The editor has encountered an unexpected error. Attempt Recovery Copy Post Text

@monica5 Could you check which version of WordPress you’re using? It should be in the footer of most dashboard pages, or also on the Site Health page in the Tools menu.

@talldanwp Thanks, I’m using the latest available – I believe Gutenberg has an issue with the upgrade to 5.8 – when is a patch planned please as I know anecdotally quite a few people are suffering with this, and can’t use Gutenberg at the moment ??
WordPress 5.8
PhP 7.4.21
mySQL ver 5.7.32-35

@monica5 Investigation and diagnosis is the first step, there’s no way to release a fix without knowing what the cause of your problem is. Unfortunately in this case the error message is just a general one.

As this problem isn’t happening for WordPress installs with only Gutenberg installed, it’s most likely to be a result of and incompatibility between the changes in WordPress 5.8 and either your theme or a plugin.

It’d be worth checking to see if your theme has any updates, I saw another user updated their theme and it resolved an issue with the post editor not working.

If that doesn’t work, or the theme doesn’t have updates, please could you try installing the classic widgets plugin:
https://www.ads-software.com/plugins/classic-widgets/

Let me know whether either of those steps work.

@talldanwp Thank you – I’m sharing all the diagnostic information that Gutenberg, other tools and hosting provides. As specific as it gets.
I’m a WordPress install with Gutenberg only (the only editing-publishing plugin), and this error message has appeared when I was both on WordPress 5.7, and on 5.8. It has also appeared regardless of any of the latest three Gutenberg versions. It has also been appearing while before updating Astra and Astra Pro to their latest versions.
In other words, the issue is independent of going 2-3 rollbacks into the past in any of the relevant plugins, and I’m nowhere messing up with Gutenberg JS executions.
I’ve intentionally chosen 2 greatest penetration solutions to have IT stuff working smoothly – Gutenberg and Astra.
I’ve tried all the easy tricks and diagnoses, going methodically to the past updates.
Please, I need the block editor to work in such a lightweight site that I have.
Perhaps your colleagues could share with me a diagnostic Gutenberg patch that will feed you more information, beyond everything available already?

As for https://www.ads-software.com/plugins/classic-widgets/ , I’m not even using any widget areas in my site’s design. There is nothing for Gutenberg to manage there. I’m as lightweight as can be, not finetuning any widget settings. No Astra flashy tuning either, only basic Gutenberg blocks used…
I specifically opted for that so as not to introduce any complexity…

this error message has appeared when I was both on WordPress 5.7, and on 5.8. It has also appeared regardless of any of the latest three Gutenberg versions. It has also been appearing while before updating Astra and Astra Pro to their latest versions.

That’s the first time you’ve shared this information. If it’s happening regardless of WordPress or Gutenberg version, then it’s most likely to be an incompatibility with another plugin.

I’ve already suggested that you try disabling plugins and re-enabling plugins one-by-one to try to determine whether another plugin might be causing the issue. That’s still the best suggestion I have.

As for https://www.ads-software.com/plugins/classic-widgets/ , I’m not even using any widget areas in my site’s design.

I have no way of knowing that, I provided the suggestion based on what seemed to work for someone else. It’s a very harmless thing to try, you can remove the plugin if it has no effect.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 4 months ago by Daniel Richards.

Thanks @talldanwp

1) If I’m not mistaken, I wrote earlier that this error is appearing irrespective of WordPress, Gutenberg, or other usual suspect plugins.
Rest assured, I’ve spend hours troubleshooting, turning on/off usual / latest updated plugins – all to no avail.
I’ve also written that after a few days’ break when I signed into wp-admin again so as to create / edit new post, the Gutenberg error appeared out of the blue, out of the blue. That means no plugin conflict as my array of plugins installed and activated has been stable for approximately 3 months.

2) Sure, thanks for your Classic Widgets suggestion. Now it’s clear – I really employ simple, lightweight and broadly used theme & plugin & setup solutions, precisely not to run into similar conflicts such as this Gutenberg one.

I’m afraid we have to look elsewhere for solution, now that you know that plugin on/off diagnostics has no effect and the Gutenberg & my hosting error messages point single-handedly to Gutenberg as the source of the issue.

What else can you suggest please?

I really depend upon you, as the only thing that changed, was Gutenberg performance.
Suddenly broken, impossible to use.
I’ve even done away with all the Gutenberg extensions such as Ultimate Addons etc.
Please, I need Gutenberg to work again as no amount of possibly coincident changes matters.

@talldanwp let me come back to the Gutenberg error message, that starts with “Error: Failed to execute ‘removeChild’ on ‘Node’: The node to be removed is not a child of this node.”

