Category colors not saved

can I know what is your current EM version and do you have any custom EM function or code?

EM 5.5.5, with no customizations.

I have tried disabling all other plugins, as well as changing themes

Just to clarify: Did you try with all other plugins deactivated and while running the default WordPress theme at the same time? Thanks.

That is correct; active theme set to “Twenty Fifteen”, and all plugins except EM deactivated. One thing I noticed that escaped my attention before is that after selecting an event category, changing the Calendar Color value and clicking “Update”, the status at the top says “Item Not Updated”. Is that a clue?

sorry but this works on my test sites and that might be a clue but are you using any custom codes?

I don’t think so. I’ve created a bare test site with nothing but EM installed, and changing the Calendar Color works as expected. I’m going to clone my production site, verify that I can repro the problem, and then start uninstalling plugins until I’m down to the smallest possible configuration that can duplicate the problem. From there, I’ll compare that with my test site to see what’s different.

Ok, let us know how you get on. Which version of WP FullCalendar are you using?

The latest, 0.8.4 I think.

I’ve tried creating some new categories. Changing the Calendar Color works on some, but not others. I’m at a loss to explain why.

hmm, that’s weird; can I know what do you mean by works on some?

Just that. I can change the Calendar Color on some categories, but doing so on others result in the “value not saved” message.

At this point, I’ve taken a clone of my production site and stripped it down to the equivalent of my minimal (fresh WP install + EM only) test site. I’ve made the directory tree of the “clone” site identical to that of the minimal test site, and the problem persists. This suggests that there must be some value in the database causing the problem. I have a program that compares databases table-by-table, and will attempt to use it to determine what value is causing the problem.

In the meantime, another approach might be to add some error-checking to EM to find out why saving the Calendar Color value is failing. Any guidance on where in the code to start looking would be appreciated.

What’s baffling here is that Calendar Color appears to be the only setting that isn’t getting saved reliably.

Is there any connection between the categories where it doesn’t work? Like having a dash / foreign character / apostrophe, or always being a child category?

No. None are child categories. Names are all alphabetic characters with initial capitals. The names have spaces, but that isn’t the problem. I’ve entered the same category names into my test installation, and I can change the calendar colors with no problem.

since this works on your test installation, it might be a plugin or theme conflict on your live site however do you have any caching plugin on your live site?

As I mentioned in a previous post, I made a clone of my live site, and uninstalled everything except the default themes and EM. The clone is now identical in every way to the test site, except for the database contents. I need to take a closer look at the database contents to see if I can identify what is causing the problem.

Problem solved. It appears the issue was that I had used event category names that coincided with post category names. Adding ” EM” to the event category names to make them unique, and deleting the slugs to force them to be regenerated fixed the problem.

Thanks to all for the help!