How to Override ‘single-product.php’ Successfully?

Hi all,

Just starting my WooCommerce Store journey (and WP for that matter) and can’t figure out why the shop’s header [store nav area] isn’t showing?

The entire store functions as expected, but when I attempt to override single-product.php – and I mean a copy without any modifications made to it, yet – the product page shows (with some small styling issues) but the header, sidebar, footer sections do not appear?

The caveat is – I’m trying to do it from a custom plugin with:

    function load_custom_product_template($template) {
        global $post;
    
        $product = wc_get_product($post->ID);
        if ($product && $product->get_type() === 'extended') {
            $custom_template = plugin_dir_path(__FILE__) . 'woocommerce/single-product.php';
    
            if (file_exists($custom_template)) {
                return $custom_template;
            }
        }
    
        return $template;
    }
    add_filter('template_include', 'load_custom_product_template');

So, other than the single-product.php – do I have to copy a ‘header.php’ & ‘footer.php’ from somewhere – I can’t find anything header/footer related in woocommerce and after searching the forum, people have mentioned it’s controlled by the theme anyways; which does appear to be correct, as Query Monitor lists these under templates used:

\wordpress\wp-includes\theme-compat\header.php | footer.php

-but even when attempting to override the template via my theme (with the plugin disabled), i.e.:

…themes\twentytwentyfour\woocommerce\single-product.php OR …themes\twentytwentyfour\woocommerce\single-product\single-product.php [tried both]

It still doesn’t have any effect.…so how does WooCommerce do it then? Many thanks for any help or advice in advance, Cheers Dyr

Versions: WP: 6.5.3? |? Woocommerce 8.8.3? |? Theme: twentytwentyfour