Errors With Additional CSS Through WP Customiser

  • We’re seeing an issue with the Additional CSS that’s added through the customiser. At seemingly random times the css isn’t loaded at all, and if you visit the customiser the section is completely blank.

    I’ve checked the database and the additional css is still there, so it’s not that it’s been deleted, for some reason it’s just no longer being loaded. The only way we’ve found to resolve it is to copy the code from the database back into the Additional CSS field and save it, at which point it’s fine again.

    Anyone experienced this or have any ideas what could be causing it?

    We’ve seen it on several sites over the past year or two. Sites use different themes and on different servers.

    It also seems to happen in bursts. So on Site A it’ll happen multiple times over the course of a few weeks then be totally fine. Then a couple of months later the problem crops up on Site B (totally unrelated to Site A) and happens multiple times.

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
  • Moderator bcworkz

    (@bcworkz)

    Intermittent problems are the worst kind to try and debug unless you can find a way to reliably induce the problem.

    As a work around, you could put all the additional CSS in an external file, then create a custom plugin that enqueues the file. The problem here is external file styles can have more trouble overriding default theme styles because they have less precedence than the inline styles that Additional CSS appears as. Ensuring the file is enqueued after everything else will help. Of course such CSS is more difficult to edit than it would be in the customizer.

    Thread Starter baldidiot

    (@baldidiot)

    Yeah that makes sense. Currently on sites where we’ve been noticing it I’ve been creating a custom css file and adding a reference to the themes header so that we don’t have weird styling issues at random points.

    The end result is a non-breaking site, but what concerns me is that there’s something going on that shouldn’t be happening. Which concerns me as we don’t know why it’s happening (and what else could start going wrong?).

    The strange thing is that we’ve seen this on at least five or more sites, but I’ve never heard of it happening to anyone else.

    Moderator bcworkz

    (@bcworkz)

    You could blindly attempt to fix it. First ensure everything is up to date to eliminate any known bugs that have been patched. You could refresh all the core files on the off chance there is corrupted code somewhere. Follow manual update instructions, except you’d be “updating” to the same latest version. Because the manual method has you delete entire directories, it’s more likely to clear corrupted code than the script driven update that’s usually used.

    It’s possible the cause is a poorly coded theme or plugin, but without being able to induce the problem at will, narrowing down which it is would be difficult.

    Another possible cause is the site had been hacked with faulty hacker code. Don’t panic, there’s little evidence to support this theory. I mention it mainly for the sake of completeness. Wouldn’t hurt to try a Sucuri malware scan though. Their external scanner is limited in what it can identify, but it’s a quick, easy, free check. Their paid service includes a more robust scanner app you can install.

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