Changes to Testimonial Excerpt Options not working?

Hey Jeff!

Thanks for the report! I have not tested this feature with the specific theme you cite as using – it could be there is an issue there.

Question – do you have the Apply the Content Filter option enabled? If not, can you try enabling it? Or, if so, can you try disabling it? I’m interested to know if that has any impact, in your case.

This is the first report I’ve received of this not working, so I think there is a chance it could be specific to your setup. In that case, I would be happy to take a peak at your site and see if I can provide assistance — I know we just “met” but if you are comfortable with it I can login to your site to take a look.

If you want me to login, you can send an email to “[email protected]” and we can continue via e-mail.

Let me know if I can provide any other assistance.

Best,
Richard

Hey, Richard –

I trust you, and I think I’ll need to let you in. Do you need FTP access as well as admin access to the dashboard?

BTW, I did more testing.

The issue exists whether Apply the Content Filter is enabled or not. Also, it exists when I activate the Twenty Fourteen theme (regardless of the Apply the Content Filter settings).

Then I had a (short-lived) AHA! moment when I thought I found a clue to the cause! The site has an mu-plugins folder with one file of functions. One of the functions filters the ‘excerpt_more’ hook:

function new_excerpt_more($post) {
	return '[...]<br /><a href="'. get_permalink($post->ID) . '">' . 'Read the full post...' . '</a>';
}
add_filter('excerpt_more', 'new_excerpt_more');

Two problems with my theory:

a) While my filter doesn’t add a class to the “a” tag, the site outputs one (class=”read_more”).

b) Whether I changed the link text in my function, commented out the whole block of code, or even deleted the file from the mu-plugins folder – nothing changed on the public-facing site.

Very odd.

Jeff

Hey Jeff!

No FTP access required! You can send the info to “[email protected]”.

Best,
Richard

Hey Jeff!

I sent this to you via e-mail, but I’m also posting here for anyone else with this setup and issue.

The issue you are having is caused by the Advanced Excerpts plugin. You can see its options here: https://redacted/wp-admin/options-general.php?page=options-advancedexcerpt

This plugin is overriding all of our excerpt settings and is replacing them with it’s own. From the sound of it, this plugin is behaving as intended as it is designed to override all of the excerpts on the site and replace them with its own.

Ideally, this plugin should include a mechanism that allows you to turn it on or off for specific post types – if such a feature existed, you could have it not run on ‘testimonials’ and then you would be all set!

Unfortunately, I think this behavior will remain for as long as the plugin is active and running.

I hope that helps!

All the best,
Richard

Thanks, Richard. Good – and quick – find. I should have found it myself, except I don’t remember ever INSTALLING that plugin. I deactivated it, and now all is good.

PS: I updated the Advanced Excerpt plugin, and it appears that the updated version ignores custom post types. So win-win!