Brief search results that might inspire you, revolves around coding what Gutenberg actually executes – doing away with analogical requests might solve the error, which was why I had been asking about when a fresh Gutenberg release is planned:

https://tahoeninjas.blog/2020/06/29/data-interception/
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/42956884/failed-to-execute-removechild-on-node
https://kodlogs.com/33894/failed-to-execute-removechild-on-node-the-node-to-be-removed-is-not-a-child-of-this-node

@monica5 The error is just a general error. It’s caused by something modifying the HMTL of the editor. Gutenberg expects the HTML markup to be one thing (a node to have a child element that can be removed), but something has caused part of the HTML to be different (the node doesn’t have a corresponding child element that can be removed, it was modified unexpectedly). The error doesn’t hint at the cause though, just that something unexpected happen.

The error doesn’t happen on a clean WordPress installation with Gutenberg installed (with the versions you’ve mentioned), so my best guess is that something else is causing the issue with your site.

This is why I am recommending deactivating your plugins. You might think that if a plugin hasn’t been updated, it couldn’t be causing the problem, but that isn’t true. If a plugin was manipulating the HTML of the page all along, it might be only a recent change to something (either in WordPress, Gutenberg, or even something as small as a setting) that triggered the issue.

If your host supports creating staging versions of your site, then I’d recommend using that functionality and experimenting with deactivating plugins on your staging service to be safe.

@talldanwp Thanks for the detailed reply.

I’m a Gutenberg fan, and want by no means to give up the plugin. As said, Astra with Gutenberg is the best solution.
I don’t have staging website troubleshooting opportunities, yet went to the extra hassle to recover files, folders and databases, which is the only realistic option my hosting offers. Besides, with the array of paid plugins I use, staging website or subdomain creation aren’t ways to go – I would not be able to see them functioning elsewhere besides the live site.
So, I went to the great trouble of destroying my site one plugin at a time, hoping to recover to an earlier status – this is exceptional effort that I can’t really repeat.
I threfore hope it will help you produce a patch that deals with this error that appears both for posts and pages. Any editing screen call up of these triggers that error.
I went deactivating plugins one by one – except for Astra Pro, which is on one hand a plugin but on the other hand a theme too (Astra and Astra Pro are my themes combined thus) – server cache purged every single time, and can say that the findings are…

I deactivated all MonsterInsights plugins used (MonsterInsights Pro, MonsterInsights AMP Addon, MonsterInsights EU Compliance, MonsterInsights Page Insights Addon), and the Gutenberg error disappeared. Activating these 4 (it’s a paid plugin) all back at the same time, did recreate the error, so that’s where the culprit is.

I deactivated MonsterInsights AMP Addon = the Gutenberg error is there.
I deactivated MonsterInsights EU Compliance = the Gutenberg error doesn’t appear anymore. So, it’s this one of them all, because when I activate MonsterInsights AMP Addon back on, and have thus MonsterInsights AMP Addon, MonsterInsights Page Insights on, and MonsterInsights Pro as well, the Gutenberg error doesn’t appear.

Really perplexing, it shouldn’t be happening because very site with EU visitors needs to take care of GDPR, which is what EU Compliance addon is about. Provided by again the market leader in these solutions, MonsterInsights.

But that’s the way it is, the culprit turning the error on, is MonsterInsights EU Compliance…

What are the next steps Daniel? Would I be able to use Gutenberg again tomorrow, or what to expect please?

Thank you.

@monica5 Great job troubleshooting to figure out which plugin was causing the issue. I couldn’t see the MonsterInsights EU Compliance plugin in the plugin directory:
https://www.ads-software.com/plugins/search/MonsterInsights/

Is that something you pay for? If so, then your best option would be to reach out to MonsterInsights support team for assistance from this point forwards.

The website seems to have a support link:
https://www.monsterinsights.com/

@talldanwp MonsterInsights Pro is a paid plugin, with which come the other addons (available after paying for the main, Pro, plugin).
That could work in theory and I can try that – in practice though I believe you (Gutenberg) should reach out to them – as you know precisely from the IT point of view what needs to be done – and request that certain coding changes be made in the EU compliance addon.
Much stronger proposition than me telling that these two plugins are clashing… after all, EU compliance plugin is working fine from their point of view.
Please help me in reaching out to them directly you yourself too.
Thanks for letting me know you could do that.

I started a support thread there too:
https://www.ads-software.com/support/topic/monsterinsights-eu-compliance-addon-conflict-with-gutenberg/#new-topic-0
Please coordinate with them as to what needs to be done, thanks

@talldanwp
Bad news!
I signed on into my site, hoping to get a little done with Gutenberg by deactivating MonsterInsights EU Compliance addon – but the error (that wasn’t present there yesterday) reappeared. Purging caches, deactivating all of MonsterInsights = no help, the error is still there, again.
How can it be that one day MonsterInsights EU Compliance addon is the culprit, and the other day not? I vouch 100% for yesterday’s troubleshooting results, and am ready to provide over email list of plugins installed, free and paid.
In the meantime, I have not updated anything on my site…
How can it be solved please?