Comments are off even though I have them set properly

If you switched themes and the comments are still off on the other one, then they cannot be set up properly in the back end.

if I were you, I would set up a fresh installation of WordPress on a test site and install the theme. If the comments are working there with the hello word default post, then you’ll know that there’s an error somewhere with your set up.

I see that you have a caching plugin installed. Make sure you deactivate it when doing testing.

The above link should be using category.php (or a cat related page template) and not single.php which is for a single post not a list of posts.

https://www.homeplan-it.com/tips-ideas/make-your-walls-beautiful-without-paint-or-wallpaper/ is a post.

Please go to that post in the post editor and see if comments are off by post which overrides the general setting.

Also review this post’s output HTML (source code) – there is a ul and a few li’s after the post content that are blank – this may be from a page template with errors. Compare with other themes/sites you can.

I activated the theme on a test server I use and the comments work. I know it’s not my theme. But my set up is the same as all 75 websites I’ve ever built. I tried disabling all plugins, reinstalling wordpress and even repaired the database. And I checked to see if the comments were disabled post by post.

I’m using category templates for a list of posts in each category but I want the actual comment box to be on the single post template.

test site: https://site.southpawisland.com/category/uncategorized/

On investigation of akismet I see that this stopped working last September. It was working before that. Does that spark any ideas?

NOTE: posted in isn’t working either.

Still trying to solve this problem with the comments. I went into the database and did a clean up. I was getting syntax errors and they are all gone now. So that wasn’t the problem. The template pages and wp settings are all correct. I removed all the plugins and it still didn’t work. I’m stumped.

I am far from qualified to address this with respect to WP but do have some general troubleshooting experience. Based upon what I have read here:

When you checked the comments flag “post by post” did you check it in the database (I don’t know where that is) or via the Post interface?

Could be, for some reason, that the Post interface is picking up a Yes from the wrong place and it is actually a No when whatever reads the database to decide whether or not to do comments is running.

Another thought would be, since you said you build your own templates, that a variable name is conflicting somewhere such that the variable used to determine comments on doesn’t contain the correct information at the point in time when it is needed. Global vs local? Something changing it? Function return “wrong”?

Just some thoughts because I had a few moments to kill. Hope you don’t mind. Figured it couldn’t hurt. Good luck!

Thanks for the input dnosaur62. I looked at the posts in the database and they show they are open. But on the site it’s “comments off”. I tested with the default theme and got the same results, so I know it’s not the theme. It was working fine and then some time in the fall they stopped working and I didn’t notice until recently.

“Comments off”? Is there a setting to turn them off after a certain period of time?

Again; I’m just shooting from the hip. One thing I might try would be to find the function(s) handling the commenting and temporarily modify with a printf or something in order to “see” what the function is atually seeing when deciding what it is supposed to do.