try open lib/functions/theme-functions.php edit line 373+, find this code
function dez_get_custom_the_excerpt($limit=”,$more=”) {
…
}
edit to
function dez_get_custom_the_excerpt($limit='',$more='') {
global $post;
if($limit == 'disable' || $limit == '0') {
$excerpt = '';
} else {
$thepostlink = '<a class="readmore" href="'. get_permalink() . '" title="' . the_title_attribute('echo=0') . '">';
$custom_text = get_post_field('post_excerpt',$post->ID);
$all_content = get_the_content();
//Regular expression that strips the header tags and their content.
$regex = '#(<h([1-6])[^>]*>)\s?(.*)?\s?(<\/h\2>)#';
$content = preg_replace($regex,'', $all_content);
//if use manual excerpt
if($custom_text) {
if($more) {
$excerpt = $custom_text . $thepostlink . $more . '</a>';
} else {
$excerpt = $custom_text;
}
} else {
//check if its chinese character input
$chinese_output = preg_match_all("/\p{Han}+/u", $post->post_content, $matches);
if($chinese_output) {
if($more) {
$excerpt = mb_substr( get_the_excerpt(), 0, $limit*2 ) . '...' . $thepostlink . $more.'</a>';
} else {
$excerpt = mb_substr( get_the_excerpt(), 0, $limit*2 ) . '...';
}
} else {
//remove caption tag
$content_filter_cap = strip_shortcodes( $content );
//remove email tag
$pattern = "/[^@\s]*@[^@\s]*\.[^@\s]*/";
$replacement = "";
$content_filter = preg_replace($pattern, $replacement, $content_filter_cap);
if($more) {
$excerpt = wp_trim_words($content_filter, $limit) . $thepostlink.$more.'</a>';
} else {
$excerpt = wp_trim_words($content_filter, $limit);
}
}
}
}
return apply_filters('meso_get_custom_excerpt',$excerpt);
}
this should allow you to use the manual excerpt in posting.