switched templates yet to check. Will try that in a moment.

OK, I’d try this.
Rename your existing theme’s folder to something else on the server and upload a fresh, unaltered copy of the theme (supposedly you have one, since everybody has a backup copy of the files they are working on ??
Then active the new, unedited theme. See if it works or you have the same errors. Then we’ll take it from there.

OK. It didn’t call the sidebar on single posts in Default, but did in Classic. What does that tell you?

OK, I just caught you while trying out other themes: with the default you have only 4 errors on the main page – so it is definitely related to your editing.
I’d start with a new copy of your favourite theme and editing it very cautiously: only one line at a time and always checking for the validation.

EDIT. In default the sidebar is not shown by design!