WP Theme CSS Edits not Taking Effect

  • [ Moderator note: moved to Fixing WordPress. Please do not use Developing With WordPress for these topics. ]

    Hello – I’ve been developing WordPress sites using third-party themes (Avada is the one I’m working with at the moment), and my company generally asks for a series of extra custom changes that have to be made with CSS tweaks. (This works well enough most of the time, but obviously I need to learn to make my own themes – working on that!) Right now, though, I’m just absolutely stuck with trying to make any updates because (especially after a recent theme upgrade) I can’t get my CSS changes to take effect. They seem to be referencing an old version of the CSS file when I inspect elements in my browser.

    I tried to work around this issue by just inserting the CSS in the header, but found that the old (cached?) CSS file is still overriding my updated styles. I’ve tried downloading the core CSS file (that their “Custom CSS” screen writes to), then making the changes there, but it seems that as soon as I upload a new version of the file, it reverts back to the original (before my changes) immediately. The CSS file it’s referencing has a “?ver=4.8” at the end, which I have a feeling might have something to do with it, but I feel like something is also wrong with how the latest theme version is saving changes. (They save in the WP/theme admin, but aren’t carrying over reliably to the main CSS file.) At any rate, I feel stuck and don’t know how to launch this site “ASAP” when the theme designers’ support folks are so backed up and I don’t think they understand what I’m asking.

    I don’t have any cache plugins, my host doesn’t cache anything on the server side, and I’m using the Chrome Cache Killer plugin to make sure the most recent versions of files are always loaded. Pulling the site up in other browsers, and manually clearing cache/cookies, still results in the same problem.

    Is this something others have run into? It seems like an issue that must have a totally acceptable work-around that I’m just not thinking of. Thanks in advance for any advice!

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)

  • Hi,

    You mentioned Avada, which is a premium theme from themeforest
    https://themeforest.net/item/avada-responsive-multipurpose-theme/2833226

    Users here does not have access to any premium theme which we can download and test your issue, I suggest you to contact your premium theme’s support for help.
    https://themeforest.net/item/avada-responsive-multipurpose-theme/2833226/support

    Thank you

    Thread Starter xtiana

    (@xtiana)

    This is a more general question that I think people with a broader knowledge of WP themes and CSS will be able to help with. As I said above, Avada’s support team is overloaded and taking a long time between responses, and I don’t think they understand what I’m asking. Any advice from others who have seen this same issue occur (with whatever theme, or even in some other context) would be greatly appreciated!

    Moderator bcworkz

    (@bcworkz)

    CSS overrides generally belong in the Additional CSS area of the Customizer. Some themes have their own specific CSS override locations or files. If you want to enqueue your own file, you need a child theme or custom plugin. Some themes are installed as children of a framework, and a child of a child theme is not an option, so a plugin is your only option.

    The version 4.8 bit is just because a specific version was not supplied in the wp_enqueue_style() call. This alone would not cause your file to be ignored. If one of the above methods do not work, you are either doing it wrong or there is something odd about the theme we cannot help with. If your overrides work with other themes, you are unlikely to be doing it wrong.

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
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