michael3502

@hikinmike and @huntnyc — Thank you for your confirmation that you have working embedded videos with WP 5.5 and the latest Sermon Manager Version. That means there is hope that the issue is elsewhere, the question is now how to isolate the cause.

1) I tried your suggestion of disabling all the plugins except the SM plugin after updating it to 2.16.3, unfortunately this did not resolve the problem as it did for huntnyc.

2) Mike suggested that I might have an incompatible theme and to try a wordpress theme – the Church theme I use is available for free in the WP Theme repository which had its latest update in January 2020 so it is not very old. While it is possible it is a theme problem, I am not sure how to test that without possibly messing up my files.

Thank you for the input you gave me.

@mike Matenkosky – you report that you are having no problems with WP 5.5.1 and SM 2.16.3. Are you using embedded videos in your sermon pages? I have heard reports of people who are not experiencing problems with the updates, but I have not seen anyone that confirms they are using embedded videos which many have reported as problematic since WP 5.5 came out.

@everyone else, I do suggest registering with the new support channel in FB groups: https://www.facebook.com/groups/wpforchurch/ which is where it seems there is more current support activity for both the free and pro versions of SM. It costs nothing to register and gives occasional access to what appears to be the new SM free repository dropbox system outside of the WordPress free SM plugin repository.

FYI the WordPress free SM plugin page does have a download button (i.e. https://www.ads-software.com/plugins/sermon-manager-for-wordpress/advanced/ which only gives you access to the current version – i.e. 2.16.3 or at the bottom of the page in archives – all versions up to 2.15.15 and earlier but none others since).

As for the new dropbox repository system, for example the plugin maintainers have posted, with public access to dropbox, the last version many have reported to still work with WordPress 5.5 that being the SM free version 2.15.17 (https://www.dropbox.com/s/2wlbl929fcqtnzv/sermon-manager-for-wordpress.zip) and also, though reportedly problematic for others, the SM free version 2.16.1 (https://www.dropbox.com/s/iodkpnnqh4tpu09/sermon-manager-for-wordpress.zip).

Probably other versions are also available if one can find the correct link. In any case these versions may be useful for those who do not have access to the repositories for the paid version of SM Pro.

PS: For access to the knowledge database for the SM plugin created by WPfor Church, try the following pages:
– Getting Started with SM:
https://wpforchurch.com/my/knowledgebase/72/Getting-Started-with-Sermon-Manager-for-WordPress.html
– Shortcodes for SM:
https://wpforchurch.com/my/knowledgebase/75/Sermon-Manager-Shortcodes.html
– Troubleshooting SM:
https://wpforchurch.com/my/knowledgebase/67/Troubleshooting-Sermon-Manager.html
– in fact there are 12 articles altogether listed here:
https://wpforchurch.com/my/knowledgebase/12/Sermon-Manager

I hope this helps some in basic troubleshooting, (i.e. short of digging down into the problematic code as a few other posters elsewhere have done with some but not complete success).

More information regarding this bug:

1) I see that the earliest report of this problem was with the update to version 2.15.18 back on August 7th 2020 (https://github.com/WP-for-Church/Sermon-Manager/issues/276) and was reported.

2) After a change to new ownership announced back in June 2019 (https://www.facebook.com/wpforchurch/posts/2316487065101605) the old GitHub repository has not been updated from version 2.15.15 (some 8 version ago). Moreover, no new official repository for the free version plugin has been announced as far as I can tell outside of the trac WordPress logs: https://plugins.trac.www.ads-software.com/browser/sermon-manager-for-wordpress/). The GitHub changelog was last changed back with version 2.13 – ages ago.
Does this mean that the new owners have minimal interest in support for the free version over the pro version? I see virtually barely any responses at all to ticket requests on GitHub by the new owners.

3) The old Sermon Plug page on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/wpforchurch) has remained virtually untouched since the ownership change accept for the announcement a year ago and a note that they are moving to a new private Facebook page one must subscribe to: (https://www.facebook.com/groups/wpforchurch/). Moving things out of the public sphere to the private sphere is suggestive.

4) The WP free version page indicates that the plugin has only been tested up to WordPress version 5.4.2. The WordPress 5.5 update was released on August 11, 2020, (https://codex.www.ads-software.com/Current_events) perhaps when this bug appeared even though the Sermon Manager plugin was reportedly updated to version 2.16.0 to make it compatible with WordPress 5.5 (see the plugin changelog https://www.ads-software.com/plugins/sermon-manager-for-wordpress/#developers). I am absolutely not sure therefore that the plugin is actually compatible with the WordPress 5.5 update, in a ‘tested’ sense.

I have been gone for three weeks and had not noticed that the sermon pages were no longer showing either the embedded videos or the descriptions. I assume an update (currently 2.16.2) broke the code somehow. I found that by using my hosting services file manager to delete the plugin’s folder for sermon manager for wordpress, I was able to upload an archive copy of the 2.15.17 version of the sermon manager plugin and now everything is working correctly. If you do not have an archive copy available in your own backups, then the 2.15.15 version is available for download on the WordPress page for the free version of the plugin:
https://www.ads-software.com/plugins/sermon-manager-for-wordpress/advanced/
or alternatively you may be lucky with the 2.16.1 version that WP for Church provides in their drop box:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/iodkpnnqh4tpu09/sermon-manager-for-wordpress.zip?dl=0&file_subpath=%2Fsermon-manager-for-wordpress

I have not tried rolling back to 2.16.1 yet as I just want it working and if it breaks again with 2.16.1, I will feel frustrated, so for now I will just not update this plugin until a future update that I may try to see if the 2.16 series is finally stable and mature, something it does not seem to be today.

Michael

I noticed three further bugs with the new code for NextGen after version 3.0.8

After updating to 3.1.4 I noticed that
1) There is a 40px and 50px ?required padding around the slider that has repositioned text in unwanted places.
2) A plugin we use called Sticky Popup stopped working on the page with the sliders.
3) An old code default setting of slider width of 600px that had originally defaulted to the 240px image has now enforced the 600px width displacing the sliders 600px and off the page.

Sigh. I rolled back our site to the previous version and will not upgrade the Nextgen plugin until issues are resolved.

Update – following Imagely’s advice, I posted a bug report about the interval parameter problem (only recognizing the first interval parameter) and blank image problem at the end of a slideshow before restarting) on a page with multiple NextGen Slideshows, and after examining the particulars, Imagely said that they were able to replicate the bug. The bug has been elevated to medium to high and sent to developers to work on for a future release. We await with impatience.

– Michael

I am not able to get multiple nextgen slideshows operating at different intervals. They all seem to work on the interval settings of the first slideshow, regardless of a different interval setting for successive slideshows on the same page.

I also have the problem that when the slideshow gets to the end of its pictures it displays a blank nothing blank non-existent “image” for a normal interval before restarting.

I am using Version 3.0.16 of NextGen. With 3.0.8 I could set different intervals and I did not have a blank “image” at the end before restarting. How can I restore this functionality without having to downgrade?

– Michael

@imagely – Becky,

Well to be honest, on one website the update to 3.0.9 broke the code of the slideshow settings. So after unsuccessfully trying to resolve the issues, I rolled back to the previous version: 3.0.8. On another website where I also use your plugin, an update to 3.0.13 which is a later version but not the latest, worked as expected so maybe the issues have been resolved. I have not tried this on the first website yet, so I will have to let you know.

Thank you for your interest,
Michael