404 Error Page for every Testimonial

Just checking, are the testimonial post titles really numbers like 6327?

Does your theme also offer a post type named “testimonial”?

Is there now or has there been another testimonial plugin installed?

Try flushing the rewrite rules by going to Settings > Permalinks and simply clicking “Save Changes”.

Thanks for getting back so quick.

Does your theme also offer a post type named “testimonial”?

Yes, the posts are automatically numbered by WordPress since I didn’t give each one an individual title. I just copied and pasted each one into it’s own post to be randomly displayed in the sidebar.

Does your theme also offer a post type named “testimonial”?

I’d swear that my theme did have post types, but I don’t see it when I create or edit a post. Maybe that was an older theme I’m thinking of that had it. So, I guess no it does not.

Is there now or has there been another testimonial plugin installed?

Yes, there was a previous plugin for testimonials but I could never get it to work; so I uninstalled it and then found yours. However, I have two “Testimonials” listed in the dashboard. One (where I created the individual posts) is listed like “Testimonials the other has a chat box icon next to Testimonials, but that one has nothing in it. Here’s a screenshot.

I tried saving the permalinks page under settings to no affect.

Thanks for the screenshot. My hunch is that is the culprit. If it has a menu item it must be active so double-check your plugins.

We still need to rule out the theme. I cannot determine from Gabfire’s website if their themes include testimonials. Can you find out?

Adding this to the theme’s functions.php might work:

/**
 * Force the "testimonial" slug in Strong Testimonials.
 */
function change_strong_permastruct() {
  add_permastruct( 'wpm-testimonial', "testimonial/%wpm-testimonial%", array( 'slug' => 'testimonial' ) );
}
add_action( 'init', 'change_strong_permastruct' );

After adding that, flush the rewrite rules again.

If that works, and you’re worried about theme updates overwriting your changes, now’s the time to use a child theme and I’d be happy to help with that.

Hey Chris, I reached out to the forum about a Testimonial post page, but I’m pretty sure it does not. They have themes that have that built in, but my theme is not one of them. Under WordPress settings, I think “writing” it does have a drop down for default post page format and testimonials is not listed there.

I added the code to the end of my functions.php file, flushed the permalinks as you suggested and flushed my sites cache but still nothing.

It may very well have to do with the double listing as pictured in the sidebar attachment I gave you. I don’t use that many plugins and double-checked; there is no other. I also went into my file manager and checked the plugin folder for some sort of residual leftover but turned up nothing.

I’ll let you know as soon as I hear back from Gabfire about the post page.

Okay, so I deleted the plugin and removed the short code from the text widget for the form All good.

I then flushed my cache and yet still this second “testimonials” is still listed in my sidebar. Now, I’m convinced this is where the problem was.

Was this just a poorly written plugin I tried that didn’t work and once I deleted it’s left this behind. It will allow me to add testimonials but there is no indication as to who the author is or where it came from.

So now, how do I get rid of this so I can use your plugin, which by all accounts works fine if it weren’t for the interference from this unknown plugin.

Please see this attachment, includes all the plugins I have listed in one screenshot.

Thanks for the screenshot. Looks like Jetpack Custom Content Types.

Good grief Charlie Brown! I know I never activated this. Likely it was activated by the previous plugin that was utilizing or trying to bank off Jetpack. Probably why it never worked to begin with.

Thanks so much! I’ll go back and reinstall Strong Testimonials.

I went ahead and re-installed the plugin with just a couple of minor issues. When I use the excerpt code with slideshow and random, nothing shows. If I take the excerpt code out, then it works again.

I can live with that however, there is a large amount of empty space at the bottom. I tried updating the style sheet with some code you posted in a similar post but that does not work.

Since I didn’t want the full form showing up in my sidebar, I created a page with the shortcode and then created a link to that page and pasted at the end of the shortcode for the random single testimonials. That has nothing to do with the empty space because it’s there with or without the link.

Other than that, nothing fancy for my site but appears to work great!

Glad you got it working.

The excerpt is the post excerpt. You have to create them manually in the post editor. You may need to enable excerpts in Screen Options first.

I think the theme is auto-paragraphing the HTML comments from the plugin template. Try adding this to the theme’s functions.php:

/**
 * Remove HTML comments, except MSIE conditionals, from Strong Testimonials output.
 */
function my_strong_html( $content ) {
	$content = preg_replace('/<!--(?!\s*(?:\[if [^\]]+]|<!|>))(?:(?!-->).)*-->/s', '', $content);
	return $content;
}
add_filter( 'strong_html', 'my_strong_html', 10, 1 );

And fancy is coming soon ?? I’m working on several new templates.

Hey Chris,

First, I assume that I am supposed to paste the code at the end before the closing brackets and enclose it in brackets, is that correct? (i.e. { })

I tried it that way and cleared my cache but it had no affect. I tried it without the brackets before and after the closing brackets and still no affect.

I also noticed that there is now a gap between the end of all of my posts and the podcast player that wasn’t there before.

Since I know I’ve never changed my style sheet before until today and then un-did the changes, I’m thinking that may have had something to do with it. So, I’m gonna load the original style sheet from the theme and see if that corrects the problem.

It was worth a shot LOL, any other suggestions?

Here’s a screenshot of where to paste that code. It only affects the plugin’s shortcode output.

I’ll gladly help you work through style changes once you restore the original stylesheet.

Okay done but still nothing and I have to put the beginning and ending brackets, otherwise my site goes blank.

I’m wondering if the problem is because the characters are not limited (i.e. excerpt or 200 characters). In other words, it’s automatically adjusting to the longest testimonial and just keeps it that way.

Previously, I had 200 characters with a “read more” link at the end but that’s what started this thread. The link was a 404 page likely caused by Jetpack’s custom content being oddly activated.

I have 200 characters activated in settings and added the code but that doesn’t appear to work either. Maybe it’s my shortcode.

[strong title slideshow random per_page=”1″ length=”200″][/strong]

You know that ?> you said most themes don’t have anymore? My doesn’t but it does have 2 additional closing brackets. The code MUST go before those two closing brackets, which I’m guessing operate the same as the one above.

It’s better than it was. I just need to get the “read more” back into the code and figure another way to add a link to the form since <p creates another huge space.

If we can’t get that all in the below code then I’ll stop pestering you. I think we’ve both spent way too much time on this …and I thank you!

[strong title slideshow random per_page=”1″ length=”200″][/strong]

It’s no bother. I realize the plugin can be improved and working through these problems “in the wild” helps me do that.

I removed the HTML comments from the template in version 1.17.2 so you can remove that code we added to functions.php (which was a workaround). There should be no extra <p>‘s now.

The slideshow does set the height of the container to match the longest testimonial. This prevents, depending on your theme, either (1) elements below it from bouncing up and down or (2) elements floating underneath it. So it helps if the testimonials used in the slideshow are about the same length or truncated at 200, for example.

If by “settings” you’re referring to the Cycle Shortcode tab, that does not affect the [strong] shortcode and will be gone soon.

Add more_post to the shortcode to link to the testimonial, or add a separate
[strong read_more page="my-page-slug"]Read more good stuff[/strong]
to link to any other page (demo).